Any hopes that the American-led war against terrorism would restrain the two sides in that other war between Israel and the Palestinians have gone up in flames in the occupied territories


In Depth: America eyes Iraq and others


Israeli anger

SINCE Palestinian guerrillas shot dead Rehavam Zeevi, an Israeli cabinet minister, in a hotel in occupied East Jerusalem on October 17th, Israel's retaliation has been fierce. The army has invaded six towns controlled by the Palestinian Authority (PA) on the West Bank, killed more than 20 Palestinians (most of them civilians, including two children) and wounded hundreds. One Israeli civilian has been killed, in revenge for the assassination of three fighters belonging to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement near Bethlehem on October 18th, believed to have been planned by Israel.

Christ's birthplace has become a battlefield: smoke from army shelling floats over refugee camps; flimsy Palestinian barricades are flung across its deserted roads; and Israeli tanks are parked before five-star hotels.

Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is adamant Israel has “no interest” in permanently reoccupying PA-controlled areas, such as Bethlehem. But he insists that the army will stay until Mr Arafat “arrests terrorist leaders” and extradites to Israel the cell of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) that was responsible for the assassination of his minister. On October 23rd he rejected an American demand for an immediate Israeli withdrawal. He was reacting to an unusually tough statement from Philip Reeker, a State Department spokesman, who said “we deeply regret and deplore” Israel's actions. Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign-policy chief, who is visiting Israel, also said he hoped the incursions into Palestinian territory would soon end.

On October 22nd the Israeli army brought “special forces” into the West Bank to join the tanks and ground troops already there, to track down militants—both of the PFLP and of the Islamist movements, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The army had already dug fortified trenches around Jenin and Ramallah and commanded every salient (and many Palestinian homes) in and around Bethlehem and its sister village of Beit Jala. The tanks could withdraw of course; they could just as easily advance.

For Mr Arafat this is all evidence of a preconceived “plan” to depose him and his Authority. Most Palestinians agree, though the means may be less full-scale invasion than pressure against Palestinian civilians so relentless that their government collapses from within.

In Bethlehem, Palestinians responded to the Israeli reconquest by venting their guns and mortars at Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlements, and venting their spleen at a Palestinian regime and leadership that had brought them to such a pass. The funeral of one of the three killed Fatah fighters, Atef Abayat, was as much a protest against the PA as an act of defiance against the Israeli invasion. Thirty thousand Palestinians joined Mr Abayat's cortege.

Squeezed between the Israeli assault and the rebelliousness of his own people, Mr Arafat is powerless to impose a ceasefire. All he has been able to do is to make gestures: round up genuine and lapsed PFLP political activists; and ban (not for the first time) the militias of the various national and Islamic Palestinian factions.


Another Palestinian funeral

But his only real hope is for the Americans to intervene to have the tanks removed from his territories. This might convince his people that there are political ways out of their current state of siege. A week ago, Mr Arafat appeared to be succeeding in that. He was helped by a decline in violence, and buoyed by hopes of political movement inspired by America and Britain.

But Mr Zeevi's assassination has replaced hope with a surge in violence, renewed Israeli occupation, American reprimand and diplomatic isolation. If things stay that way, most Palestinians are sure the days of Mr Arafat's authority—personal and institutional—can be measured by the distance separating Israeli tanks from his various “presidential” headquarters in Ramallah and Bethlehem: not long at all.

Israel's armed incursions pose political problems for Mr Sharon as well as for Mr Arafat. Unrest in his coalition government is deepening among ministers from the Labour Party. There have been mutterings that the time has come for Labour to pull out and begin rebuilding its image as a party of peace. Some Labour ministers claim they did not realise the extent of the operations Mr Sharon intended. Others nervously recall Israel's invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, when Mr Sharon, then defence minister, dragged the cabinet, step by step, into approving constantly escalating military moves.

But Shimon Peres, the foreign minister, and Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, the defence minister, Labour's two most senior cabinet members, both insist it is too soon to quit. Mr Peres has gone to Washington to explain to the administration Israel's demands: that Mr Arafat hand over the killers of Mr Zeevi (which he will not and cannot do), that he outlaw the military wing of the PFLP (which he has), and that he curb further shooting and bombing attacks against Israelis. Mr Ben-Eliezer maintains that, in practice, the PA's response to this last requirement will determine when Israeli troops leave its territory.

But across the political spectrum there is speculation that Mr Sharon is out to topple Mr Arafat and destroy the PA. Ministers from his own Likud Party, who previously dismissed this prospect as far-fetched, now say openly that it would be desirable.

To the right of Mr Sharon there are none of the inhibitions that constrain the coalition. A mass demonstration on the night of October 22nd in downtown Jerusalem had as its slogan “Get rid of Arafat; fight terror.” The organisers were a mixture of rightist parties and groups representing Israeli settlers in the occupied territories.


Conflicted Sharon

With Binyamin Netanyahu, a former prime minister, promoting himself as the would-be leader of an evolving ultra-rightist alliance, Mr Sharon needs to shore up his core, right-wing, support. So one purpose of the army's operations is to assuage hardline Israeli opinion.

But Mr Sharon, like Mr Peres, has not yet lost hope of holding their contentious coalition together and so faces a delicate balancing act. One well-placed Labour politician says that there are several Ariel Sharons, and “the conflict is between them, too.”

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