This week proved to be an especially deciding one for Israel, the Palestinians and perhaps even neighbouring Arab states, writes Graham Usher from Jerusalem Israel's best hope? Sharon gained enormous domestic kudos for his recovery of Azzam Azzam It is one of the many ironies of the moment that the weaker Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government becomes in Israel the stronger he becomes in the region. Thus less than a week after Sharon saw his "coalition" shrivel to his Likud Party -- commanding a mere 40 seats in the 120-member Israeli parliament -- his leadership is receiving rare praise and rewards from his main Arab partner for his disengagement plan: Egypt. On 2 December President Hosni Mubarak warned "if the Palestinians do not manage to achieve progress in the time of the current [Israeli] prime minister, it will be difficult to make any progress, because Sharon has the ability to move along the peace process and find a solution if he wants to... He asks only for one thing: the end to the explosions, so they [Israel and the Palestinians] can work together on a solid basis." The endorsement of Sharon was followed by Egypt's release of Azzam Azzam, an Israeli Druze convicted of espionage in 1996. Israel has always denied Azzam was a spy, casting the charges against him (that he wrote information about Egyptian factories in invisible ink on women's underwear) as "ludicrous". The understanding rather was that Azzam was being held in reserve for a high profile prisoner exchange, with the most obvious candidate being Barghouti. Instead Israel freed six Egyptian students captured four months ago inside Israel on charges that they intended to kidnap Israeli soldiers and hijack a tank. That may have been their aim: but the means and the threat were derisory. The six were arrested with knives and an airgun. Needless to say, Sharon's popularity soared in Israel. The right paraded it as a victory for his hard-nosed policies vis-�- vis the Arab world. The left said it heralded a "declaration of friendship" by Egypt, "displaying a new openness towards Israel and showing that the death of Yasser Arafat is indeed the beginning of a new era in the region." Finally on 7 December Egypt's official press agency MENA announced "an important understanding that could constitute an agreement in principle has been reached by Egypt, Israel, the Palestinians and the significant international parties -- the US and European Union -- on a comprehensive solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." Among the agreement's provisions is a "bilateral ceasefire" under which the Palestinian Authority would "put a stop to anti-Israeli attacks and consolidate its control over the situation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank". In return, Sharon is said to be committed to a "halt to Israeli military operations against the Palestinians insofar as they continue to respect their commitment to a ceasefire and control their territory." All of this was news to the Israeli and American governments. The most a Sharon spokesman would say was that there were "a few correct elements" in the report "but it's a little premature to say there's an agreement". As for the bilateral truce, "we will respond positively if on the other side there will be arrangements... for a cessation of hostilities". It is unclear what has driven Egypt's new embrace of Sharon. It may be that Cairo believes the Israeli leader needs all the diplomatic help he can get to force his disengagement through a recalcitrant Likud Party. The new warmth may also be way of urging Sharon to drop some of his army's more egregious policies in the occupied territories -- particularly the assassinations, incursions and arrests -- to reciprocate what all agree has been a marked decline in Palestinian armed resistance since Arafat's death on 11 November. But there are two problems. The first is the fate of the disengagement plan is not going to be determined by Egypt (or the Palestinians for that matter) but by the balance of power between Sharon and his rightist opponents in Likud and beyond. The second is Israel is not reciprocating in any way that could make a lasting ceasefire feasible. True, at a meeting today Sharon will need the approval of the Likud Central Committee to enlarge his coalition through the inclusion of the main opposition Labour Party and the religious movements United Torah Judaism and Shas. But most Israeli analysts now see the vote as a shoo-in, given the near unanimous support for the move from Likud MPs and ministers, including Binyamin Netanyahu. The real battle, they aver, will come in March with the government's actual decision to evacuate settlements. Nor are there any "positive responses" in the occupied territories. On 3 October an Israeli commando unit shot dead Mahmoud Kamil, an Islamic Jihad activist, in Qabatyia near Jenin. The army's initial account was that the man was killed while fleeing arrest. But two Palestinian eyewitness testimonies gathered by Israel's B'Tselem human rights organisation tell a different story. They say Kamil was shot to death while on the ground, wounded and weaponless, poising no danger at all to the unit. They also say they were forced by soldiers to identify and disarm the Islamic Jihad man before he was killed: an abuse of innocent civilians that is not only a war crime under international humanitarian law but which has been expressly forbidden by Israel's own High Court. The unit has been suspended from further operations in the occupied territories, pending an army investigation into the killing.
