Neither fences, nor George Bush's likely answer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nor Ariel Sharon's answer to it, will stop suicide attacks, writes Graham Usher from Jerusalem and Salem Two days after Israel started work on a new border fence designed to shield it from Palestinian suicide attacks, and on the eve of George Bush's announcement of a new US "plan" for the Middle East, Israeli West Jerusalem on Tuesday again witnessed a carnage that seemingly attested to the futility of both. At around 8am a 24-year-old Palestinian from Fara refugee camp near Nablus stepped onto a bus wending its way through Jerusalem's Patt junction. It was the height of rush hour and the bus was packed with schoolchildren and office workers. Within minutes, 19 of them were dead and over 50 wounded from the bomber's lethal self-destruction. "I saw one kid with nails cutting into his entire body," said 14-year old Yakir Barashi, a survivor. For the first time as prime minister, Ariel Sharon visited the scene, standing grimly before nine corpses, some of them children, wrapped in black plastic bags. "The Palestinian acts of murder, these terrible words, are stronger than words," he said. He was asked whether he supported Bush's reported idea of an "interim" or "provisional" Palestinian state as an exit from the impasse. "It's interesting to know what kind of state they are planning. What are they talking about?" he asked back. Hamas claimed the bomber, Mohamed Al-Ghoul, as its own. He had left a note to his father explaining his death as vengeance for the blood of Palestinian "martyrs". Hamas said the operation was one of several planned "in retaliation to the Zionists' intransigence and barbaric aggression in the past few months". The bombing had been preceded on Monday by Israel's assassination near Bethlehem of Walid Sbeih, a leader in the Al-Aqsa Brigades, a militia linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. On Wednesday, after the Jerusalem attack, the army killed Mahmad Basharat, an Islamic Jihad activist, at a checkpoint near Hebron. But it is unlikely that Israel's assassinations were the sole motive for Hamas' most deadly strike inside Israel since 27 March, when 29 Israelis were killed in a hotel in Netanya. Hamas, together with Al-Aqsa and Islamic Jihad, is keenly aware that Bush's vision of a Palestinian state is predicated on it becoming so "reformed" as to be able to fight national and Islamist movements like themselves. They all have a supreme interest in sinking the ship before it sets sail. The means are suicide bombers. What is Ariel Sharon's supreme interest? In the aftermath of the Netanya atrocity he wanted to remove Yasser Arafat but was held in check by Israel's Labour Party ministers, intelligence chiefs and the US. According to Israeli press reports he plied the line at meetings with Israel's military chiefs after the Jerusalem blast but was again voted down. But it is clear the deposing of Arafat is for now no longer in the crosshairs of Sharon's sights, even if removal of certain of his lieutenants may be. Indeed, some Israeli analysts believe Sharon's supreme interest is served less by removing Arafat than by presenting him as the insurmountable obstacle to any movement on the diplomatic front, like that anticipated in the Bush plan. In the meantime Israel can continue consolidating its military hold on the West Bank. In the wake of the Jerusalem attack this involved Israeli tanks re-invading Nablus, Jenin, Qalqiliya, Hebron and other Palestinian areas. It also drew an explicit statement of what is already de facto policy. Henceforth, declared the prime minister's office on Tuesday, "Israel will respond to acts of terror by capturing Palestinian Authority territory. These areas will be held by Israel as long as terror continues." Prior to the bombing "capturing" involved the construction of a 360-kilometre fence along the eastern length of the green line, aimed at shutting out two million Palestinians in the West Bank from Israel proper. All told the barrier will cost $350 million to build and has already involved the confiscation of around 70 square kilometres of Palestinian West Bank land, say Palestinian geographers. On Tuesday US-made Caterpillar bulldozers were tearing down Palestinian olive trees to clear a 50- metre wide berth between the Palestinian village of Salem in Israel and the Palestinian village of Rummana in the West Bank. "There has to be a population line between Israel and Palestinian villages in the West Bank. Any [Palestinian] intruder must understand that any illegal entry into Israel, whether for terror or work or whatever, will cause him trouble," said Amos Yaron, director general at Israel's Defence Ministry. Did he think a fence like this in Jerusalem would have stopped the attack at Patt junction? "A fence cannot stop all attacks, but it will definitely minimise them." Mohamed Al-Ghoul climbed aboard his last bus at Beit Safafa. Beit Safafa is a Palestinian village inside Israel.
