Israel Rejects U.S. Call, Signaling New Chill

Mounting violence in Palestinian territories, coinciding with Washington's urgent need for Arab allies against al Qaeda, has opened the most visible rift in years between Israel and the U.S. Israel's rejection of Washington's call to withdraw its forces from Palestinian Authority-controlled towns persisted after Tuesday's meeting between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres in Washington. After the meeting, Peres reiterated Israel's insistence that it will remain in six Palestinian towns until Yasser Arafat agrees to hand over the gunmen responsible for last week's assassination of Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi, while Powell's spokesman repeated Washington's call for an immediate withdrawal and once again warned that the Israeli presence in those towns contributed to an escalation of violence. But the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israel will cut short its current military operation in Palestinian towns, "following pressure from the United States." President Bush had reportedly dropped in on a meeting between Peres and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday and, according to the Israeli paper, told Peres that he expected Israel to withdraw from the areas it reoccupied last week.

Withdrawal will not be easy for the Israelis, because even after the Powell meeting Peres insisted that Israel could not leave before Arafat handed over Zeevi's killers — a point hammered home by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Monday when he flatly rejected the Bush administration's call. But the Palestinian Authority has no intention of handing over the gunmen, claiming that the Oslo Accord requires only that they be arrested and tried under Palestinian law. U.S. statements on the issue have not mentioned Israel's extradition demand.

Chill in relations

The standoff is the strongest indication yet of the chill in U.S.-Israel relations since the needs of the anti-terrorism coalition forced the Bush administration to adopt a more activist stance on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Two weeks ago, Sharon warned President Bush against sacrificing Israel to "appease" his Arab allies, drawing a sharp rebuke from Washington for an "unacceptable" statement. The latest sign of discord is more serious, however, because this time it is Israel's tactics in response to the Palestinian intifada that Washington has described as "unacceptable" and as part of the problem.

Washington is concerned that the situation in the Palestinian territories is fast spinning out of control, which could imperil U.S. efforts to maintain Arab support against Osama bin Laden. More than 23 Palestinians have been killed in fierce clashes since Friday, and recent moves to restore negotiations appear to have been completely reversed by the Zeevi assassination. Arafat, meanwhile, has banned the military arm of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which killed Zeevi in retaliation for the assassination of its own leader, Abu Ali Mustafa, by Israel last August. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has also arrested scores of PFLP militants, drawing fierce criticism from the leftist faction as well as from Hamas — and among ordinary Palestinians.

Arafat over a barrel

Israel's reluctance to settle for Arafat imprisoning Zeevi's killers is hardly surprising. The PA has found it increasingly difficult to sustain action against Palestinian militants during the current intifada — local Fatah militia leader Atif Abbayat who was killed last Thursday, for example, had been arrested by the PA only weeks earlier, but was then released after his supporters threatened to resume firing on the Israeli neighborhood of Gilo. The U.S. has repeatedly called on Arafat to take stronger steps to rein in militants.

Still, the Israelis also know that neither Arafat nor any other Palestinian leader could afford, politically, to hand over Zeevi's killers to Israel — for the simple reason that this would paint him as a collaborator in Palestinian eyes. Arafat is thus caught between Israeli and Western pressure to act against the militants, and the popularity of their actions among Palestinians. And, of course, it's partly a dilemma of his own making, by virtue of his Jekyll-and-Hyde relationship to Palestinian militancy over the past year.

No alternative to Arafat

Foreign Minister Peres appears to share at least some of Washington's concerns. Many in his Labor Party fear that Sharon is responding to pressure from within his own Likud Party to destroy the Palestinian Authority and drive Arafat back into exile. Peres's primary concern, however, is that Sharon may be making a fatal mistake by seeking to delegitimize Arafat, because despite Israel's frustrations with him, the Palestinian leader remains a moderate on the Palestinian political spectrum. And if Arafat is removed, warns Peres, Israel will find itself facing an even more radical leadership in the Palestinian territories.

Tough call for Washington

Right now, in the interests of the anti-terror coalition, the U.S. needs Arafat to crack down on the militants and Israel to show more restraint. And on both ends, that's a tough call: Arafat will be hard-pressed to sustain any clampdown if he has nothing to show for it, even more so while Israeli forces remain inside PA territory. Ordinary Palestinians are unlikely to accept the arrest of Zeevi's assassins while Israeli forces continue to conduct assassinations of their own. And while Sharon's Labor Party partners may wring their hands and threaten to quit the government if the current military deployments in PA areas are maintained for too much longer, Israeli public opinion remains strongly supportive of harsh action against Arafat.

As long as Peres believes in negotiating with Arafat, he has plenty of reason for concern over strategies that erode the Palestinian leader's domestic political standing. Repeated incursions into PA territory may raise pressure on Arafat to do more against the militants, but they also undermine his ability to show Palestinians that what was achieved by negotiating with Israel in the Oslo process was an end to Israel's occupation of those areas. Those perceptions ultimately reinforce the claims of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militants who oppose a resumption of negotiations and advocate guerrilla war. Still, Israeli public opinion right now is far closer to Sharon's take on Araft than to that of Peres. All of which is bad news for Washington, but which may give bin Laden reason to smile. Then again, an open spat with Israel over its actions against Palestinians won't harm Bush's credibility with his Arab allies.