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Analysis / U.S. impatience with Arafat could spur new IDF attack
Thirty-five years to the hour of the outbreak of a war that Israelis hoped would end
all
Mideast wars, a bomb-hauling Islamic Jihad suicide driver incinerated a crowded
commuter bus Wednesday near the traditional site of the end of the world, killing at
least 16 people and fueling fears of a Palestinian "megaterror" attack still in the
works.
But with few tangible signs of progress in CIA Director George Tenet's mission to
persuade Yasser Arafat to reform his security services into structures that could
block attacks on Israelis, there were signs that Washington might relax its restraints
on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government, with a new IDF onslaught in the
territories a possible consequence.
Israel's chief of military intelligence said on the eve of the suicide car bombing that
militant Palestinian groups were planning "megaterror" attacks to raise the ante of
attacks within the Jewish state.
His words were underscored by a high-profile major exercise by rescue services
near Tel Aviv Tuesday. The chilling scenario of the simulated terror strike: an
airplane clashes into a skyscraper, whose foundations are undermined by a
simultaneous car bomb in its underground parking garage, and whose tenants are
further placed at peril by an explosive device planted in an upper story.
Analysts said 'megaterror' could spell deaths in the hundreds, or even thousands, in
one of the world's most volatile military theaters.
As if the point needed further amplification, the Wednesday attack took place near
Har Megiddo, or Armeggedon, site of countless ancient battles between implacable
enemies, and by some traditions, the launch site of the end of the world.
The Islamic Jihad operation was much more powerful in scope than past attacks
involving a bomb belt secreted on the body of a suicide attacker. Some analysts
viewed it as the forerunner of horrendous megaterror attempts, such as the reported
bid to detonate a full ton of explosives under the Twin Tower-like silhouette of Tel
Aviv's 50- story Azrieli Center.
But if Israelis were consumed with doomsday worries, Palestinian anxieties were at
high pitch as well.
In the past, devastating suicide bombings involving scores of casualties have
prompted the White House to gave a tacit green light to its ally Israel, which then
launched massive retaliatory strikes against Palestinian targets, often concentrating
its firepower on the very Palestinian Authority security agencies that Israel held
responsible for preventing terrorism.
A Palestinian official in Ramallah was quoted Wednesday as saying that Tenet had
told Arafat that if terror attacks continue, the beleaguered Palestinian leader "will
stand alone before Sharon's might." Tenet was said to have warned Arafat that "the
United States will not intervene, and Sharon will have a free hand."
Israeli fears also underscored the nation's distance from the elation that had
characterized the victory in 1967 over its Arab neighbors. Fearing that an Arab
victory could mean a reprise of the World War Two Nazi Holocaust that saw the
annihilation of European Jewry, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike that crippled
Arab air capabilities, and led to the capture of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip
from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and East Jerusalem and the West Bank
from Jordan.
In the space of six days, Israel went from being the world's largest ghetto to the
world's newest empire. Asked Wednesday if Israel believed at the time that it had
seen the last of its many wars, former air force chief Mordechai Hod said "We
weren't sure, but we hoped so." In the end, however, as the territories turned into a
liability rather than a blessing, Hod acknowledged, the war justified the designation,
"the curse of having been blessed."
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat picked up the theme, saying that Israel's
recent military operations had failed to yield anything other than Palestinian rage,
the
ultimate driving-force behind terrorism.
"Today, June 5, marks 35 years of the continuing Israeli occupation, with no end in
sight." Erekat said, adding that Israel should move back to the negotiating table,
rather than back into Palestinian cities. "The Israeli army carried out 93 military
incursions in the West Bank last month alone, and they get these results."
Israel had seen to it that the Palestinian Authority was powerless to stand in the way
of militant attacks on Israel, Erekat told CNN. "The Israeli army is in total control
of
the West bank. We have no authority any more, and that's very sure. We have the
tightest closure and siege ever, where movement of Palestinians is prevented
anywhere, and then these things (attacks) happen, and they blame us."
But Education Minister Limor Livnat of Sharon's ruling Likud said Wednesday that
Israel would likely have no choice but to re-enter Palestinian cities and stay to fight
there for prolonged periods.
"There is no doubt that Israel cannot sit quietly, and refrain from considering an
operation, a very, very significant response, in order to prevent disasters of this
type,"
she said.
As Livnat spoke, IDF forces entered the West Bank city of Jenin, a hotbed of Islamic
Jihad militancy, in what Israeli officials called an "initial response" to the bus
bombing.
Sharon is scheduled to meet President George W. Bush at the White House on June
10. His previous visit, a month before, was curtailed by a suicide bombing in a Tel
Aviv suburb which took the lives of 15 people.
The prime minister might also cut short the upcoming visit, notes Ha'aretz
commentator Akiva Eldar, but he is unlikely to cancel it, coming as it does on the
heels of a scheduled White House visit by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. As of
now, Washington generally agrees with Egypt that Sharon is mistaken in calling for
the sidelining of Arafat as a pre-condition for any future diplomatic progress.
"It may be, however, that this attack could spark a change in the American's
viewpoint, and cause the Americans to move closer to the prime minister's point of
view." In any event, Eldar argues, "After President Bush's meeting with Mubarak,
Prime Minister Sharon will want to be the last person that the president hears from
on these matters.
By Bradley Burston, Ha'aretz Correspondent
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