Itching To Escalate

Smuggled arms seizure pushes Arafat, Sharon further apart.

men. But Israel is working
on the assumption that the
Palestinians — either Arafat's
myriad security services or
radicals like Hamas and
Islamic Jihad — are now
capable of escalating the con-
flict.
How, then, would Israel
respond?
"More of the same," predicts
Ron Ben-Ishai, Yediot
Acharonot's military analyst.
Defying international criticism,
he suggested, the army would
enter Palestinian-controlled
areas on a search operation
whenever a Katyusha was fired.
They would stay longer, a few
hours, arguing that they had to
conduct house-to-house
searches.
They would impose more
closures, tighten the siege on
Palestinian communities. And
Israeli hit squads would also
likely aim higher within the
Palestinian military hierarchy,
killing senior commanders
Israel blames for attacks on its
citizens.

ERIC SILVER

Israel Correspondent

Jerusalem

T

he intifada took a
fateful stride from
popular uprising
towards war this
week with news that the
Palestinians are stockpiling
longer-range, more lethal
weapons that could threaten
Ashkelon and Tel Aviv, as well as
paralyzing flights from Ben-
Gurion international airport.
If the Palestinians fire them at
targets inside Israel, it will not
only raise the level of combat
but make it harder than ever for
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to
maintain a balance between his
military and political objectives
— and for the Americans and
the Europeans to coax the parties
back to the negotiating table.
Israeli patrol boats, backed by
spotter planes and helicopters,
intercepted a Lebanese boat
Israeli army o tcers inspect weapons found in a fishing
smuggling Katyusha surface-to-
surface rockets, shoulder-launched boat allegedly bound for the Gaza Strip, in the northern
Strella anti-aircraft missiles, and an Israeli coastal town of Haifa on May 7.
arsenal of shells, mortars, anti-
Dead Sea from Jordan, and even in
tank grenades and land mines
Balancing Act
Yasser Arafat's private jet.
from northern Lebanon to Gala.
Prime Minister Sharon has accused
It is not known how many of the
The crew told their interrogators that
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat of
earlier
weapons
reached
their
destina-
this was the fourth such cargo they had
organizing the traffic in arms barred to
tion.
The
smugglers
routinely
seal
carried on the same route. Other carri-
the Palestinians under the 1993 Oslo
them
in
drums
and
throw
them
over-
ers are suspected of smuggling arms
accords.
board to be picked up by Gaza fisher-
through tunnels from Egypt, across the

Rights And Wrongs

U.S. ouster from rights panel prompts new Israel-bashing fears.

MICHAEL J. JORDAN

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

New York

N

ovv that the United States has
been booted off the U.N.
Commission on Human
Rights, Jewish activists pre-
dict it will be open season on Israel at
the world's leading human rights body.
During the seven months of Israeli-
Palestinian violence, the Geneva-

5/11
2001

30

based commission has already accused
Israel of war crimes and crimes against
humanity, and it issued reports and
passed resolutions that Israel has
deemed one-sided.
What's next? Some predict the corn-
mission just might dust off and rein-
troduce the notorious 1975 resolution
that equated Zionism with racism.
In a stunning vote May 4, the 53-
member organization ousted the United
States, effectively replacing it with Sudan,

which has been in the spotlight lately for
its state-sanctioned slavery trade.
With three seats available for the
West, the United States came in
fourth behind France, Sweden and
Austria in the vote.
It's unclear what exactly led up to
America's removal, but analysts suggest
a range of factors:
• China, stinging from the spy-plane
incident, sought to embarrass
Washington and deflect attention from

Sharon told foreign correspondents
on Tuesday: "This is a very dangerous
development. Only the Palestinian
Authority has the means to collect
such quantities of weapons. It under-
lines the intentions of the Palestinian
Authority. Arafat would like to get as
much as possible by negotiations, but
is preparing himself to get more
through pressure in the future."
Even before the smugglers were
arrested, the Israel Defense Force had
adopted a more aggressive response to
Palestinian provocations. Sharon and
his defense minister, Binyamin Ben-
Eliezer, had given local commanders a
free hand to cross into Palestinian-
controlled territory, as long as they got
out quickly afterwards.
Yet two months after he was sworn
in at the head of a national-unity coali-
tion, the burly old warrior has learned
the same hard lesson as his Labor pred-
ecessor, Ehud Barak. There is no short
cut to the "peace with security" he
promised in his election campaign.
"It will not be easy," he confessed to
the foreign media. "It will not take
one day, it will not take one month. It
will be a long struggle."
Israel, under governments of right or
left, faces a constant battle to balance
force with diplomacy, deterrence in a
hostile Middle East with its claim to
international legitimacy.
For their part, the Palestinians are
dismayed by Sharon's refusal to stop
expanding settlements, a daily affront
to their hopes of a viable state, and by
his repudiation of Barak's quest for a
peace agreement.
The Likud leader rejected out of
hand a call by an international com-
mittee, headed by ex-U.S. Sen.
George Mitchell, to freeze all settle-

ESCALATE on page 32

its own poor human rights record;
• The Europeans, trying to play a
greater role on the world stage, were
irritated by recent shows of U.S. uni-
lateralism;
• Arab states were outraged by what
they view as continued U.S. protec-
tion of Israel, especially its recent veto
of a U.N. Security Council move to
send peacekeepers into the West Bank
and Gaza Strip; and
• The actions of the Bush adminis-
tration itself — for being, as some
have described, "asleep at the wheel"
and neglecting the requisite behind-
the-scenes lobbying.
While some described the ouster as I
blow to "American prestige," observers

