The name of the latest Israeli army operation, Fine Tuning 1, is laden with layers of meaning. In its most literal sense the ‘fine tuning’ refers to the assassination of militia leaders, whom the Israelis this weekend said they will now systematically kill where and when they find them unless Palestinian security forces can arrest them first.
It is a line too from a mawkish Hebrew song, but above all it is a pun on the sound-alike Hebrew for ‘targeted missile’. What it really means was writ in the blood and metal of the Apache helicopter attack in Gaza last week that ripped apart the car and bodies of Hamas political leader Ismail Abu Shanab and two bodyguards. It was a response to the suicide bombing on a bus full of Jews returning from prayers at the Wailing Wall that killed 20, six of them children.
Facing a fresh storm of violence, Palestinian leaders said yesterday that they would try to broker a new halt to attacks by extremist groups and urged Israel to stop tit-for-tat killings. But Palestinian officials admitted the chances of preventing an all-out new war were slim, destroying hope for progress along the US-backed ‘road map’ peace plan.
Israeli soldiers have retaken positions in and around Palestinian towns in the West Bank and have reappeared at Gaza checkpoints. Tanks are again patrolling empty Palestinian streets to enforce curfews and hunt for suspects.
It reflects the futile intractability of this simmering conflict. Operation Fine Tuning 1 has followed Operation Wheels of Momentum, Operations Root Canal One, Two and Three, and even Operation Maybe This Time, all of which followed Operation Defensive Shield, none of which has stemmed the violence. After occupation, closure, demolitions and incursions, the message to militants is that they face a campaign of widespread assassination.
On Friday, Maariv newspaper published photos of 34 top Palestinian militants on a deck of cards in an imitation of those handed out to US soldiers in Iraq. ‘The bottom line,’ said one analyst, ‘is that, if the Palestinians don’t round these guys up, the Israelis will kill someone.’ That is the ‘fine tuning’.
Hamas and the suicide bombers of Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades don’t bother with snappy titles for their operations.
But if Hamas had come up with one last week before Hebron imam Abdel-Hamid Mask left home to bomb the Number 2 bus, it would have been Operation Kill the Road Map. Or they could have called it Operation Destroy-the-Credibility-of Mahmoud-Abbas, the Palestinian Prime Minister whose brief influence in command is rapidly slipping away.
But Hamas is not alone responsible for ending the ceasefire — or hudna — negotiated by Abbas with the militant factions. Its collapse has shown up the fatal lack of commitment to peace of both Ariel Sharon’s government and the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Now both sides are pessimistic. In Friday’s Yediot Aharonot newspaper, columnist Alex Fishman wrote: ‘Now we have to prepare for the possibility that we will return once again to a whirlpool of blood, days of tension and battle … that might deteriorate into all-out warfare.’
More than half the Israelis polled in that paper expected an increase in terrorism again. Fewer than 40% supported Israel advancing a peace process one diplomat described last week as ‘only surreally continuing’.
Khalid Amiyreh, a journalist based in Hebron, said: ‘Sharon did not like the hudna because it seemed to bring things to a semblance of a draw. In the oblique balance of power it seemed to give the Palestinians the advantage by taking a moral high ground because it was unilateral and because the Palestinian Authority had not tied the Israelis into the ceasefire.’
For their part Israelis say that, despite the decrease of violence of the hudna , it did not really matter as the PA had still failed to move against the militant factions – as it was committed to do under the road map – and the ceasefire was breathing space for battered organisations to rebuild themselves.
Indeed, it was only after Tuesday’s suicide attack in Jerusalem that aides to Abbas said for the first time he would go after militants, something previously rejected for fear of setting off a civil war. Those plans were scrapped after Israel’s helicopter attack.
If Abbas’s prevarications are a mark of his own weakness, Operation Fine Tuning is the mark of Sharon’s political weakness. The Israeli Prime Minister is embroiled in a series of financial scandals, and beset in his own Cabinet. That Cabinet includes eight Ministers who are against the peace plan and others whose support has visibly evaporated in the last week.
The result has been a visible souring of the relationship between men who could have made a difference. Where once Sharon had entertained Abbas at his ranch — and admitted a soft spot for the Palestinian — now, say sources, he regards him as another disappointment. ‘What personal chemistry there was,’ said one, ‘appears to have gone.’
Another analyst said: ‘The reality is that both the road map and the hudna were fraying. Both sides were only doing 50%, if that, of what they needed to do. The Israelis were continuing with demolitions and incursions, the Palestinians were doing nothing about security. It only needed Hamas to throw a spanner in the works.’
Pictures of Abdel-Hamid Mask that emerged after his suicide attack on Tuesday afternoon show a stocky, cheery, bespectacled man holding his two young children. It was taken two days before he set out to make them fatherless. According to friends, the preacher was angry over the deaths of Mohammed Seder, a leader of Islamic Jihad, and a cousin, and Abdullah Qawasmeh, a Hamas leader.
According to this version of events, it was a locally ordered operation with a special meaning for the bomber, who did not fit the typical profile of suicide attacker – usually a young, single man. Many are sceptical that Hamas would allow a ‘local operation’ that broke its agreed ceasefire.
On both sides a return to serious violence has been gestating. On Israel’s side it is clear a plan had been in place for a different kind of war that would target not only the so-called military leaders but also the political leadership — those who Israel calls the ‘inciters’ — men such as Ismail Abu Shanab, and Abdel Aziz Rantisi who survived a similar assassination attempt in June.
Speaking at the funeral of Shanab on Friday, Rantisi warned that, if the current leaders are killed in the new Israeli operation, a secret leadership is ready to take over. ‘They think that targeting leaders will stop Jihad. They are mistaken,’ he said. ‘All of us in Hamas from top to bottom are looking to become like Abu Shanab.’
Abbas, who was invited to the White House to meet President Bush, for all his weakness had appeared to represent the best hope in recent years of negotiating not only an end to violence but also of delivering a viable Palestinian state.
If a resumption of violence means the end of his effective influence, both on Israelis and the militants, then not only has a ceasefire ended but it is back to square one on both sides. – Guardian Unlimited Â