Fears of catastrophe
While Israel maintained its repression in the occupied territories, Palestinians looked with dread at what may come once American missiles start hitting Iraq. Khaled Amayreh, in occupied Jerusalem, writes
Many Israeli commentators chose to downplay the significance of the renewed contacts between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. They argue that the post-election Ariel Sharon, now elated by his crushing victory, is still very much the same, lacking any credible plan or vision for peace with the Palestinians.
The continuation of the mostly cold-blooded killings in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip -- even during the Eid Al-Adha holidays -- as well as unjustified home demolitions testifies to this pessimistic view.
On Monday, 10 February, the Israeli Occupation Army murdered at least two Palestinians, including an unarmed activist at the Ein Al-Ma refugee camp near Nablus.
Eyewitnesses said Israeli soldiers shot Youssef Mabruk, who is affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, killing him instantly as he tried to escape arrest. The Israeli army admitted that the young activist was unarmed, but insisted that he posed a security risk to the occupation army, which presumably means that he, therefore, deserved death.
On the same day, the Israeli army killed another Palestinian in Gaza
On 9 February, three Islamic Jihad militants were killed near an Israeli roadblock in an apparent aborted suicide bombing. The militants' car exploded in flames upon hitting a concrete slab outside an Israeli army outpost south of Gaza, killing the three occupants and slightly injuring three Israeli soldiers.
The incident, many Palestinians argue, demonstrates the incendiary level of frustration now permeating throughout Palestinian society, especially in the claustrophobic Gaza Strip, where 1.3 million hopeless Palestinians are packed within a small stretch of sandy terrain not exceeding 300 square kilometres, surrounded by electric fences, tanks and trigger-happy soldiers training their guns round-the-clock on Palestinian homes and streets.
For its part, the PA has been making intensive efforts to stop the launching of attacks on Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip.
PA security operatives last week reportedly stopped on three occasions the launching of Qasam missiles onto Jewish settlements.
PA Minister of the Interior Hani Al-Hassan argued forcefully that the attacks, utterly ineffective in military terms, were exceedingly harmful for the Palestinians since they always invited bloody Israeli crimes against the civilian population, causing many deaths as well as widespread destruction of homes and infrastructure.
Last week, Sharon's chief of staff Dov Weisglass met with Al-Hassan and reportedly praised PA efforts to "reign in the terrorists". The meeting and the reported efforts made by Al-Hassan to try to clamp down on resistance elements, including Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, infuriated Fatah's radical leadership throughout the West Bank. At one point, some Fatah leaders in Nablus issued a leaflet warning Al-Hassan against entering the town, saying that he could be killed if he did.
Dismissing the criticism as "futile" and "irresponsible," Al-Hassan argued that the looming American-led war on Iraq required Palestinians to meticulously examine each and every step they take, lest "another catastrophe befalls our people".
Indeed, many Palestinian leaders, as well as ordinary people, seem to be quite concerned about the possibility, or even likelihood, that Sharon and his hawkish generals and aides might take advantage of the expected war on Iraq to carry out unprecedented stringent measures against the Palestinians, including a possible mass deportation of hundreds of thousands of people.
Many Palestinians are also worried that the Israeli army might resort to launching a series of sporadic massacres against Palestinians, under the rubric of fighting "terror".
Hence, Al-Hassan and the rest of the PA leadership, including Yasser Arafat, seem very eager not to give Sharon a pretext for embarking on such a nightmarish scenario.
On Friday, the Israeli army chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon, refused to answer a question on whether the Israeli army would refrain from effecting a "transfer" of Palestinians under certain circumstances.
Last year, Ya'alon, who described the Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence as "cancer", was quoted as saying that he would resort to "surgical intervention" in case "chemotherapy" failed or didn't achieve the requisite results.
Now, with the American-led war on Iraq drawing closer, and with fear that the United States is effectively granting Sharon a virtual carte blanche to deal with the Palestinians as he deems fit, the maximum the Palestinians can hope for is that the war on Iraq will not result in another Palestinian catastrophe.
