Tuesday, February 08, 2005
A glimmer of light?
At the end of the tunnel, that is. No, not Iraq after the elections. That place will be a sucking Stalingradesque quagmire for months (years) to come. But there just might be some hope on the Israeli-Palestinian front with news this morning out of Egypt that Abu Mazen and Ariel Sharon have agreed to a cease fire. On his part Mazen (I just like that name so much better than Mahmoud Abbas) declared support for no attacks on any Israelis anywhere, which is a huge step forward for his camp, which in the past had always endorsed nebulous language against attacks within Israel proper but generally left settlers and IDF troops in the Occupied Territories free game.
Sharon, as usual, played his cards cautiously and close to the vest, but senior Israeli officials went on the record as saying that they understood no country had ever completely stopped terrorism and that as long as progress was being made toward that goal they would show restraint.
This is a huge position shift for Israel, which previously had demanded such a high standard that one suicide bomber sent by a renegade faction of the Palestinian resistance frequently blew the whole deal and engendered a massive Israeli retaliation that usually involved some dead innocents and started the whole cycle of violence over again. Mazen no doubt gained points in the last weeks by stationing his Security Forces in border towns in the Gaza Strip to prevent rocket attacks into Israel that had become all too frequent, though rarely deadly.
I still think the wildcards in the equation are Hamas, which won huge victories last week in local Gaza elections, handily defeating Mazen's own Fatah slate, and the Israeli settlers and their minority-yet-vocal, and perhaps violent, supporters in Israel proper. Sharon has kept his seat as PM only by engaging the rival Labor party in an unlikely coalition, since his own right-wing Likudniks and several pro-settler parties in the Knesset withdrew much of their support for him over his Gaza withdrawal plan.
Hamas saw its victory as vindication of its extreme 'push-Israel-into-the-sea' position. In reality, their victory was most likely the outcome of years of frustration by Gazans stemming from almost top-to-bottom corruption of the Fatah movement that was led by Yassir Arafat. How and if they make the move from militants to politicians will greatly effect the utility of this and future overtures toward peace and reconciliation with their neighbors.
What is clear is that all posturing aside the vast majority of Palestinians and Israelis want peaceable co-existence with one another. The first step to easing these long-standing conflicts and repairing the deep wounds will be measured in large part by the extent to which both sides can keep their most militant factions at bay while inching toward a negotiated settlement.
At the end of the tunnel, that is. No, not Iraq after the elections. That place will be a sucking Stalingradesque quagmire for months (years) to come. But there just might be some hope on the Israeli-Palestinian front with news this morning out of Egypt that Abu Mazen and Ariel Sharon have agreed to a cease fire. On his part Mazen (I just like that name so much better than Mahmoud Abbas) declared support for no attacks on any Israelis anywhere, which is a huge step forward for his camp, which in the past had always endorsed nebulous language against attacks within Israel proper but generally left settlers and IDF troops in the Occupied Territories free game.
Sharon, as usual, played his cards cautiously and close to the vest, but senior Israeli officials went on the record as saying that they understood no country had ever completely stopped terrorism and that as long as progress was being made toward that goal they would show restraint.
This is a huge position shift for Israel, which previously had demanded such a high standard that one suicide bomber sent by a renegade faction of the Palestinian resistance frequently blew the whole deal and engendered a massive Israeli retaliation that usually involved some dead innocents and started the whole cycle of violence over again. Mazen no doubt gained points in the last weeks by stationing his Security Forces in border towns in the Gaza Strip to prevent rocket attacks into Israel that had become all too frequent, though rarely deadly.
I still think the wildcards in the equation are Hamas, which won huge victories last week in local Gaza elections, handily defeating Mazen's own Fatah slate, and the Israeli settlers and their minority-yet-vocal, and perhaps violent, supporters in Israel proper. Sharon has kept his seat as PM only by engaging the rival Labor party in an unlikely coalition, since his own right-wing Likudniks and several pro-settler parties in the Knesset withdrew much of their support for him over his Gaza withdrawal plan.
Hamas saw its victory as vindication of its extreme 'push-Israel-into-the-sea' position. In reality, their victory was most likely the outcome of years of frustration by Gazans stemming from almost top-to-bottom corruption of the Fatah movement that was led by Yassir Arafat. How and if they make the move from militants to politicians will greatly effect the utility of this and future overtures toward peace and reconciliation with their neighbors.
What is clear is that all posturing aside the vast majority of Palestinians and Israelis want peaceable co-existence with one another. The first step to easing these long-standing conflicts and repairing the deep wounds will be measured in large part by the extent to which both sides can keep their most militant factions at bay while inching toward a negotiated settlement.
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