“Before (Israeli Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon’s tanks arrived at the Mukataa to remind (Palestinian President) Yasser Arafat that he is besieged and threatened with expulsion from Ramallah, they arrived at Camp David to lay siege to (US President) George W. Bush and bring to an end his quest to offer a road map for turning his vision of a Palestinian state into a reality,” Rajeh al-Khoury writes in the Beirut daily An-Nahar.
Thus, the bombing in Megiddo of a bus full of soldiers has “blown sky-high a considerable number of political as well as military illusions,” he says.
One illusion was that Israel’s “Operation Rampart” had dealt a debilitating blow to the infrastructure of Palestinian militant organizations, especially in the Jenin area, from where the bomber reportedly hailed. The latest suicide operation not only showed that Israel’s military blitz was ineffective, but also that these Palestinian groups have developed much more sophisticated ways of selecting and attacking their targets.
Shattered too are the Americans’ illusions that overhauling the Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces can enable it to tighten its grip sufficiently to prevent attacks of this sort ­ which is the sole purpose of the “reforms” CIA chief George Tenet has been advocating.
“Sharon, as usual, rushed to blame Arafat for the operation, but this time his aims go beyond furnishing a pretext to order his tanks back to the Mukataa,” says Khoury.
The Israeli premier’s primary aim is to push the US into adopting his view that “Arafat must exit the scene.” Sharon dreams of forcing the Palestinian leader into exile, and it would be no surprise if he did so now. Invoking a suicide bombing as an excuse to banish him is a scenario Sharon has been readying for a long time, “and all he needs to implement it is an American blind eye.”
“This brings to mind the meeting between Tenet and Arafat just hours before the Megiddo operation, when the American official warned that Washington would give Sharon a free hand if the PA did not put an end to suicide bombings. This means that he served notice that Washington might release Sharon from his commitment not to harm the Palestinian leader,” Khoury writes.
Sharon’s other big aim is to prevent Bush from unveiling a political plan and timetable for realizing his vision of a two-state solution, writes Khoury. He has been urged to do so as a way of injecting substance into the conference Washington plans calling. And Bush
was widely expected to announce a proposal in light of the contacts he and
his administration have had with the Europeans and the “ideas” that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has brought with him to Washington ­ which Khoury says are inspired partly by the Peres-Abu Alaa document, and partly by the framework agreement that the Egyptians and Israelis reached while negotiating their 1979 peace treaty.
Sharon’s upcoming talks with Bush Monday were scheduled as a result of his adamant insistence that no US peace proposal be announced before he vets it, says Khoury. “Sharon might not have had enough ammunition to confront Bush, but now he no longer needs any. After the Megiddo operation, he will not hesitate to send his armored vehicles to Camp David.”
Pan-Arab Al-Quds Al-Arabi says that Sharon is trying to make Arafat
the scapegoat for the failure of his military campaign.
But he knows perfectly well that threatening Arafat’s life, by ordering his tanks to flatten his compound and shell his bedroom, will achieve nothing and could backfire, the paper writes. Blaming Arafat is “utter nonsense” in the wake of Israel’s wholesale destruction of the PA and its security forces, and its effective abrogation of the Oslo Accords that brought them into being. If Israel’s military and security agencies ­ about whose unmatched expertise in combating terrorism it incessantly boasts ­ cannot stop suicide attacks, there isn’t much the Palestinian leader and the remnants of his security forces can do.
“The latest operation in Megiddo was a turning point for the Palestinian resistance, affirming that the resistance fighters are becoming more sophisticated planners and operators than all of Israel’s illustrious army generals,” and that is what has infuriated Sharon most and fuelled his lust for revenge.
Both Sharon and Arafat have failed to provide their respective peoples with security, Al-Quds Al-Arabi continues. But while Arafat’s failure is only to be expected, given his modest means and the absence of official Arab backing, Sharon’s is unjustifiable, because he has both the military might and the option of pursuing nonmilitary means such as peace negotiations.
“Sharon may not be able to put up with this failure for much longer, especially not with (former Premier) Benjamin Netanyahu breathing down his neck day and night and demanding that he murder or expel Arafat. So he could well embark on yet another military or political folly. And there is always a ready scapegoat. His name is Yasser Arafat.”
The UAE daily Al-Khaleej judges that the Israelis and Americans would rather retain Arafat as a “hostage” forced to do their bidding than to kill or banish him.
It sees the latest Israeli attack on his headquarters as an attempt to derail moves to revive the political process, noting that Mubarak’s stateside talks will now be dominated by the latest developments, rather than focusing on the quest for a political way out of the crisis caused by Israel’s 10-week military offensive in the West Bank.
