By Gong Shaopeng

Using a tunnel, armed elements from radical Palestinian factions attacked an Israeli post in the Gaza Strip on June 25. They killed two Israeli soldiers, abducted another and demanded the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government responded strongly to the attack, sending troops to the southern Gaza Strip on June 28 in an attempt to free the hostage by force.

More than half a month has passed, and the situation remains grave. There is still no sign of Gilad Shalit, the kidnapped Israeli soldier. Israeli troops have detained a number of high-ranking officials of the Hamas cabinet, while others went into hiding. Furthermore, Israeli troops entered the northern Gaza Strip after the coastal city of Ashkelon came under rocket attack on July 5.

The escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is by no means accidental. Instead, it is the outcome of changes taking place within Israeli and Palestinian political structures over the past 10 months.

Israel, under former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, completed its pullout from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. The pullout brought new hope, slim as it was, to the stalled Israel-Palestine peace process. But the withdrawal was a unilateral act, not entirely in line with the Quartet Roadmap worked out by the United States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations. Moreover, Israel, in the course of withdrawing, met the needs of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) headed by President Mahmoud Abbas. People had reason to believe that more extensive co-operation would take place between the two sides.

Credit for the successful unilateral pullout largely went to Sharon. The former premier enjoyed great prestige among Israelis for his outstanding military role demonstrated in the five Middle East wars, though he was portrayed as a cold-blooded butcher by some international media. Moreover, Sharon had insight into security matters. His words counted as to where Israel should yield and where it should not. Sharon's unique experience as a soldier and his political astuteness largely drove Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Sharon decided to withdraw from Gaza because he was deeply convicted that peace could be guaranteed only after the Israelis and Palestinians ceased all hostilities. After the completion of the Gaza withdrawal, he also entertained the idea of disengagement from the West Bank.

Sharon naturally encountered opposition from hardliners within the Likud Party, led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

So Sharon broke from the party and founded Kadima, which rallied many Israeli political heavyweights such as former Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, incumbent Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and elder statesman Shimon Peres.

The founding of the Kadima Party disrupted the old framework in which the Labour and Likud parties ruled the country alternately. A new tri-polar structure was thus ushered in.

Had it not been for the stroke that incapacitated Sharon on January 6, Kadima would have won more seats at the Knesset elections slated for March 28.

Therefore, Olmert took over both as the head of Kadima and as Israeli prime minister. He sticks to the disengagement policy but lacks Sharon's experience as a military strongman and, in turn, his prestige. The stance of many Israelis, who backed Sharon's unilateral plans, started to waver.

Caught in this stark reality, Olmert had to appear more hawkish than Sharon where Israel's Palestine policy was concerned. So whenever new Israel-Palestine conflicts broke out, Israel hit back with an "iron fist." Otherwise, Likud, headed by Netanyahu, would have driven Olmert from office, citing the latter's impotence in guaranteeing Israel's security. Viewed in this general political landscape, the current military operations of the Jewish state in the Gaza Strip come as no surprise.

Important changes also occurred in the Palestinian political apparatus. The radical Hamas faction defeated the ruling Fatah in Legislative Council elections on January 28, leading to the formation of a new cabinet with Ismail Haniyeh as prime minister.

Hamas refuses to recognize the legitimacy of Israel's existence and the peace accords previously reached between Israel and the Palestinians. It also refuses to abandon the armed struggle against the Jewish state. As a result, the European Union, the United States and others, which were Palestine's financial backers, suspended their aid to the Palestinian Government.

The Haniyeh government was, therefore, caught in financial dire straits, with Palestinian civil servants going unpaid several months in a row. Meanwhile, the rift widened between Hamas and Fatah.

As a matter of fact, Hamas is not a monolithic entity. Some pragmatic Hamas politicians, for instance, believe that the ceasefire between Palestine and Israel should be maintained and that negotiations are necessary to address Israel's withdrawal from the West Bank and other issues. Other Hamas politicians, those currently living in Syria and Lebanon in particular, adopt radical political stances, refusing to yield an inch from the hard line policy towards Israel. In between are relatively moderate politicians, who make up the majority of the Haniyeh cabinet.

Taking into account the current impasse, some pragmatic Hamas politicians and their Fatah peers, who are in Israeli jails, jointly worked out an 18-point accord, calling for Hamas-Fatah unity and suggesting that President Mahmoud Abbas preside over peace talks with Israel.

Based on this agreement, Fatah held a few rounds of negotiations with Hamas. The Haniyeh cabinet was on the verge of accepting this accord when radical Palestinian faction elements attacked the Israeli post in Gaza Strip and took Gilad Shalit hostage. Israel's military operations in the region followed as a result.

The unilateral withdrawal and disengagement policy was designed to bring about peaceful co-existence between the Israelis and Palestinians.

This approach is hard to implement in reality. But it has been the only feasible way in which to end hostilities since the Israel-Palestine peace process grounded to a halt in September 2000. In the view of this author, the unilateral disengagement should not go unheeded. The way out, it seems, lies in linking unilateral disengagement and the Quartet Roadmap with the founding of a Palestinian state and the realization of peaceful co-existence.

To everyone's regret, however, the hostage crisis and Israel's current military operations in the Gaza Strip threaten to bury the unilateral disengagement plan once and for all. If this happens, the Israel-Palestine peace process would backtrack dramatically and people on the two sides would be plunged into a new round of hatred and bloodshed.

To avoid this scenario, Israel should immediately stop its military operations in the Gaza Strip and the radical Palestinian factions should cease their assaults against the targets within Israel. Relevant parties that have leverage should step up intermediary efforts to see that the Israeli hostage is released unconditionally as soon as possible.

The author is an international relations professor with the China Foreign Affairs University.
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(China Daily July 10, 2006)