New risks with Mideast cease-fire

Reverberations from the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington are changing the status quo of tit-for-tat violence in the Middle East. The question is whether those changes will last.

Israelis and Palestinians moved to ease tensions this week as Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat declared a cease-fire, and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon responded by pulling tanks out of Palestinian villages.

The moves came after intense US lobbying. Calming the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is central to American plans for a broad antiterror coalition.

But even as the US push yields results, it is creating political risks for both Mr. Arafat and Mr. Sharon that could, in turn, spell trouble for US attempts to build a strong and united alliance.

Both the Israeli and Palestinian leaders face strong internal opposition to resuming negotiations now. Militant Palestinian groups have rejected Arafat's call for a cease-fire, while the right-wing politicians who form Sharon's core support base adamantly oppose negotiations.

"Arafat walks a very thin line and ... Sharon is under great pressure," says Hisham Ahmed, a political science professor at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank. "For the US, which is interested in quieting things down to maintain a coalition, this is a serious quagmire indeed. No wonder [Secretary of State Colin] Powell has been calling Sharon and Arafat almost every day."

Until Sept 11, the Bush administration took a hands-off policy to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, repeatedly stating the two sides had to work for peace themselves. The assault on New York and Washington created a new political reality in which the Middle East is central.

With Saudi-born millionaire Osama bin Laden in the crosshairs, the US is assembling an international coalition to retaliate for the attacks. As in the 1990-1991 Gulf War, the US is courting allies within the Arab and Islamic world to create as broad an alliance as possible.

Many of those countries have been unhappy with the US's laissez faire approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and what they see as a pro-Israel bias in US policy.

Since Sept 11, people in many of these places also perceive an anti-Islamic bent in American rhetoric, particularly after President Bush announced that the US was on a "crusade" - a word that reminds Muslims of the brutal Christian invasions of the Islamic world in medieval times.

To bring countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria along, the US has made efforts to reach out to the Arab world.

Secretary Powell has given Arab media extensive interviews to explain the US stance. And he has pushed Sharon and Arafat to start negotiations.

Arafat obliged on Monday by declaring a cease-fire. Sharon responded the next day by ending Israeli incursions into Palestinian territory and halting the "targeted killings" of Palestinian militants.

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