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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (189692)	10/6/2001 12:45:28 PM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

For Israel's Sake By ANTHONY LEWIS he Middle East peace initiative that President Bush was planning before Sept. 11 is desperately needed now. It would help the international struggle against terrorism. But more important, it is the only hope of ending the ratcheting cycle of violence that afflicts Israel and the Palestinians. One thing must be understood first. Our support for Israel was not the major factor in Osama bin Laden's decision to strike at America. His hatred goes far beyond any particular policy. Prof. Michael Ignatieff of Harvard put it well this week in The Guardian, London. "What we are up against is apocalyptic nihilism . . .," he wrote. "It is absurd to believe they [the terrorists] are making political demands at all. They are seeking the violent transformation of an irremediably sinful and unjust world." American policy on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict does negatively affect public attitudes in the Arab world toward the coalition's antiterrorism effort. Even in the pro-Western Persian Gulf states, Warren Hoge of The New York Times reported this week, there is a "general dismay about perceived American tolerance of violence against the Palestinians." A minister of the United Arab Emirates said that if Israeli killings of Palestinians continued, "most of us will certainly have to reconsider our role in the coalition." But for me the tragedy is the unraveling of all the past efforts for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It is tragic because this need not be a situation of apocalyptic nihilism. The conflict is susceptible of political solution. But on both sides today the leadership lacks the domestic political support needed to make a deal. The costs are terrible. Think of our ally, Israel. Week after week its people, innocent civilians, are killed by Palestinian bombers and gunmen. And the government's policy answer — to respond with punishing military attacks — is demonstrably a failure. The policy not only fails to make the Israeli public more secure; it arouses more anti-Israel violence. This week two Hamas gunmen raided a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip and killed two Israelis. In response, Israeli tanks shelled a town, killing six Palestinians — who may have had nothing to do with the raid — and bulldozers destroyed Palestinian farmland. The result: more funerals, more deprivation, more rage. Then, yesterday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rebuked the United States for seeking Arab support for the coalition against terrorism. And a few hours later he sent tanks, troops and helicopters against Palestinians in Hebron, killing at least five. Mr. Sharon's coalition government has been beset by right-wing demands for ever stronger military action. I thought Mr. Sharon, for all his past acts of provocation and brutality, understood that more and more force could not assure Israelis a tranquil life. That may not be so. The Israeli government always blames Yasir Arafat for acts of terrorism. But it is a fantasy to believe that the leader of a non-state, beset by antagonistic factions and his people's desperation, can exercise that kind of control. When he arrested four teenage militants recently, angry mobs surrounded the compound where they were held. The single Israeli action that would most effectively reduce Palestinian desperation and militancy would be a halt to building of settlements in the West Bank and in Gaza. That process of colonization has gone right on through all the talk of peace and cease-fires. A Peace Now survey just completed shows that in the last four months 10 new settlements were established. Some 6,000 Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip take up 20 percent of the territory, with one million Palestinians crammed into the rest. Those settlements, provoking burning resentment, are flashpoints for violence. It would be logical — and a powerful symbol — to abandon them. But Mr. Sharon would do that only if the United States put heavy pressure on him — and he could use that as an excuse with the far right. The Bush administration has been saying that it will go ahead with its initiative only if and when violence stops. But that won't work; the violence will not stop unless we act. The most effective way to ease the violence is for America to come forward with a plan that would make Israelis and Palestinians begin to believe, again, in a political cure for their traumas.