With a new wave of targeted killings and suicide bombings claiming dozens of victims on both sides, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has come full circle: back to a vicious feud between two aging, implacable enemies. The Bush administration has adamantly opposed Arafat’s expulsion, insisting that it would make the conflict even more dire. According to Israeli media reports, only a last-ditch phone call from U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell persuaded Sharon not to send troops to grab Arafat last Thursday night and send him abroad. “We think that ignoring him is much better than making him the center of attention and putting him in a crowd of supporters on international TV for hours on end,” said one senior State Department official. “We’re not going to accept his expulsion or killing because we don’t think it makes sense.” Sharon may be bluffing, but still, Israeli officials insist that he even may be ready to defy the White House. “My gut feeling? We’re closer to it than we ever were,” says one Israeli official. “We could have done it last night… We’ve walked up to the door but not yet walked through it.”
Sharon’s defenders insist that taking Arafat out of the picture is the best of a range of bad choices. They say that the Palestinian leader has been supporting terrorist cells and blocking reforms of the security forces, and that only by ousting him can a new, moderate leadership take over. “Will that leadership negotiate tomorrow with Israel? Maybe not. But at least we’ve started the process,” says one top official.
But critics charge that the move will only grant Arafat a wider forum, enrage the Arab Street and fatally undermine any chance for negotiation. “At the end of the day, what will we accomplish if he leaves for a place like Tunisia?” says Minister of the Interior Avrahram Poraz. “He will start to travel around world capitals, received by a band and red carpet, giving his orders by telephone.” Even if a new Palestinian government were formed in the wake of Arafat’s forced departure, the leadership would be unlikely to resume talks with Israel. “It would be difficult, if not impossible, for any Palestinian Authority leader to meet with the Israelis with any legitimacy,” says a European diplomat in Jerusalem. “If he did so, he would risk being killed.” Incoming Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei bluntly warned last week that expelling Arafat “will eliminate any possibility for peace in the area.”
Expelling Arafat isn’t the only risky measure that Sharon may be planning. In recent weeks Apache helicopters and F-16 fighter jets have rocketed and bombed several Hamas militants and their families in and around Gaza City. Now momentum is building in the Israeli cabinet for a full-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip. Three armored divisions–between 40,000 and 50,000 troops–would be needed to carry out a successful reoccupation, according to military analysts. Tanks, helicopter gunships and combat jets would pound the densely populated warrens of Gaza City and other Hamas strongholds, while infantry would fight house to house. “We have to imagine the picture of hundreds of tanks rolling through the crowded alleyways,” wrote Alex Fishman this week in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot. “Just their driving there will cause great destruction.”
Sharon desperately needs a dramatic gesture to reverse his sliding popularity. Beset by a bad economy, deteriorating security and a swarm of allegations about shady financial dealings, Sharon now commands an approval rating of just 43 percent, according to an Israeli poll taken this week. That is down 10 percent from polls taken four months ago, before the summit in Aqaba that inaugurated the now defunct Roadmap peace plan. Fifty-eight percent of Israelis, however, support the expulsion of Arafat, and the prime minister would almost certainly get a boost, if only temporarily, from such a bold strike. After the wave of suicide attacks, despondent and enraged Israelis are crying for revenge.
The English-language Jerusalem Post last week called for the assassination of Arafat, and Sharon was obliged to rebuke his hawkish Defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, for speaking publicly about killing the Palestinian leader. Israeli officials close to Sharon insist they favor the peaceful removal of Arafat from the Muqataa–but Arafat vowed last week that he wouldn’t be taken alive. And some Israeli officials admit they wouldn’t be disappointed if an attempt to snatch Arafat became a shoot-out. “Arafat has a pistol. He might shoot himself and become the ultimate martyr,” says one. “That would work brilliantly for us.” More likely, it would wash the region in a new wave of blood.
