Important as Iraq is, the most urgent aspect of this American crisis is in Israel and Palestine. Unless the US faces up to the fact that Ariel Sharon and his defence minister, Shaul Mofaz, have been working to undermine the remarkable accord between Palestinian factions which has recently brought a period of relative peace to the Holy Land, a complete breakdown is entirely possible. The Sharon government sees the road map as an instrument for the disarmament and political extinction of all radical groups and parties among the Palestinians. The peace process as it worked out on the Palestinian side instead brought a deal likely to preserve those groups on the basis that they suspended armed action. The Americans seemed to half recognise that, and, although no such deal had been envisaged by the road map, it was, in fact, a realistic basis on which to proceed.
The Israeli government, on the other hand, was enraged that its plan to bring about the political and military demise of the radicals was being derailed. It clearly determined to provoke Hamas and Islamic Jihad by assassinating their leaders, even though the two had called off their attacks. As surely as the suicide bomber himself, Sharon and Mofaz were responsible for the deaths and injuries in the Jerusalem bus attack this week, and now by their incursions and and yet another assassination they may well have destroyed the Palestinian ceasefire.
Bush and Powell should act with speed and vigour. Deploring the loss of life, blaming both sides and endorsing the Israeli right to respond to attacks will not do. They need to pin the responsibility where it belongs, on the Sharon government, and prevent a new round of attacks. Unpalatable though such pressure on Israel may be to this administration, it is vital to exert it if America's larger purposes are to be served. Progress toward a settlement in the Holy Land is not a panacea which will end terrorism. But lack of progress, or, worse, the abandonment of the effort to achieve it, would undoubtedly feed the growth of terrorism, and that now includes a threat to America, and anybody associated with America, in Iraq. Even if those who bombed the UN were Saddamists rather than Islamists, the two may have a common cause. Sharon, in other words, endangers American troops and American purposes, in the largest and boldest of its undertakings abroad.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1027329,00.html
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