Posted on 28-1-2003

Political Pathology In Israel
By Alan Marston

In a transparently selfish political move, two days before the Israeli
elections, Israel's defense minister said today that the army was weighing
a reoccupation of the Gaza Strip, hours after soldiers killed 12
Palestinians in the deepest raid into this densely populated city in more
than two years of conflict. Once again Palestine is cynically used to
promote political-economic interests, both by the Israeli politicians,
their international supporters and also a number of Palestinian groups
seeking political and personal influence.

Meantime the vast majority of Palestinians suffer the fate of pawns in the
deadly game of politics and business.

Describing the closing as an effort to prevent terrorist attacks while
Israelis go to the polls, Israel halted all Palestinian travel, which was
already severely restricted, between Palestinian cities and across the
boundaries of the West Bank and Gaza. It also barred Palestinians from the
border crossings with Egypt and Jordan.

The Gaza raid, which the army called a response to Palestinian rocket
attacks, came on a day when candidates of the right and left barnstormed
Israel in the waning hours of the campaign. Polls continued to show a
commanding lead for Likud, the party of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Israel's left-of-center Labor Party was struggling to achieve a distant
second place, trying to fend off a challenge from Shinui, a secular faction
seeking to curtail state subsides for the religious.

As helicopter gunships churned the air overhead in the predawn hours here
today, dozens of armored vehicles penetrated almost to Palestine Square,
the heart of this city of 300,000. Soldiers dynamited more than a dozen
metal shops and destroyed 100 metal-working lathes that the army said were
used to make rockets and mortar bombs for terrorist groups. Palestinians
described the shops as innocuous.

Most if not all of those killed were gunmen, slain by gunfire and rockets
launched from helicopters when they tried to repel the Israeli soldiers.
The Israeli forces wounded dozens more and destroyed several Palestinian
homes in the course of wrecking the metal shops. No soldiers were hurt.
Fighting appeared to have been fiercest in a central market here. In the
scorched, acrid remains of the stalls today, hundreds of children with
soot-blackened hands scavenged charred clothes and grimy perfume bottles.

In the Rafah refugee camp south of here, Palestinian hospital officials
said Ali Alghraiz, 8, was shot dead by Israeli fire, and his brother Allah,
5, was seriously wounded, while the boys played in front of their house.

Tonight, the Israeli parties unleashed a final round of state-sponsored
advertising. Likud continued to rely on its standard-bearer, and its
bouncy, energetic jingle — "The People want Sharon" — played as the prime
minister was shown purposefully striding through a field. At rallies, Mr.
Sharon urged voters to forswear smaller factions and support Likud so that
he would be able to form a stable governing coalition.

Amram Mitzna, the Labor leader, used his remaining advertising time to
appeal to Labor voters, many of whom have drifted to Shinui and other
parties, to return home. "Let us not wake up on Wednesday morning and feel
how we have missed our chance to bring our country back to the sane way, to
the straight way, to the way of peace," said Mr. Mitzna, the mayor of Haifa
and, like Mr. Sharon, a former general.

Palestinians accused Mr. Sharon of ordering the raid here to motivate his
core voters to go to the polls. "Why this massive retaliation?" asked Ziad
Abu Amr, a Palestinian legislator and political scientist, noting that Mr.
Sharon was campaigning on a reputation for fierce military action. The
raid, he said, "will enhance his position and the position of his party,
and it does not involve any risk to him."

Some Palestinians have been quoted as saying they are going to `review' the
suicide bombing that is used as an excuse by Israeli business, military and
politicians to evict Palestine from their homeland.