Once Hopeful, Israeli-Palestinian Relations Fray

In the eight days since his release from a Palestinian jail, Abdulaziz Rantisi, a radical Islamic leader, has greeted busloads of admirers and gloated at the abysmal state of relations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

“The crisis is completely predictable,” Rantisi said Monday in the parlor of his home in the Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis. After seven years in Israeli prisons, then two more years under Palestinian arrest, the co-founder of the fundamentalist Hamas movement chooses his words carefully. But his contempt for Israel and for making peace with the Jewish state remains clear.

“Palestinians cannot negotiate with Israel,” he said.

Rantisi’s release last week came as negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, aimed at a final, comprehensive peace settlement, in effect collapsed. Many saw freedom for Rantisi, who has repeatedly advocated armed struggle against Israel, as a message from Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak that violence indeed remains a tool at the Palestinians’ disposal.

With relations between Israel and the Palestinians sinking to their lowest level since Barak’s election nine months ago, and with Palestinians furious over Israel’s retaliatory bombing of Lebanon for attacks against Israeli soldiers, security officials from both camps are warning that the likelihood of terror attacks or rioting is growing.

“We are controlling it for now, but it may not be in our hands,” Mohammed Dahlan, Arafat’s head of internal security in the Gaza Strip, said in an interview Monday. “In one second, everything can explode.”

The threat of violence is a familiar one coming from Palestinian leaders, and it may be an empty one, made as part of the posturing and rhetoric that accompany the process of negotiation.

Still, an alleged member of Hamas blew himself up last week as he prepared a car bomb near the West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli authorities said. Hundreds of people turned out for his funeral. This week, security around Israel’s major cities was stepped up, with additional police guards and army troops posted at checkpoints, shopping centers, bus depots and other crowded public spots. Israeli news media quoted military intelligence reports predicting terrorist attacks.

A new poll, conducted by an independent Palestinian think tank, found that a growing number of Palestinians is advocating violence against Israel. In the last two months, the figure rose from 36% to 43% of respondents, the highest level since June of last year, before Barak took office, according to the Center for Palestine Research and Studies.

The anger stems from the stalemate in the talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Expectations were raised sky high when Barak came to power, and he immediately lay down an energetic timetable that called for a final settlement with the Palestinians by September. Palestinian leaders were carried away by the enthusiasm of the time, convinced that Barak was an Israeli they could deal with after the nadir years of his predecessor, right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Soon, however, Barak was distracted by sudden progress in negotiations with Syria. The Palestinians became an afterthought. And even when Israel’s talks with Syria faltered, a sudden escalation in fighting in southern Lebanon further shoved the Palestinian agenda to the back of his notebook.

A key deadline--set by Barak and accepted by Arafat--to draft a preliminary accord was missed Sunday; the program for handing West Bank land over to the Palestinians is months behind schedule; building in Jewish settlements in the West Bank continues; and Israel has refused to entertain Arafat’s demand for control of a couple of suburbs east of Jerusalem.

On Monday, while Barak insisted that a deal was still possible, there were no formal contacts between the two sides and no plans to resume talks that just a few months ago seemed destined to make headway.

The two sides pointed fingers of blame, and each questioned whether the other was really serious. The so-called final-status issues before them are the most basic and difficult: the status of Jerusalem, refugees, final borders, the ultimate nature of the Palestinian entity.

Looking for ways out of the deadlock, Arafat demanded urgent intervention by American mediators--apparently because he thinks this would pry concessions out of the Israelis. But the arrival of the Clinton administration’s special envoy, Dennis B. Ross, scheduled for today, was put off for a week.

In Morocco at an Islamic conference, Arafat delivered a hard-line speech Monday that reflected the Palestinian mood. He said the current crisis has created a “dangerous and explosive situation”; he praised Islamic Hezbollah guerrillas who have killed seven Israeli soldiers in the last three weeks of battle in southern Lebanon; and he reaffirmed his intention to declare an independent Palestinian state by September--whether or not an agreement with Israel is reached.

Four of Barak’s ministers are reported to have urged him, at this week’s Cabinet meeting, to refocus his attention on the Palestinian “track” of negotiations. At the same meeting, Barak told the Cabinet that he believed Palestinian terrorist groups would attempt an attack in the near future to “sabotage” the peace process.

Some Israeli officials believe that the Palestinians will stage a violent outburst to capture the spotlight. Security chief Dahlan vehemently denied such a plan, but he did say that the “daily message” that Palestinians receive is that violence works. In Lebanon, Hezbollah is able to force Israel to retreat by waging war, while Palestinian leaders who attempt to make peace are “humiliated” and frustrated, he said.