In their editorials on Monday, the Israeli major dailies were not only pessimistic regarding the latest development on the theater of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but also rang the warning bell that the conflict could both escalate and become more complex.
Ma'ariv said there was nothing promising in the Cairo four-way meeting in which the CIA tried to guarantee a level of security coordination between the Palestinians and Israel, with the aim of bringing an end to the three-month old violence.
“The chances of success for the security coordination meeting in Cairo between Israel and the Palestinians, orchestrated by the US Director of Central Intelligence, are not especially great," said the paper, adding that "Arafat already promised at the Sharm e-Sheikh summit to work to end the violence and nothing has happened."
The Israelis feel insecure when they think of their future, according to Maariv’s editors.
"As in both the diplomatic sphere and the security sphere as well, the Israeli public is caught in a fog and still does not know what Sharon - if he is elected - intends to do to 'calm the ground' should there be no movement in the negotiations
with the Palestinians."
The paper added that "it is not clear what Sharon thinks of Barak's unilateral separation plan and how disturbed he is by the danger of a slide towards a regional deterioration if relations with the Palestinians escalate."
As far as Hatzofeh newspaper is concerned, the depressing status quo is an inevitable result of the Oslo peace accords.
In its second editorial, the paper said that the “Jordanian who carried out the recent bombing of a #51 bus in Tel Aviv had been trained and dispatched by the Palestinian Authority.” It criticized the fact that "Yossi Beilin and Shimon
Peres, who put the Authority in place and gave it its guns, have yet to utter one word of regret." The editors explain that "The people who prepared the bombs at the Palestinian police headquarters in Nablus did not get there by themselves – they were brought there by those who initiated the Oslo accords."
On the other hand, similar violent acts might be initiated by extremists from the other side, said Maariv in another editorial.
”The concern that a crazy person from the extreme right-wing will try to carry out an attack on the Temple Mount that would ignite a major conflagration in the Islamic world, has arisen in recent days from a study by the Keshev organization, which tracks Jewish organizations that would like to erect the Third Temple" and "in the Rabbi of the Western Wall's warning - which is partly based on ISA reports - and his appeal to rabbis to foil such an action."
The editors believe that "The good news is that the public is increasingly aware of the consequences of such an attack in the wake of the various reports," but add that "the bad
news is that an isolated, crazy person is not affected by reports and is not usually beholden to any rabbi."
For its part, Haaretz criticized the Israeli army’s tactic of closing off the various Palestinian Authority-controlled areas from each other as a "real tool of severe and collective punishment," and says that it "lacks even a pretense of having a security purpose."
The strategy might lead to the opposite of what it is intended for, according to Haaretz’s editors. They believe that the effect of the encirclement is minimal," because "For terrorists seeking to move between villages or enter Israeli territory, closure and encirclement in the territories pose no serious difficulties," and argue that "the suffering imposed on the general population is indiscriminate. The pain and damage caused to the weak is often unbearable."
"The plain fact remains that the Palestinian people, although suffering greatly from the policies of closure and encirclement, are not pressuring their leaders to end the Intifada." – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
