Khuffash isn’t the only one asking that question. But he isn’t likely to have an answer soon–perhaps for years. Somewhat like residents of Northern Ireland in the past, Israelis and Palestinians may find themselves boxed in between peace and war. Many want to continue the shaky ceasefire, but they face scant prospect of a political resolution. Even as Secretary of State Colin Powell, mediating in the Mideast last week, tried to negotiate a timetable for resuming peace talks, doubts were growing that the ceasefire can survive. Or, if it does, that it can lead to peace. Under intense pressure from the United States to halt the violence, Arafat has been trying to convince his people that observing the truce could bring real concessions from Israel. But increasingly Palestinians doubt it.
Just as most Israelis now believe that Arafat doesn’t want to make peace, most Palestinians have given up hope of real political progress as long as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is in power. The question is whether they’ll be willing to settle for incremental concessions while waiting for a more moderate Israeli leader, and whether Israelis will settle for a long-term but very fragmentary ceasefire. A poll taken last week showed that 79 percent of Palestinians favored continuing the intifada, while 54 percent said that a freeze on the expansion of Israeli settlements–one of Arafat’s main demands–was not enough to get them to abandon the struggle. Sharon is also in a bind. Pressed by Washington to restart the peace process, he’s unlikely to give the Palestinians concessions that would alienate his right-wing constituents.
Last week’s flurry of diplomatic activity was partly aimed at easing these frustrations. Meeting in Jerusalem, Sharon and Powell established a timetable for implementing the so-called Mitchell plan–the framework created in the spring by former senator George Mitchell to restart peace talks. The timetable calls for seven days of quiet, followed by a six-week “cooling-off period” and then a series of confidence-building measures on both sides. In return for Israel’s declaring a settlement freeze and lifting the siege in the territories, for instance, the Palestinians would collect weapons and recommence joint security patrols. But the schedule left unclear when the “quiet” period would start. And Sharon and President George W. Bush, meeting in Washington earlier in the week, disagreed on whether Israel should insist on an “absolute end” to the violence, as Sharon demands, or evidence of “100 percent effort” from Arafat’s regime, as the Americans would have it.
It’s an open question whether either Arafat or Sharon can meet in the middle. Suicide bomb attacks in Israeli cities have stopped, as have shootings in Area A, the parts of the West Bank and Gaza controlled by the Palestinian Authority. But Arafat has had little success enforcing the ceasefire in zones outside Palestinian control. When Arafat sent police to arrest Islamic Jihad leader Sheik Abdullah al Shami at his home in Gaza for making incendiary statements, thousands poured into the street to protect the sheik. The police were forced to withdraw. Arafat also faces a threat from a cell of Hamas militants based in Jordan and other Arab states, who have vowed to keep on bombing in Israel.
Any outbreak of violence would give Sharon an excuse to delay lifting the siege or making other concessions. Many experts believe that’s precisely what the prime minister is hoping for. While Sharon was away in Washington last week, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer announced plans to dismantle 15 “illegal outposts” in the West Bank–clusters of caravan homes installed without permission next to existing settlements. Sharon vetoed the move. The ceasefire may meet a similar fate.
