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August 22, 2003/Av 24 5763, Vol. 55, No. 52
P.A. faces final test in West Bank cities
LESLIE SUSSER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - This week's massive suicide bombing on a Jerusalem bus has pushed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to the breaking point.
Over the next few weeks, Israeli officials predict the cease-fire that Palestinian terrorist groups declared in late June - which the terrorists say allows for occasional bombings such as the one Aug. 19 - will either stabilize or collapse.
In addition, the planned hand over of more West Bank cities to Palestinian control will be a crucial - and perhaps final - test for Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas' government, Israeli officials say.
Israel reacted to the Aug. 19 bombing, which killed 20 people and wounded more than 100, by freezing the hand over. However, as-suming there are no more attacks in coming days, senior Israeli officials still believe the transfer should proceed.
First, though, Abbas must show that he genuinely intends to crack down on the fundamentalist Hamas and Islamic Jihad militias responsible for a number of recent attacks, the officials said. Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the carnage in Jerusalem.
In agreeing late last week to hand over Jericho, Kalkilya, Ramallah and Tulkarm, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon hopes the Palestinian Authority will seize the opportunity to show that it can prevent terrorism from areas it controls, Sharon aides say.
But, they make clear, if the experiment fails Israel will retake the cities, a move that could topple the Palestinian Authority and spell the end of the "road map" peace plan.
The key struggle during the first phase of the road map has been over the terrorist weapon: Israel wants it defused; the Palestinians want to keep it in reserve.
Israel initially withheld transfer of the cities as a means of pressuring the Palestinians to crack down on terrorist groups.
But it didn't work. Since they didn't control the cities, the Palestinians argued, they couldn't be expected to stop terrorism emanating from them.
Moreover, holding on to the cities opened Israel to accusations that it wasn't giving enough to induce the Palestinians to fulfill their road map obligations.
Now, in a reversal of policy, Sharon hopes to put the burden of proof back on the Palestinians: They must prevent terror or risk being blamed for the failure of the "hudna," an Arabic term for cease-fire that has con-notations of rearming for future confrontation.
Using a strategy it perfected during the Oslo years, the Palestinian Authority's tactic has been to claim weakness and then demand Israeli concessions, such as prisoner releases and the hand over of cities.
Ostensibly, such concessions will win the Palestinian Authority support on the Palestinian street, streng-thening the government for the promised confrontation with terrorist groups.
In reality, however, once the Israeli concessions are obtained, the Palestinian Authority invariably main-tains that they have been insufficient to merit a crackdown on terror, and urges the Americans to press Israel for more, Israeli officials complain.
Israel also has been engaged in a battle of wits with terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which are trying to create a "balance of fear" by retaliating quickly for Israeli counter-terrorist operations in a one-for-one exchange that grants a veneer of legitimacy to the terror attacks.
The handover of the Palestinian cities is widely seen in Israel as a last-ditch attempt to save the cease-fire, which has been crumbling under Israeli counter-terrorism actions and Palestinian suicide bombings.
Still, Gideon Ezra, a government minister close to Sharon, and a former deputy director of the Shin Bet security service, told JTA that the Israeli defense establishment is reasonably confident the Palestinian Authority will pass the test and help stabilize the situation.
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