Israelis lose faith in military solution
Wave of Palestinian attacks causes re-evaluation of Sharon's hardline tactics

Suzanne Goldenberg in Karnei Shomron, West Bank
Monday February 18, 2002
The Guardian

A devastating wave of Palestinian attacks on the symbols of Israeli military occupation - a Jewish settlement, an army base and a road block - struck Israel to its core this weekend, badly shaking its faith in the warrior prime minister, Ariel Sharon.

In the Jewish settlement of Karnei Shomron yesterday, sobbing girls linked arms and quietly sang at a vigil for two teenagers blown up by a suicide bomber. But the adults of this West Bank outpost were overcome by anger - much of it directed against Mr Sharon, who they say has failed to live up to his 50-year legacy of crushing Israel's Arab enemies.

"As of right now, what I see from the results is that this man has failed," said Bob Duchanov, a builder from New York who has lived in Karnei Shomron for 17 years. "There is no security in the country."

As if on cue, three hours later came another suicide bombing which, though thwarted, deepened a feeling of unease amid a spate of attacks that have killed seven Israelis since Thursday night.

"Ariel Sharon's strategy is collapsing," said the Ma'ariv newspaper. "At this stage, as difficult as it may be to say so openly, the Palestinians are losing the battles to a superior force, but Israel is losing the war."

In Ma'ariv's weekend opinion polls, some 49% of Israelis agreed, saying the "national leadership has lost control of the security situation".

However, 44% disagreed, reflecting what the paper's political analyst, Hemi Shalev, called "steadily growing confusion" as Mr Sharon fails to deliver a political or a military solution to 17 months of bloodshed.

Three policemen were injured in yesterday's foiled bombing of an army base in Pardes Hanna. Two Palestinians - the bomber, who blew himself up after a police chase, and another man - were also killed.

The two suicide attacks follow the killing of an Israeli soldier at a roadblock near Ramallah on Friday night.

The attacks suggest new levels of sophistication by Palestinian militants, targeting soldiers and Jewish settlements - which are considered illegal under international law - rather than civilians in Israeli cities in an apparent attempt to mute international criticism.

Saturday night's attack was also a double first: the first time a suicide bomber has penetrated a heavily guarded Jewish settlement, and the first time the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine has used a suicide bomber, usually the preserve of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The force of the explosion embedded nails in walls 25 metres from the pizza counter where a house painter from the West Bank town of Qalqiliya - himself a teenager of 18 - blew himself up, shattering the windows in seven nearby shops and killing Keren Shatsky, aged 14, and Nehemiah Amar, 16. The mall, built less than a year ago, is a magnet for teenagers: Keren was waiting for her mates after planning a surprise birthday party for a friend.

In destroying such innocent pleasures, Palestinian militants magnified doubts about Mr Sharon's strategy for dealing with the uprising, which includes assassinations, tank invasions of the West Bank and Gaza, and the bombing of Palestinian security installations by F-16 warplanes.

Israeli helicopters fired missiles on security installations in the West Bank city of Nablus early yesterday, and tanks roared into the el-Buriej refugee camp in Gaza on Saturday, killing three Palestinian police. In the West Bank city of Jenin, a Hamas commander was blown up by a car bomb.

For the adults of Karnei Shomron, it was not enough. "After more than a year of this, we should have been able to see results," said Yitzhak Shwartz, whose photography shop was gutted by the blast. "Sharon has no plan. The job of this government is to defend its citizens and it is not doing that. It doesn't solve our problems to blow up empty buildings. It does not do anything."

For many here, there was a disturbing synchronicity to events. As Keren Shatsky waited for her friends at Karnei Shomron, barely an hour's drive away in Tel Aviv the Israeli left was mustering for a peace demonstration.

The turnout by past standards was hardly impressive - charitably placed at 5,000 people - but it was the largest since the start of the Palestinian uprising, and a sign of the growing radicalisation of the Israeli left as well as the right.

Opinion polls at the weekend showed 35% of Israelis support what is coyly known here as "transfer" - the wholesale expulsion of the Palestinians - and there is a growing clamour to re-invade and re-occupy the entirety of the territories.

"Let them go into every single Arab city and make the 90% of them who are good point out the 10% of them who are rotten apples, and get rid of all the rotten apples," said Mr Duchanov. "Forget what the world says - let's do what has to be done."


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