US steps up pressure on Arafat
Yesterday's suicide bombing in Jerusalem was the third attack in the city in less than a week.
Jaffa Road is now the most dangerous stretch of pavement in the state of Israel.
For the second time in a week, and the third time since August, this shopping district of West Jerusalem has been the locus of a Palestinian attack.
Yesterday it was struck by a suicide bomber, who killed one pedestrian and wounded dozens of others.
"Police are checking seriously into the possibility that the suicide bomber was a woman," says Gil Kleiman, spokesman for the Israeli police. If so, it would be the first female suicide bomber in the last 16 months, perhaps longer.
During the past year and a half, 821 Palestinians and 248 Israelis have been killed, according to Reuters. A suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on Friday wounded 25 people and Israeli F-16s bombed an already damaged Palestinian police facility in Tulkarem, with no additional casualties.
This fresh cycle of attacks and counter-attacks comes at a time when US support for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is reaching a new nadir.
Israeli leaders charge that Mr. Arafat is responsible for yesterday's bombing and other recent attacks. The Palestinian Authority (PA) condemned the attack, but Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert said: "As long as Arafat wants terror to continue, it will. Arafat is personally in charge and responsible for how to stop it."
Vice President Dick Cheney said yesterday it was "hard to believe" Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was not involved in a recent arms smuggling incident and questioned his commitment to the Middle East peace process. Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Mr. Cheney said the 50 tons of arms Israel seized from a freighter in international waters of the Red Sea on January 3 was "provided by Iran apparently through the Hezbollah to Palestine."
A senior US official last week said Bush had sent letters to the leaders of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia that presented evidence of Palestinian Authority involvement in the smuggling attempt, and urged them to press Arafat to take action against those implicated.
"The really disturbing part of this, of course, is that there are a lot of places he [Arafat] could go in the Arab world if he were looking for support and sustenance or for help in moving the peace process forward," Cheney said. "What he's done is gone to a terrorist organization, Hezbollah, and a state that supports and promotes terrorism, that's dedicated to ending the peace process, Iran, and done business with them."
Palestinian Minister Saeb Erekat said, however, that statements by President George Bush that he is "disappointed" with Arafat, and talk of US punitive sanctions against the PA are only making matters worse. "These statements will be used as a green light by [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon to escalate the aggression," he said.
In Israel, there is a palpable feel of a nation at war. The heightened violence is a source of both weariness and wariness, prompting changes in people's lifestyles and making them think twice about going to areas that are viewed as primary targets.
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