Streets Red With Blood

Ariel Sharon has never been one to pussyfoot. He does not shy from confrontation, physical or verbal. The bumptious Prime Minister of Israel outdid himself, however, when speaking to reporters in an impromptu session at the parliament cafeteria early last week. Explaining the decision of his inner Cabinet to intensify the military campaign against the Palestinians, he used language that was unusually bald. "The Palestinians must be hit, and it must be very painful," he said. "We must cause them losses, victims, so that they feel a heavy price." He went on to do just that, unleashing a broader military offensive than anything seen so far in the past 17 months of fighting.

Of course, Palestinians weren't the only ones with losses, victims. The Israelis, with their superior firepower, did take more lives (113) than the Palestinians did last week (49), the bloodiest week since the Palestinians unleashed their new uprising in the fall of 2000. But by terrorizing Israelis wherever they could reach them, Palestinian militants succeeded in spreading the heavy price around. "No place is safe anymore," a senior Israeli security official acknowledged.

With the killings and counterkillings coming so fast that locals can barely absorb the news of one outrage before the next takes place, it feels like the beginning of something different--an atrocious new phase in an already gory conflict. Militants on both sides boast that they are ready for an intensification. But at the highest level of leadership, locally and in Washington, the crescendo of violence has produced what could prove to be a corrective shock. After refusing for months to venture into the unpromising business of trucemaking, the Bush Administration said it would send special Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni to the region for just that purpose. Bowing to a crucial Israeli demand, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had his forces arrest the fifth and final suspect in the October killing of an Israeli Cabinet minister. And Sharon made his own concession. He did not take back his threat to "batter" the Palestinians--though he claimed to have meant not Palestinians generally but terrorists--but he said he was dropping his insistence on a week free of Palestinian attacks before Israel would discuss a cease-fire. "Negotiations to stop the shooting will be [held] under fire," he said.

The change in the Bush Administration's approach came straight from the top. According to a senior White House official, President Bush was moved to action after monitoring the bloodletting on TV throughout the week. He had an additional motivation. Vice President Dick Cheney plans to travel through the Middle East this week in an effort to line up support for the Administration's plan to try to remove Iraq's Saddam Hussein from power. Arab leaders will surely try to focus the conversation on the exploding Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With Zinni heading to Israel and the Palestinian territories, Cheney can argue that the Administration is on the case and move on to the topic of Iraq.