'Everything has changed'

Even before the assassination of Rehavam Zeevi, Prime Minister Sharon felt squeezed. He now feels caged. And that is dangerous, reports Graham Usher from Jerusalem
At around 7 am yesterday two Palestinians entered the Hyatt Regency hotel in occupied East Jerusalem and shot Rehavam Zeevi, Israel's Tourism Minister and leader of the ultra-nationalist National Union bloc. Three hours later he was pronounced dead.
The PLO's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack. "The blood of Abu Ali Mustafa has to be avenged, regardless of any [Palestinian Authority] cease-fire agreement with Israel," ran the wire sent to Reuters in Beirut.
In one sense, the PFLP's statement is true. When Israeli helicopters struck Mustafa in his office in Ramallah on 27 August, by far the most prominent assassination of the 59 Israel has executed during the Intifada, PFLP leaders openly declared that Israeli political leaders were now legitimate targets for retaliation.
Nor will Zeevi's killing be received with anything other than elation among Palestinians -- though not the PA, which immediately issued a statement conveying "condolences" and rejecting assassinations "on both sides".
Zeevi earned his military spurs as a ruthless army commander in the West Bank after the 1967 war and entered the Knesset in 1988 as head of a party that openly advocated the "voluntary" transfer of Palestinians "back" to Arab countries. His views have barely changed since.
But, in another sense, the PFLP's claim could hardly be more wrong. For the first Palestinian assassination of an Israeli cabinet minister for as long as anyone can remember is bound to impact not only on the "cease-fire" and the parlous state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but also the present "allied" assault on Afghanistan.
For Yasser Arafat the killing is clearly an embarrassment, and potentially worse, given that he had at last started to reap some political dividends for his decision to unilaterally declare a cease-fire last month and effectively align the Palestinians with the "international alliance against terrorism".
The last week has witnessed the British, Dutch and Irish Prime Ministers all call for "a viable Palestinian state" alongside Israel as the "objective" of any Middle East peace process. There have also been renewed efforts by the US, the EU and the UN to squeeze Ariel Sharon into implementing the Mitchell report, openly dismissing the "seven days of quiet" Sharon had set as a precondition.
The squeeze was extracting juice. Under this international pressure, and voiced through his Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Sharon agreed on 12 October to withdraw Israeli tanks and soldiers from PA-controlled Hebron and lift several blockades on Palestinian areas in the West Bank and Gaza.
Army chief-of-staff Shaul Mofaz made public his opinion that these decisions will "create security dangers for Israeli citizens and IDF [Israeli Defence Force] soldiers". Sharon was furious, "severely reprimanding" the chief-of- staff for this defiance of his political judgment and decision-making powers that "has no place in a democracy". Mofaz retracted his comments, muttering that they had been misunderstood.
But Sharon's real breach came with the right flank of his coalition. Following the decision to withdraw from Hebron, Zeevi, and National Infrastructure Minister Avigdor Lieberman, announced they and their parties were resigning from the government, the first real crack in Israel's "National Unity" coalition in seven months of office.
On one level, the withdrawal of the National Union-Yisrael Beitanu bloc makes little difference to Sharon's ability to govern: he still commands a 75-seat majority in the 120-member Knesset.
But on another, the defection has huge political significance. For the baton of the right will now pass from the ultra- nationalism of Zeevi and Lieberman to Sharon's own Likud party and ultimately to the main pretender to his throne, former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu and his acolytes, who have made it clear they view the Hebron withdrawal as a "mistake", are opposed to any Palestinian state in the West Bank and want the PA defined as a "terrorist organisation". They also want a Likud Central Council meeting to be held sooner rather than later so that these opinions can be hammered into government policy. And here Sharon does not command a majority; according internal Likud opinion polls, he is trailing Netanyahu by some 20 points.
Sharon's response to these combined assaults was to spin like a windmill. To appease the right, and in the teeth of US criticism, he renewed Israel's assassinations policy, targetting three Hamas activists in Qalqilyah, Nablus and Rafah in as many days. To appease the settlers, he foamed that the withdrawal from Hebron did not mean Oslo was "continuing". No, he roared, "there won't be Oslo. Oslo is over".
And to appease Peres, and through him Washington and Brussels, he declared on Tuesday that he would be prepared to "lead" final status negotiations and accept a Palestinian state, albeit under such conditions no Palestinian, or indeed Arab, leader could accept.
None of this amounts to a policy or a "plan". It reads more like the incipient stage of schizophrenia.
The Zeevi assassination is likely to resolve this dualism. On news of the killing, Sharon ordered cabinet ministers to "secure areas" and held emergency meetings with his political and military top brass. "Everything has changed," he seethed.
That there will be an Israeli reprisal to Zeevi's death is beyond doubt. The bigger question is whether it will stay within the "rules of the game" laid down for Sharon by Peres, America and Europe under the heat of the fire in Afghanistan. Or whether Sharon will go for broke and to hell with diplomacy, the Arabs and the "international coalition against terrorism".
One thing is sure. On past history, Sharon is never more dangerous than when he is wounded and never more so than when he is wounded domestically. And when he bleeds, so does the region.
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