'The past before us'

By Graham Usher
Following Israel's election on 6 February two things seemed clear: Ehud Barak in colossal defeat was resigning from politics and Israel's choice of Ariel Sharon as leader was bound to add fuel to the fire in the occupied territories that had long been out of control. A week on only the second of these prognoses has proved accurate.
The latest blaze occurred yesterday morning when a bus driver rammed his vehicle into a group of Israeli soldiers and commuters at a bus stop at Holon, south of Tel Aviv. The latest body count was that eight Israelis had been killed and 14 injured, mostly soldiers, three of them seriously. After a 10-mile chase, the coach driver was shot, apprehended and described as a 35-year old Palestinian from Gaza who had been working with the bus company for five years.
It was the bloodiest attack against Israelis -- whether in Israel or the occupied territories -- since the Intifada started last September. And it came amidst perhaps its deadliest, most dangerous stage, with Israel between governments, any "comprehensive peace" officially consigned to the junk-heap and Israel engaged on another round of counter-insurgency operations.
On Tuesday Israeli helicopters resumed political assassinations by rocketing the car of Masoud Ayyad, a major in Yasser Arafat's Force 17 presidential guard, outside Jabalyia refugee camp in Gaza. The Israeli army said Ayyad was the head of a "Hizbullah cell" responsible for recent mortar attacks on Gaza's Netzarim Jewish settlement and planning to abduct Israeli soldiers in the Strip.
The Palestinian Authority said Ayyad was a long time member of Fatah with "no ties to any other organisation". It denounced the action as a "war crime" which, under international law, it is, while the European Union urged Israel to desist from its policy of "liquidations". Israel duly took note by killing a second Fatah man and PA security officer, Ayeh Abu-Houb, in an army ambush in Ramin near Tulkarm. This occurred yesterday, just as the coach was smashing into Holon.
Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon took a "grave view" of all these developments, promising settler leaders on Tuesday that he would use a "heavy hand". But Sharon's hand is not yet officially on the wheel of state. Nor has Barak's been released from it.
The outgoing prime minister's decision to take a "time-out" from political leadership lasted barely 48 hours, which, even by the standards of his zig-zags, must be some kind of record. On 8 February Barak announced that it would be he -- and not his despised rival Shimon Peres -- who would conduct negotiations on a national unity government with Sharon on behalf of the Labour Party. Since then he has increasingly signalled, despite his resignation as Labour leader, that he might be tempted by the offer of defence minister in the new coalition.
The transition should not be too difficult, given the ease with which the two men have agreed the political guidelines of any future unity government. According to reports in the Israeli media, these boil down to the reaching of a long-term interim agreement with the Palestinians, as Sharon prefers, rather than a comprehensive final settlement, as Barak attempted. There is no mention of Jerusalem, the right of return or even a "de-militarised" Palestinian state. No new settlements would be built but existing ones would be expanded according to "natural growth", the guideline of every Israeli government since that of Binyamin Netanyahu.
The Palestinians have rejected any talk of interim agreements and want negotiations to proceed from the floor they reached at Camp David in July 2000 and subsequently at Taba last month, a stance shared by Egypt, Jordan and the EU. But the US is leaning towards Sharon and Barak -- aware, perhaps, that the most that can be achieved in the present conflagration is less peace than containment.
With the Americans on board, unity at home and war in the occupied territories Sharon could hardly wish for better conditions to realise his electoral vow of bringing "security" to Israel. A glimpse into how this might happen came on 9 February from Alex Fishman, military correspondent of Israel's premier newspaper, Yediot Aharonot.
Outlining a scenario for his "first 100 days in office", Fishman predicted that Sharon would bring the Intifada to heel by going after its head, meaning the political and military leadership of the Palestinian Authority. This, he writes, is the "main lesson" Sharon remembers from Lebanon. "It was only when the planes closed in on his command headquarters that Arafat agreed to leave Beirut," he notes. The means of pressure this time round will be to "hound" leaders in the PA through actions against them. The assassinations of Ayyad and Abu-Houb would appear to fit this policy like a glove.
But Fishman also writes that Sharon, together with the army, finds the present situation on Israel's northern border, where Hizbullah, and not the Lebanese army, "polices" the Lebanese side, "intolerable". The aim here would be to "distance Hizbullah from the fence," says Fishman.
And the army's convenient "discovery" that Hizbullah is engaged in combat in Gaza via Palestinian security officers may provide just the pretext Sharon needs to put that aim into effect. It would, after all, not be the first time Sharon has invoked Palestinian "terrorism" to launch an assault on Lebanon. In the phrase of Israeli political analyst Daniel Ben-Simon, "the past is ahead of us".
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