Word: gaza
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This is not the way the Bush administration wanted it, but the Middle East has a way of confounding the best-laid plans. Israeli tanks and troops rolled into Gaza Tuesday in response to a Palestinian mortar attack on an Israeli town, with some of their commanders vowing that they could stay for months. Then Colin Powell spoke, condemning the Israeli reaction to a Palestinian provocation as "excessive and disproportionate" - and within hours the Israelis had retreated. Asked whether the U.S. criticism has influenced the decision, Dore Gold, an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, told CNN, "We pay very...
...Even though the Israelis were back in a different part of Gaza Wednesday for a quick in-and-out operation, Tuesday's events reinforced the notion that Washington retains an ability to influence Israel's actions - and that's bad news for a Bush administration that had hoped to retreat from the intimate mediating role in the Middle East established by President Clinton. The moderate Arab regimes that already have peace agreements with Israel are increasingly alarmed by the escalating violence - which threatens not only regional stability, but also their own domestic political equilibrium - and have urged Washington to take...
...Despite this week's dramatic escalation - Palestinians firing mortars from Gaza into Israel; Israel for the first time reoccupying territory ceded to Arafat under the Oslo agreement - neither Sharon nor Arafat has a strategy to transcend the increasingly violent impasse. Arafat can harass and occasionally provoke the Israelis, but he can't alter the strategic balance; Sharon can pound and pummel Arafat's resources but he can't subdue Palestinian militancy. So even as violence increases, politically the situation remains at a stalemate. And that's likely to mean Secretary of State Powell will find himself devoting more...
...Despite what it looks like on TV, it's not quite as dramatic as that. Sharon sent his forces into Gaza last night, in response to mortar shells falling inside Israel. But provided he doesn't make a mistake and end up with a large number of Palestinian deaths, he can do that with impunity, at least domestically, anyway. It may cost him some diplomatic pressure, but not much. The international media certainly tires of it pretty quickly. Actions that a couple of weeks ago looked like a dramatic escalation now look commonplace. And that's part of the strategy...
...course, the Syrian attack was fairly significant, particularly if it recurs. But the wild card is whether Syria wants to allow things to settle down in the West Bank and Gaza. Right now, it appears as though they don't. Israel had achieved a measure of success with Arafat in calming things down a little, and then there was suddenly the Hezbollah attack on the northern border over the weekend. Israelis believe the mortar attack on Sdarot inside Israel came from Arafat's people, as an expression of solidarity following the air strike in Lebanon, ahead of Arafat's visit...