Sharon will pay for Yassin's assassination

By: George S. Hishmeh*

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Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has very possibly miscalculated. Sharon, whom many Arabs call the "Butcher of Sabra and Shatila" - the Palestinian camps where refugees were massacred under his watch during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon more than 20 years ago - will suffer the consequences of the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, spiritual leader and founder of Hamas.

He may have dealt Palestinians a black eye, but the Israeli leader's action may be more crippling to his admirer, President Bush, who always considered him "a man of peace". This second punch followed a damaging blow from another former official of his administration - the anti-terrorism czar - who was incensed by Bush's projection of himself as having done "such great things about terrorism".

According to Richard A. Clarke, the United States counter-terrorism co-ordinator, who served four US administrations, Bush "failed to act prior to September 11, 2001, on the threat from Al Qaida despite repeated warnings and then harvested a political windfall for taking obvious, yet insufficient steps after the attacks."

The rapid shift of focus to Saddam Hussain, Clarke writes in his recently published book, "launched an unnecessary and costly war in Iraq that strengthened the fundamentalist, radical Islamic terrorist movement worldwide."

Sharon began his political offensive, to the surprise and suspicion of friend and foe alike, by dangling his suggestion for a unilateral Israeli pullout from most of the Gaza Strip - weeks later he amended that to include a total withdrawal - because there was no Palestinian peace partner.

And then, days before he finally agreed to a meeting with his Palestinian counterpart, Ahmed Qorei, to work out the details, he reversed his position because of a suicide bombing. One would have thought he would have gone ahead with his proposal to avoid any such deplorable acts against civilians in the future.

It it now evident that Sharon also wanted to give the entire Arab world a black eye, whose leaders are scheduled to meet in Tunis this coming weekend. The anticipation, here and in the Arab world, has been that the Arab leaders were ready to adopt some forward-looking measures on democracy.

These would be based on home-grown ideas rather than on an American model, and that they would revive an updated version of the Arab peace initiative, championed by Saudi Arabia, that promised full normalisation of ties provided Israel ended the occupation of Palestinian lands.

Jordan and Egypt, the two Arab states to have signed peace treaties with Israel, have been at the forefront of the 22-member Arab League in championing such an outcome. King Abdullah of Jordan recently travelled to Sharon's ranch in southern Israel to explain the Arab ideas.

But Sharon has long feared such steps from the Arabs, and in fact sent his bureau chief, Dov Weisglass, to London and Washington last month to discredit these ideas which apparently interested some officials there.

The Jerusalem Post, quoting Israeli diplomatic sources, revealed late last month that Israel was hoping "to dampen [western] support" for a revival of the Saudi initiative that "now includes a renewed call for international forces" in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian areas.

Israel has always opposed the presence of foreign troops on the borders between the Palestinian and Israeli sides because it claimed it can no longer pursue any infiltrator as it has been doing in its policy of targeted assassinations.

But Sharon's real motive has been his fear that the presence of an international force would compel him to pull back his troops to the pre-1967 lines, something he opposes vehemently and something the United Nations has demanded.

The pre-dawn killing of Sheikh Yassin, the quadriplegic and partially blind founder of Hamas, by a missile fired from an Israeli helicopter as he was leaving a mosque near his Spartan home, torpedoed any hopes of a resumption of peace negotiations. In the three years of the intifada, about 3,000 Palestinians and over 850 Israelis have been killed.

How could Sharon escape condemnation for this odious action sanctioned by his supposedly democratic government? How could this be excused as merely a reaction to anything undertaken by desperate and lawless Palestinian elements? Why couldn't Israeli forces, for example, arrest Sheikh Yassin, who at one time spent eight years in an Israeli jail?

It is shocking that the US government's reaction would only go as far as saying it was "badly troubled" by this killing. Sharon must have hoped that his dastardly act would sidetrack the Arab summit and paralyse any Arab initative.

King Abdullah put it aptly: "We are annoyed and pained by what happened despite our arduous and persistent efforts with all sides, including the Israeli government, to refrain from its policy of military escalation."

A fed-up Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, as one wire agency described him, told reporters when asked about the impact of Sheikh Yassin's assassination, "What peace process, when the situation is on fire?"

Mubarak, who recently held talks with Israeli leaders on ways of resuming the peace process and is scheduled to meet Bush next month, said Egypt was aborting its efforts to get the negotiations back on track.

But Arab leaders meeting in Tunis must remember that they have another serious challenge on hand and no one would fault them for taking any appropriate action on this score. They should, however, pursue their original intention of laying the foundations for a more open society, which in the long run, will defeat these Israeli machinations and improve the image of Arabs and Muslims.

In the end, the true losers in this endless encounter remain Sharon's mindless supporters, especially those in the Bush administration, who could possibly face a knockout blow next November for their shoddy performance.

* An Arab American columnist living in Washington.