Twin suicide bombs derail Israeli-Palestinian summit

Tuesday was set to be the first meeting between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his ostensible Palestinian counterpart Ahmed Qureia.

The planned summit - which would have been the first since Mr. Qureia was appointed prime minister five months ago by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat - was shelved after a suicide bombing at Israel's port of Ashdod. Palestinian militants, which once competed for followers and influence, said Sunday's twin bombings were the product of a joint operation which killed the two teenage bombers, and 10 Israelis, and wounded 16 others.

It was not the first time terrorism exerted its veto power over attempts to lure Israelis and Palestinians back to discussions in the 3-1/2 years since the peace process broke down.

But the bombing and Israel's subsequent announcement that it was canceling Tuesday's summit sheds light on how tenuous the chances for progress actually are. In the eyes of some Israeli analysts, the violence may increase in the weeks ahead, even as Mr. Sharon tries to push forward with his plan to withdraw unilaterally from most of the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and some in the West Bank.

The very idea of the Israeli leader meeting with the Palestinian prime minister in some ways contradicts the key argument underlining Sharon's disengagement plan: that Israel no longer has a credible partner with whom to talk peace. Sunday's bombing was viewed by Sharon's office as fresh evidence that there was nothing to talk to the Palestinians about.

"If the terror organizations, including Fatah, which is under control of the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization], continues to assault citizens, what's the point of having the meeting?" says Dr. Dore Gold, an adviser to Sharon.

Palestinian leaders, however, expressed disappointment at the cancelation of the summit. "What happened in Ashdod means [the two sides] need to talk to each other. Every day there is violence by Israelis and Palestinians and we need to talk to end this violence." said Hatem Abdul Kader, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. "[Palestinians] need this meeting because we need to understand exactly what Sharon's goals are. Right now, we don't know anything about these unilateral steps - only what we hear in the media."

Mr. Kader added that any Israeli withdrawal from Gaza "must take place through arrangements, cooperation, and agreement with the Palestinian Authority. Without the Palestinian Authority, the day after withdrawal will be a day of violence, not peace."

But bombing or no, some Israeli observers say the summit was never expected to produce results that would change the fundamental conclusion reached by Israel's government: that it is futile to expect any Palestinians under Mr. Arafat's helm to battle terrorism. As a result, Israel should try to improve - but not solve - its security problems without any meaningful Palestinian input.

"This meeting was to be a very minor public-relations exercise, which had absolutely no political value to it. There were no substantive expectations on the Israeli side," says Professor Gerald Steinberg, the head of the program on conflict management at Bar-Ilan University outside Tel Aviv. "The decision is that there is no partner, and that is one that is very deeply rooted and largely shared by the Americans."

It has been a year since the Bush administration introduced the road map to Middle East peace. The map was supposed to set up concrete steps for both parties in the conflict to get closer to a viable solution that would culminate in some version of a Palestinian state by 2005. The road map's introduction coincided with the start of the Iraq war, a period in which the US was facing great international criticism for making its own quasiunilateral decisions outside the framework of the UN.

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