It is clear from Washington’s latest denials of Egyptian reports that the two sides are working on a plan for a political solution that all the Bush administration is interested in at present is bolstering Israel’s security ­ and it does not want to discuss an Israeli withdrawal, even from the areas occupied since Operation Rampart kicked off on March 29. First, the Palestinian side must be made to submit completely to Sharon, whose Washington trip looks like a prelude to yet another major onslaught against the Palestinians.
Despite the slanders and abuse Washington hurls at Arafat, its declared opposition to his banishment, combined with Israel’s statements denying it is trying to target him personally, suggests that the two partners “want to keep the Palestinian leader hostage so as to blackmail him, the PA and the Palestinian people,” Al-Khaleej writes.
In Amman, the semi-official daily Al-Rai remarks that “the message Sharon’s government wanted to send to the PA by destroying what remains of its headquarters and harming its president does not look as though it will be received, for the simple reason that it was sent to the wrong address.”
It would have been more worthwhile to send the Palestinians a message of peace, especially in light of the Arab peace plan, rather than a further dose of the death and ruin Israel has been sowing on them for half a century, Al-Rai says.
Bombings that target civilians do not advance the Palestinian cause and suicide operations undermine international support for it, but it is “the absence of a political horizon” that creates the despair that fuels them.
The US should stop treating Israel as though it were above international law, endorsing its aggression, and laying the blame on a PA whose security and administrative and economic infrastructures have been wrecked and which no longer even controls the supposedly autonomous Area A enclaves, the Amman daily counsels.
Ibrahim Nafie, editor in chief of the Egyptian state daily Al-Ahram, worries that Israel and its backers in the US will use the Megiddo operation to try to “jam” Mubarak’s talks with Bush aimed at building on the “understandings” that Cairo and Washington have worked out in recent weeks.
Mubarak’s efforts are aimed at putting together a comprehensive political settlement that secures an end to such operations “and other violent activities” in the region, he says.
The principal impediment to that is the attitude of the Sharon government. It still believes it can crush the Palestinians’ will and impose whatever arrangements it likes on them by force, employing its overwhelming military muscle and the unlimited support of Washington. Hence its bid to eject Arafat from power under the guise of “reforming” the PA and bringing in younger leaders who it believes will be more accommodating to Israel’s demands.
“This is truly deceptive,” writes Nafie. “There isn’t a single Palestinian who could assume a position of responsibility and agree to the kind of ideas Sharon’s government is proposing. It would do better to stop this silly game and engage in sincere efforts that are being made to arrive at an acceptable formula for resuming negotiations on a clear basis, leading to a political settlement that ­ with the passage of time ­ would develop into genuine peace between Israel and the countries of the region.”
While it goes without saying that the Megiddo attack and similar operations are to be condemned, “that does not mean that these operations should be viewed in isolation from their cause, which is essentially the continuing Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people” and its denial of their rights.
“We must all view the guerrilla operations that occur in that context, and appreciate that the only way out of the current impasse and the cycle of violence is to engage in the diplomatic efforts being made to convene an international conference on peace in the Middle East in accordance with the vision President Mubarak is bringing with him to Washington,” Nafie says.
The London-based Asharq Al-Awsat devotes its main editorial to slamming the suicide bombers, whom it says are destroying the international sympathy that provides the Palestinians with their “only glimmer of hope.”
The Megiddo attack is bound to undermine the “longer term goal of setting up a Palestinian state,” it reasons.
No people engaged in a struggle can achieve their goals if they are “governed by conflicting strategies,” Asharq Al-Awsat writes, “and suicide operations are currently serving to divide the Palestinians into two groups: a minority that is prepared to go to the furthest degree of extremism, and a majority that is left to cope with the consequences.”
Suicide bombings have ceased to have the effect they used to and have become part of daily life, and the same can be said for Israel’s military reprisals, the paper writes. In theory, the “game of death” could carry on indefinitely without either side achieving its goals.
“Some Palestinian parties accord their short-term political interests greater importance than the long-term interests of the homeland,” Asharq Al-Awsat charges, and some of them are subject to “forces in the region” which are pursuing their own agendas.
“It seems that these parties are attracted to the south Lebanon experience, and believe that suicide operations will force Israel to withdraw as it did from south Lebanon under pressure from Hizbullah,” the paper says.
“Such a strategy blocks the road to any possible negotiations, but is that in the interest of the Palestinian people as a whole? Did the Palestinian people give a mandate to the suicide attackers to decide the strategy of the struggle? Is that not one of the tasks of the PA? Questions like these cannot be left unanswered for long.”

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