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Little Chance for Peace
By MATT REES/Jerusalem
The reality of the Oslo Peace Accords is dead, slain by 16 months of the Aqsa intifadeh. This year, look for the idea of Oslo to be buried too.
Because of the intifadeh, Arafat’s control over events has slipped, sometimes because he can do nothing about the violence and other times because he wants it to seem that way.
And Israeli soldiers are periodically back in the risky door-to-door search mode of the first intifadeh, with their tanks stationed close to the Ramallah office in which Arafat is confined.
The more Oslo is stamped into the ground by Israel’s hard-line demand for a weeklong period of quiet before talks can begin — and by the Palestinian gunmen who refuse to hold their fire for that long — the more violence will escalate on both sides.
Arafat no longer appears interested, if he ever was, in the kind of peace offered by Oslo. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon always hated Oslo. Sharon wants to strike a deal much less generous to the Palestinians; Arafat talks about peace with U.S. envoys while his men smuggle arms into Gaza that will enable him to turn up the heat on the conflict even further.
On second thought ... Serious peace talks might still resume, with Arafat claiming he’s still in contact with Sharon and the Israeli cabinet’s main dove, Shimon Peres, refusing to quit.
The Home Front
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