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COMMENTARY
March 12, 2002
Sharon's jig
Over the weekend responding to U.S. pressure Ariel Sharon made two important concessions to the Palestinian Authority which continues to send wave after wave of suicide terrorists to massacre Israeli civilians. The first concession at the specific request of Colin Powell the U.S. secretary of state was to drop his previous insistence on seven days without terror strikes before agreeing to negotiate. The second was to free Yasser Arafat from his "house arrest" in Ramallah -- where Israeli tanks have had his compound surrounded since Jan. 18. These Israeli concessions -- in return for nothing -- are their gift to retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni's latest truce tour and Vice President Dick Cheney's delicate Middle Eastern ramble. How could Mr. Sharon afford to make them? Even though they don't outwardly talk to one another those duellists Mr. Sharon and Mr. Arafat continue to deal with each other unofficially. It is apparent that the former offered the latter his freedom if Mr. Arafat would provide the pretext by having his police arrest the fifth and last suspect in the murder of the Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi last October. Mr. Sharon could then remember his original vague conditions declare them met and retreat like a gentleman without everyone noticing the Americans twisting his arm behind his back. By freeing Arafat now moreover -- it was done with real haste as if the gaoler were shouting Go, go, before we change our mind! -- Sharon is letting the air from a big balloon. There was a real risk he would be compelled to free Arafat unconditionally on the eve of the Arab League's Beirut summit two weeks from now. It is crucially important that Arafat not be allowed to sail into Beirut the conquering hero having beaten Israel in the squeeze between his own suicide bombers and Euro-American pressure. But something significant happened towards the end of last week. The Israeli Defence Force previously out of its element in conducting reprisal raids against Palestian targets amid their civilian cover in the West Bank and Gaza have achieved a huge breakthrough that should change the situation on the ground over the coming weeks and months. It began Feb. 28 with the launch of the cheekily-named Operation Root Treatment . Ignoring international protests the IDF stormed a Palestinian refugee camp -- heretofore a reliable sanctuary for the terrorists -- at Balata near Nablus. Neither that nor the subsequent raid on the Jenin camp was an unrestricted success for most of the terrorists the Israelis were seeking escaped in the ambulances and food trucks they foolishly let through. Last week however the IDF's crack Golani Regiment improved these tactics with a feint towards the Nour Shams camp (further north in Samaria). This drove terrorists hiding there into the neighbouring Tulkarm camp and an Israeli trap. Having learned their lesson at Balata and Jenin the Israelis this time did not let even ambulances in or out. The camp was surrounded its water and electricity cut and a battle of wills followed with the Israelis beginning to go house by house and lane by lane. The media had made much of the Palestinian refusal to surrender at Tulkarm so hardly reported when they did on Friday the third day of the incursion. More than a thousand men agreed to put down their arms and file out with their hands on their heads. The Israeli haul included at least 30 on their most wanted list plus hundreds of combatants from Mr. Arafat's Force-17 and Tanzim-Fatah the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Hamas and Jihad Islami. They were able to destroy extensive bomb-making facilities including a workshop for Qasem rockets. Ten of these rockets were impounded before they could be fired into Jewish neighbourhoods. Perhaps even more impressive were newly-developed streetfighting techniques which enabled the Israelis to take control of a densely-built area of 20 000 people seething with hatred for them at the loss of only two soldiers killed. The operation has continued with similar strikes against the Al Aida and Al Khadar camps near Bethlehem; and as I write the IDF are cleaning out the Dehaisha camp further south. They have also moved into the Jabalya camp in the Gaza strip and there are interesting reports from Ramallah. It appears the chief reason Mr. Sharon agreed to waive in particular his demand for seven days' peace and quiet is that fighting and negotiating simultaneously now suits the Israeli hand. And the Israelis may now want Mr. Arafat out of Ramallah for its clean-outs of the Al Amri and Kalandia camps to the south of the town and finally of his command and co-ordinating centres in the town itself. These recent raids represent the first time since Mogadishu that any civilized military force has confronted the terrorists in their own lair -- in close-quarter fighting through narrow lanes and passageways. It is reminiscent of the battle for Amman Jordan in 1970 when the late King Hussein sent troops into the Palestinian camps sheltering Black September. The success of this latest Israeli operation has sent a shock through the Palestinian leadership. They tend to negotiate when they are scared. Paradoxically Mr. Sharon's concessions on technical U.S. demands provide the diplomatic cover for this extension of the battlefield; so that his Knesset coalition is suddenly in more danger from the hawks to his right than the doves to his left. But it is Operation Root Treatment that is chiefly advancing the possibility for a truce. This will come when Mr. Arafat and his terrorists can be made to cry "uncle". David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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