[CTRL] US, Israel head for confrontation

[William Shannon]

http://www.atimes.com/c-asia/CJ24Ag02.html Friends fall out: US, Israel head for confrontation By Jim Lobe WASHINGTON - Long-time allies Israel and the United States appear headed for a major confrontation following Prime Minister Ariel Sharon government's rejection on Tuesday of US demands that Israel withdraw its troops after their deepest incursions into Palestinian territory in a decade. The impasse comes amid rising concern in Washington that continuing clashes in Gaza and deep inside the West Bank will further inflame passions in the Arab world, already aroused by Washington's military campaign against the Taliban government and Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. "We have to recognize that [Israel's actions] can complicate our campaign," said former US ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk. "Our support for Israel has always been a fuel for anger in the Arab street." Indeed, some pro-Israel forces here warn that Sharon's actions may be putting at risk the "special relationship" between the two allie. "When your friend America is at war for its survival," New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote on Tuesday in a mock letter from President George W Bush to Sharon, "there is only one question Israel should ask: How can we help?" As of Tuesday afternoon, however, Sharon appeared to be in no mood to help. His office released a statement saying Israel's current incursions into six West Bank towns in search of alleged Palestinian "terrorists" amounted to "exerting its right to self-defense" - the same rationale offered by Bush for his Afghanistan campaign. The current impasse was sparked by last week's assassination, apparently by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi, a far-rightwing former general who had just announced his resignation from the government to protest against Sharon's acquiescence in ceasefire efforts orchestrated by Washington. Sharon demanded that Palestine Authority leader Yasser Arafat immediately arrest the murderers and hand them over to Israel by later this week. At the same time, he launched a major military offensive into Palestinian territory, touching off fighting that has killed some two dozen Palestinians. In unusually strong language on Monday, the State Department denounced the incursions as "unacceptable" and called for an immediate withdrawal. "We deeply regret and deplore Israeli Defense Force actions that have killed numerous Palestinian civilians over the weekend," said spokesperson Philip Reeker. At the same time, Reeker stressed that Washington is pressing Arafat to arrest the suspected assassins, although he did not echo Sharon's demand that they be handed over to Israel. Sharon insisted that Israel has no intention of permanently occupying the areas which its forces had entered. At the same time, he reiterated demands that Arafat turn over the suspects, although his Labor Party ministers, including Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who met here with Secretary of State Colin Powell Tuesday, hinted that the government would be satisfied with action short of extradition. Peres, who has made little secret of his unhappiness with Sharon's more aggressive moves, is trying to work out with US officials the details of a plan that would permit a quick withdrawal and set the stage for an effective ceasefire. In a public address in Washington on Monday, Peres said such conditions could be satisfied if Arafat arrested "10 or 15 troublemakers", takes stronger measures to prevent suicide bombings in Israeli territory, and cracks down hard against several armed Palestinian groups. Whether and how soon Arafat can meet these demands remains unclear. And whether Sharon himself will go along with his foreign minister also is a matter of speculation among US officials, some of whom believe that the Israeli leader may be more interested in trying to destroy Arafat and the Palestinian Authority than in negotiating a ceasefire that might be a prelude to strong US pressure to enter into serious peace talks. "Sharon seems unusually ambivalent," said one administration official. "On the one hand, he seems to see in the present crisis a chance to blow up the whole Oslo process [which he has long criticized]. On the other hand, he knows that the diplomatic costs of that will be exorbitant." After the September 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, Sharon launched his own campaign to depict Arafat as "Israel's bin Laden", apparently both to claim a treasured spot under Bush's anti-terrorist umbrella and to cultivate his right wing. As his anti-Arafat rhetoric heated up, so did Israel's pace of targeted army killings of suspected terrorists, as Sharon sought to compare those efforts to Bush's stated wish to capture bin Laden "dead or alive". "He was certain that this was a historical opportunity," said Uri Avnery, a prominent Israeli peace activist. "Now, at long last, under the slogan 'Arafat is our bin Laden', [he] could invade, kill, crush and destory, in order to liquidate the intifada and perhaps Arafat too." To Sharon's apparent disappointment, Washignton rejected such comparisons and increased pressure to permit Peres to meet Arafat in order to initiate a process leading to a ceasefire that would at least reduce the Israeli-Palestinian conflict's salience in the Arab world as Washington prepared to go to war. Bush went further and volunteered publicly that he supported the creation of a Palestinian state. While Sharon had made a similar endorsement, the move clearly infuriated him and he lashed out, comparing Washington's "appeasement" of Arab opinion to the West's surrender of Czechoslovakia to Adolf Hitler before World War II. The White House angrily rebuffed those remarks as "unacceptable", and a somewhat contrite Sharon permitted the ceasefire process - part of a larger plan authored by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director George Tenet - to go forward. That was too much for Zeevi and his far-right party, who accused Sharon of surrendering to Washington. Two days later, Zeevi was shot by gunmen at a Jerusalem hotel. The PFLP said the killing was carried out in retaliation for Israel's assassination last month of PFLP chief Abu Ali Mustafa. At an emergency meeting of the Knesset after Zeevi's killing, Sharon issued his ultimatum and fighting flared up once again throughout the occupied territories. (Inter Press Service)