The Karine-A affair

Ariel Sharon wanted seizure of an arms shipment to do to America's cease-fire efforts what Hamas did to them before. Graham Usher writes from Jerusalem
On his first mission as US special envoy, Anthony Zinni was greeted with two Hamas revenge operations in Jerusalem and Haifa that left 26 Israelis dead and pushed Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority to the very brink of pariah status. There were many in the Israeli government and army who sought a similar outcome for Zinni's return to the region on 3 January.
The cause this time round was the drop in violence or even the sole substantive result of the trip, which boiled down to Zinni convening the first meeting between Israeli and PA security chiefs in nearly a month.
It was rather an event that preceded Zinni's visit but continued to cast its shadow over it: Israel's seizure of the Karine-A freighter in international waters 300 miles off Israel's Red Sea coast, laden with 50 tons of arms and bound, Israel insisted, for the PA areas in the Gaza Strip.
Captured in a pre-dawn raid on 3 January by Israeli commandos, Israeli military officials said they had "incontrovertible evidence" that the arms (including Katyusha rockets and anti-tank missiles) were supplied by Iran, that the vessel had been purchased by the PA and that the crew were captained by members of the PA's coastal police and included one with links to Hizbullah.
"The connection between the PA and the [arms] smuggling operation is unequivocal, clear and undeniable," judged Israeli Chief-of-Staff Shaul Mofaz at a Tel Aviv press conference on 4 January.
And so -- in the eyes of his boss, Ariel Sharon -- was the political significance. The arms on the boat proved "the PA is a major player in the network of international terrorism spearheaded by Iran and aimed at sowing death and destruction throughout the world," he said after inspecting the cargo at an Israeli naval base in Eilat. Very simply, the PA is an entity "infested with terror."
The Palestinian leadership denied all charges, as did Iran and Hizbullah. The line rather was that the Karine-A affair was a piece of Israeli "theatre" aimed at snagging Zinni's mission before it had begun.
"Of course, the Israeli authorities chose the moment of Zinni's visit to PA territory to announce the ship's discovery, just as... the Israeli occupation forces are continuing their escalation and closure on the [occupied] territories," said PA Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo.
Zinni kept his counsel. He reportedly raised the arms shipment in meetings with Arafat over the weekend but fell short of endorsing Israeli claims of Palestinian culpability. Instead he dusted down an old plan aimed at "restoring confidence" between the two sides and "starting security cooperation."
Agreed between Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in September, the plan requires parallel and reciprocal steps to beat a path to implementing recommendations for ending the violence laid down by the Tenet and Mitchell reports.
Israel will withdraw its forces and lift the seizures on PA areas where a cease-fire is firm and ease certain restrictions on the Palestinian economy. The PA will arrest and prosecute "terrorists," above all, the 33 named on a list submitted by Israel and the US. Zinni's aim is for the plan to be up and running by the time he returns to Israel and the occupied territories on 18 January.
The PA moved swiftly to fulfil its part of the bargain. On 6 January 200 Palestinian police stormed Jenin refugee camp and arrested six Islamic Jihad activists, including Ali Saffouri, the second "most wanted" Palestinian on the Israeli and US list. Two Jihad members were wounded in a firefight that resisted the raid. PA security officials said they were acting on intelligence that a Jihad cell in the camp was planning a suicide mission in Israel.
It cut little slack with Israel. In the wake of the Karine-A capture, Sharon and Mofaz said the government must "strategically reassess" its relations with Arafat and the PA, implying the time had come to move from policy of passive ostracism to active removal. But this will need a green light from the Americans.
And for it to be averted, the Palestinians will need something more than the US current posture of relentless and one- sided pressure on Arafat, says Palestinian analyst Khalil Shikaki. Rather what is required is "a determined and effective US role that knows the risks involved [in challenging Sharon] but is ready to take them. And I really don't know if such a political will exists" in the present US administration, he adds.
If that will fails to materialise the Palestinians can expect a winter as besieged and bloody as the summer of 1982 (in Lebanon) -- and orchestrated by the same man.
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