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| MIDEAST Analysts see pause in uprising Acts of terrorism said to strengthen US-Israel relations By Charles A. Radin, Globe Staff, 9/13/2001 Increased US-Israeli security cooperation and deepened divisions
between moderate Arabs and Islamic fundamentalists are also anticipated,
analysts said.
''It means big changes in the area and for the Palestinians,'' said
Jazir al Wazir, head of the Palestinian World Trade Center in Gaza, one of
320 international affiliates of the New York trade center, where Wazir
believes his friends and associates all are dead.
''Now the intifada [the uprising] should stop,'' he said. ''It has no
point. No one will care if 100 Palestinians get killed.''
In the aftermath of the attacks on US targets in New York and
Washington, D.C., there were several signs that Palestinian leaders were
redeploying into what observers called a defensive posture.
The Palestinian Authority president, Yasser Arafat, canceled a
much-ballyhooed trip to Syria, which is accused by the United States of
supporting terrorism. Before the attacks, the trip would have put
considerable pressure on moderate Arab states such as Egypt and Jordan.
Now, said Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic
Studies at Bar Ilan University, ''it would just have put him in bad
company.''
In Jenin, a city in the north of the occupied Palestinian territories
from which most of the recent suicide bombers in Israel have departed on
their missions, Israeli forces struck hard at suspected terrorists,
killing at least eight militants and the young sister of one of the men.
But instead of the calls for vengeance that have typically marked
occassions of intense bloodshed, top Palestinian officials yesterday
called for restraint. After Israel moved tanks into Jericho last night,
they accused Israel of using outrage at the terror attacks as cover for
intensifying pressure on all Palestinians.
Azmi Bishara, an Arab member of the Israeli Parliament, said most
Palestinians are ''angry and sad and also have fears about the
consequences for them of this attack ... There is a lot of pressure on
Arafat to stop what [Americans and Israelis] call Palestinian terrorism.
There is a debate in Palestinian society on this issue. Half considers
killing civilians an act of terrorism.''
Ra'anan Gissin, spokeman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the
attacks on the United States did not alter the nature of the war against
terror that Jews in Israel have been fighting with Palestinians, but they
did change the perceptions of the world in general and the United States
in particular.
''It strengthens US-Israel relations,'' Gissin said. ''It puts us in
the same boat, fighting for a free society and our way of life against
people who want to destroy it, and out of the chaos create some sort of
Islamic republic.''
The United States and Israel have shared intelligence for decades, but
many Israeli analysts contend the attacks, and the apparent major lapses
in security and intelligence that helped make them possible, would move
the relationship toward more active forms of cooperation.
''The Israeli counterterrorist experience is, unfortunately, richer
than the American one,'' Inbar said.
''Americans are very good at electronic intelligence, and Israel is
very good at human intelligence,'' he said. ''It is necessary to train
people to infiltrate Islamic organizations, something the Americans have
been reluctant to do'' because of the US respect for civil rights and
aversion to acting against religious groups.
Inbar said it was clear that the attacks in New York and Washington had
to have logistics, support, and information supplied by locals and that
this would drive home to US authorities the need to gather intelligence in
what Israel says is a highly developed Islamic fundamentalist network in
the United States.
On the Israeli side of the equation, Inbar and others say they believe
the US government's unwillingness to stop the flow of funds from
fundamentalist Muslims in America to Hamas and other militant
organizations in the Middle East may now change.
Shlomo Aronson, a professor of political science at Hebrew University
who specializes in terror in Mideast politics, said the American reaction
to the attacks also will help deepen divisions between moderate and
extremist Muslims.
''How to make governments more ready to ignore popular sentiment in the
street,'' which often is fiercely anti-American and anti-Israeli, ''has
been a central problem and tragedy in the Arab world,'' he said.
President Bush and other top US officials have said they expect
moderate Arab states to put a halt to operations by militant groups within
their borders.
But, in dealing with this issue, Israel and the United States must be
careful not to alienate moderates and thus ''unite every Muslim behind
what happened'' in New York and Washington.
At the same time pressure on the militants is increased, he said, ''we
must be encouraging to those who are horrified.''
Charles A. Radin may be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED].
This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on
9/13/2001. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/256/nation/Analysts_see_pause_in_uprisingP.shtml |
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