Hope and Pessimism Fill the Streets

Israeli shop owner Dina Shoshana looked at the morning paper Wednesday and wept. This time her tears poured from optimism.

Shoshana has watched suicide bombers detonate themselves steps from her downtown Jerusalem store. She can tick off a list of friends and acquaintances slain by Palestinian attackers in recent years.

“The last years have been years of living in fear. We were afraid to go out, afraid to come to work,” said Shoshana, 35. “We never knew where it was going to explode next.”

It was with relief and hope that she gazed at the photograph of Israeli and Palestinian leaders shaking hands at Tuesday’s summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheik, as they pledged to end hostilities. The new Palestinian leadership is sincere about stopping the violence, Shoshana said.

“It will be better,” she said.

But her neighbor, Merav Mutayov, saw little to cheer about.

“It will change nothing,” said Mutayov, 25. “We drank tea together a lot of times. But other than drinking tea, nothing happened.”

Competing currents of hope and trepidation swirled around the region Wednesday as Israelis and Palestinians weighed the impact of the meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

For many people fatigued by a Palestinian uprising that since September 2000 has claimed more than 4,000 lives, most of them Palestinian, the summit offered the possibility of a lasting cease-fire and the chance for a longer-term solution to the conflict.

Israelis imagined life without fear of bombers or shooting attacks. Palestinians dared dream of an end to Israeli military raids and a relaxation of roadblocks and checkpoints, which they say have turned their towns into virtual prisons.

In the Gaza Strip, 42-year-old Suleiman abu Azem voiced hope that the emerging thaw would lead the Israelis to reopen border crossings to Palestinian workers. He said he had worked in Israel for 15 years and wanted to return in search of a job.

“I think that the calm is coming because the people want it. I believe 90% of the people want that,” he said. “The suffering is too much.”

Many others dismissed the leaders’ speeches as so many pretty words in a land where deep hatreds and clashing political aspirations have frustrated attempts at peace many times.

Little had changed Wednesday in the places where ordinary folk confront the daily emblems of the conflict. Israeli security guards remained planted outside stores, checking shoppers’ bags for bombs. Palestinians waited at checkpoints, if they were able to leave towns at all.

A Palestinian man died after he was wounded by what the Israeli army said were warning shots fired from a Jewish settlement in Gaza.

Early today, the military wing of Hamas said it had fired more than two dozen mortar shells and Kassam rockets at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip in retaliation. No injuries were immediately reported. The violence was the first test for the truce announced Tuesday.

“Don’t tell me about what happened yesterday,” said Palestinian taxi driver Iyad Hassan, 35, who waited for passengers Wednesday at the Kalandiyeh checkpoint in northern Jerusalem. “When I see this checkpoint removed, then I can say things are improving. Sharm and 500 other summits will have no meaning as long as this checkpoint stands.”

As residents pondered the future, Israeli and Palestinian officials sought to sustain the momentum from the summit.

Israel’s army announced it would reopen a border crossing from the Gaza Strip today, allowing 1,000 Palestinian workers and 500 merchants to enter Israel for work. The Erez crossing at the northern end of Gaza has been closed to Palestinians for months, and on the Israeli side an industrial park that once employed thousands of workers is mostly closed down.

In addition, the army said it was issuing entrance permits for 2,000 more workers from the West Bank. In another sign of change, Abbas said Israel had agreed to abandon checkpoints encircling the five towns that are to be turned over to Palestinian security: Jericho, Ramallah, Tulkarm, Bethlehem and Kalkilya.

In other developments, Egypt, which played host to Tuesday’s gathering, said it planned to send its ambassador back to Israel in a week to 10 days. Jordan also plans to return its ambassador.

The two nations, the only Arab countries that have peace treaties with Israel, withdrew their ambassadors after the current Palestinian uprising began.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has recently embraced Sharon as a man of peace and pushed for closer ties between the Arab world and Israel.

The summit also added to a recent role reversal in Israeli politics: Sharon, a former army general and longtime darling of the nation’s right, is being cheered by the left.

He had already alienated many of his backers with a plan to withdraw Jewish settlers and troops from the Gaza Strip and a section of the West Bank.

Now right-wing critics are assailing him with new fury, and a campaign to put the withdrawal plan to a referendum vote appeared to gain steam when Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Tuesday that he would play a leading role.

Meanwhile, left-leaning Israelis who once viewed Sharon as a warmonger are speaking admiringly about his summit speech, which many deemed an eloquent appeal for reconciliation.

“I must say, Sharon surprised me yesterday,” said Oded Gal, a 42-year-old Israeli in Tel Aviv. His car bore pro-peace bumper stickers, including one that ridiculed Sharon.

“I’m not going to remove the stickers against him from my car -- yet. But if he’ll go on like that, I’m prepared to even consider voting for him.”

*

Special correspondents Fayed abu Shammalah in Gaza City, Samir Zedan in Jerusalem and Tami Zer in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.