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October 4, 2002/Tishri 28 5763, Vol. 55, No. 6
Will restraint be exploited?
LESLIE SUSSER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - The scenes from Yasser Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah this week played tricks on the mind.
The gaping ruins seemed to epitomize the collapse of the Palestinian Authority and demonstrate the P.A. president's impotence.
But Arafat's smiling emergence after Israel withdrew its tanks under heavy American pressure seemed to say just the opposite: that a resurgent Arafat was back in control, stronger politically than he had been for months, and that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's attempt to humiliate the Palestinian leader had backfired.
But that was not the worst news for Sharon. The more dangerous problem, analysts here said, is that Israel's 12-day siege of Arafat's headquarters had cemented a subversive linkage in the Palestinian mind between the Palestinian and Iraqi issues.
It appears obvious that President Bush had so bluntly insisted on an Israeli pullback because he believed the siege was interfering with American plans for a war against Iraq.
The firm U.S. intervention clearly made sense from an American point of view. But for Sharon it creates a tactical problem: The Palestinians might now be encouraged to plan major terrorist attacks in the belief that America's focus on Iraq essentially ties Israel's hands.
In the event of a Palestinian attack, Israel's dilemma would be acute: If it doesn't respond, it risks encouraging more attacks; if it does respond, it risks a showdown with Washington.
Israeli intelligence officials are convinced that some Palestinian groups will escalate violence before and during an attack on Iraq.
One reason Sharon gave for besieging Arafat's headquarters was to show that Israel would not allow its hands to be tied. That effort clearly boomeranged, and Israel now finds itself worse off.
According to left-wing critics of Sharon's government, the Ramallah siege may have another negative consequence for Israel: Arafat's resurrection as a popular hero may have slowed down moves toward change in the Palestinian leadership.
But other analysts downplay the significance of Arafat's return to center stage. His renewed popularity may well prove fleeting, they say.
For one, Mahmoud Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen, the Arafat deputy mooted as a potential prime minister, continues to speak about non-violence and chart a new political course.
So while some Palestinians may try to escalate violence to exploit Israel's current constraints, others are talking nonviolent resistance, hoping to exploit American goodwill after a strike on Baghdad.
America may then want to rebuild ties with the Arab world by pressuring Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians, and a nonviolent Palestinian leadership would be in a much better position to press the advantage, the thinking goes.
Leslie Susser is the diplomatic correspondent for the Jerusalem Report.
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