Israeli Leader's Death Stalls Peace Efforts

The assassination of Rehavam Zeevi couldn't have come at a worse moment — for Ariel Sharon, for Yasser Arafat, and for President George Bush. The radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said Wednesday it had killed the right-wing defector from Ariel Sharon's cabinet to avenge the assassination of its own leader by Israel earlier this year. But the timing revealed a deeper agenda.

Zeevi, the former tourism minister and head of a small party to the right of Sharon's own Likud, had resigned from the cabinet only two days earlier to protest Israel's withdrawal of troops from a Palestinian-controlled section of Hebron. His decision had signaled a looming political crisis for Sharon, who has come under intense international pressure to resume long-term peace talks with the Palestinians since the U.S. began forging its anti-terrorism coalition a month ago. Still, the day before the assassination Sharon told an interviewer he would accept a Palestinian state if Israel's security was guaranteed, and the Israeli media was reporting that he was planning to present his own long-term peace plan to Washington to avoid being pressed into negotiating on the basis of the Bush administration's own vision.

But following the assassination, Sharon warned ominously, "what was before will never be again... Today we are facing a completely different situation." He blamed Yasser Arafat, and vowed to "wage war without mercy on the terrorists" as he convened his security cabinet to discuss a response. The killing will exacerbate pressure on Sharon from the right, forcing him to respond harshly and casting doubt over further relaxation of security measures against the Palestinians in line with efforts to renew negotiations.

Not that the PFLP will mind. The left-wing faction had traditionally opposed the Oslo peace process, and like many of Arafat's own rank and file they reject his current cease-fire and renewed negotiations with Israel. Unlike Islamic Jihad and Hamas who may be inclined right now to act in sympathy with Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, the PFLP is a secular leftist group traditionally aligned with Syria. The killing of their leader, Abu Ali Mustafa, by an Israeli missile fired into his office in August had sparked widespread Palestinian fury and vows of vengeance. And by provoking further retaliation by the Israelis right now, the organization may also be hoping to achieve the political goal of making it more difficult for Arafat to return to the negotiating table.

Anything that gets in the way of new peace talks between Sharon and Arafat is bad news for Washington. Restarting the peace process has become a major priority of the Bush administration precisely because of the political needs of the anti-terrorism coalition — Washington's Arab allies have insisted that in order to work with the U.S. on its campaign against al-Qaeda, they have to be able to show their own people that progress is being made in resolving a grievance so shrewdly exploited by Osama Bin Laden. Rehavam Zeevi's assassination is almost certain to set back the process of resuming dialogue.

Zeevi had been one of the more extreme politicians on the Israeli right, openly favoring the mass expulsion of the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza and opposing any renewed dialogue. And he was assassinated by a tiny leftist splinter group equally opposed to resuming talks. Both Zeevi and his killers had occupied the political fringes. But the fringes on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, these days, have moved dangerously close to the mainstream.