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After a brief lull before the Israeli elections, violence has returned to Israel and the Palestinian areas. Palestinian groups have sharply increased their attacks and rhetoric in the wake of the election victory of the right wing hard liner Ariel Sharon. This week at least five Palestinians and ten Israelis have been killed. Nine of the Israelis died in a single attack on Wednesday morning. Itīs the largest daily death toll for the Israelis since the start of the Palestinian uprising, the Intifada. Pamphlets distributed by Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement have shrilly announced a period of bloodletting, to prove Sharon wrong in his assertion that he can restore tranquility. The number of shooting attacks on Israelis in the Palestinian territories has increased dramatically. Last week, just days after Sharon's election victory a bomb exploded in Jerusalem. The Israeli response has been as harsh as during the peak of the Intifada in October and November last year. The Israelis have resumed their policy of targeting militant Palestinians. On Tuesday they fired rockets from helicopter gunships over Gaza, killing a suspected Hezbollah operative who was also a senior member of Arafat's presidential guard. In their response to the shooting attacks the Israelis have returned fire indiscriminately, according to the Palestinians, often killing innocent people. In the wake of the escalation in violence earlier in the week, Wednesday morning a Palestinian driver rammed his bus into a group of Israeli soldiers and civilians, waiting for lifts in central Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Barak immediately vowed revenge. The official Palestinian reaction was very different. An aide to Yasser Arafat said Israel should blame itself for this attack. He referred to the Israeli helicopter attack on Gaza which took place less than 24 hours before the bus incident. It is clear now that the relative calm before the Israeli elections was only a temporary measure by the Palestinians, intended to aid Prime Minister Barak. The Israelis didn't take advantage of the relative calm then to ease their punitive measures against the Palestinian population. Now the situation is as explosive as it was at the beginning of the Initfada. Despite Yasser Arafat's official stance of taking a wait-and-see attitude towards the Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon, his commanders in the field are once again cranking up the pressure. The Israeli army, knowing full well that Sharon will not show as much restraint as Barak, may feel freer to respond even more forcefully. In the meantime, Sharon is using the increase in violence to pressure Barak's Labour party into forming a coalition of national unity, making his rule more secure. Those with political ambitions continue to play with fire, risking not only their own lives but perhaps risking the creation of a spark that will ignite the world.
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