The special horror of the terrorists’ bomb is only heightened when it shatters a period of apparent peace. The Israeli people are reeling from the same sense of double shock which hit Britain two weeks ago. Not only was the bomb on Jaffa Road devastating in its destruction of human life, but it came after a six-month lull in Hamas activity during which there were hopes that the Islamist movement might be shifting away from the use of terror.
On the face of it, the Hamas bombing merely delivered the “response” which had been threatened after the Israeli assasination of the movement’s “engineer”, Yahya Ayyash on January 5. The Israeli action was regrettably short-sighted, satisfying an all-too familiar instinct for revenge without regard for its longer strategic effect.
Yet there were still grounds for believing that the tacit Hamas truce would hold. Earlier this month a Hamas representative, while reiterating that the Jihad continued, said it might be “suspended”. He also stressed that Hamas operated over a wide range of non-military activities and was “not obsessed with the concept of war”.
If Hamas — or a more militant element within it — has resumed operations, the motive is unlikely to have been just tit-for-tat revenge. Here the British parallel is reversed. It would not be because the peace process is lagging behind that the bombs have been planted, but because it is going so fast.
Whatever the flaws in the Palestinian elections, they have to a large extent validated the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) hegemony.
Shimon Peres has advanced the election date to May, seeking a new mandate for peace. “Final status” talks with the PLO are due to start in the same month.
Peres said this week that he must carry on: there was the risk of terror whether or not he continued the search for peace. His task, racing against the electoral clock, is to convince the Israeli public not to be driven by anger or fear into the rejectionist camp.