Rowdy members of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud Party booed and heckled Friday night as Sharon endured the latest round of criticism from his traditional right-wing allies in the wake of his proposed concessions to the Palestinians.
"Go home, go home," some Likud members chanted at the party convention here, where they repeatedly interrupted the prime minister's speech. "Sharon surrendered to terrorism," read one of the many anti-Sharon posters in the packed hall.
In Ramallah, just a few miles north of Jerusalem, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is facing his own barrage of criticism from hard-liners and moderates alike who accuse him of being too conciliatory toward Israel.
While Sharon is politically strong, and Abbas is vulnerable in his new post, both face mounting internal pressure that is threatening the latest Middle East peace plan before the first steps have been taken to put it into effect.
"The Palestinians are being offered almost everything, and we are getting nothing but violence and incitement," said Yuval Steinitz, a leading Likud member of parliament, who says he counts himself among among Sharon's supporters.
"People are wondering, what will we get in return?" he said.
In the last few weeks, Sharon has talked more openly than ever before about relinquishing land to the Palestinians in exchange for a peace deal.
His statements still fall far short of the minimum Palestinian demands, but two weeks ago his Cabinet voted to endorse the plan, known as the road map. It was the first time an Israeli government had formally endorsed the principle of a Palestinian state.
Sharon has said Israel should not control the 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and said the "occupation" was bad for Israel, using a politically charged word he had never uttered before in public.
When five Palestinian suicide bombers struck from May 17 to 19, beginning with a blast just before a meeting between Sharon and Abbas, Israel refrained from the kind of punishing military reprisals that have been almost automatic over the last two years.
After three Palestinian shooting attacks on Sunday that killed five Israelis and wounded several more, Israeli officials did not raise the prospect of imminent military action or directly criticize Abbas.
"Politically, Sharon has made a commitment to a moderate position and intends to stick to it," said Asher Arian, an Israeli political analyst.
"If he only faces demonstrations on the right, he will pursue the road map," he said. "But the violence will weaken his hand, and together these two forces could be overwhelming."
Sharon says that Israel's security remains his paramount concern, and that moves toward a political settlement will not proceed unless the violence stops.
"The war of terror that has been forced upon us 1,000 days ago has failed," the prime minister said in his speech Sunday night. "I tell you now, the victory we have striven for is now within reach."
Last Wednesday, only hours after Sharon, Abbas and US President George W. Bush exchanged warm words at a beachfront summit meeting in Jordan, tens of thousands of right-wing Israelis, many of them settlers, protested in the center of Jerusalem against a future Palestinian state.
Likud members of Parliament heaped scathing criticism on Sharon at a meeting on May 26, the day after the Cabinet endorsed the road map with reservations.
The Israeli security services have tightened protection around Sharon, mindful of the assassination in 1995 of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish ultra-nationalist opposed to peace moves.
Sharon appeared to address the possibility of extremist behavior from Israelis on Sunday night, saying: "It is permitted to argue, but it is forbidden to break apart. At times, it is permitted to raise one's voice, but it is never permitted to raise one's hand."
Abbas is also facing tough going, and he must proceed without the political support base that Sharon has built.
Palestinians have expressed great disappointment that Abbas did not spell out the Palestinian demands for statehood at the summit meeting last week.
Abbas, commonly known as Abu Mazen, said over the weekend that it was not necessary at that time. But he has encountered such broad criticism that he scheduled a news conference for yesterday to defend his position, his first since assuming office in April.
"You will have an internal uproar if this process does not bear fruit," said Ali Jarbawi, a political science professor at Bir Zeit University in Ramallah.
"If the Israeli government is not going to respond, then they are pushing Abu Mazen into an internal Palestinian confrontation. This confrontation will not be good for anybody," he said.
Abbas has so far proved unable to persuade militant groups to halt attacks against Israel; last week, the militant group Hamas called off ceasefire talks with him. Hamas has been behind most of the recent bombings and shootings.
But Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of the Fatah movement that the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Abbas helped found, was one of three groups that claimed responsibility for a shooting attack on Sunday in Gaza that killed four Israeli soldiers.
If Abbas cannot control the factions, violence could easily doom this peace effort as it has several others. But a crackdown could ignite clashes among the Palestinians.
Under Arafat, the Palestinian security forces arrested many Hamas members in 1996, after a series of suicide bombings.
But Hamas is much stronger and has greater popular support now, and similar action today would probably provoke resistance from Hamas supporters.
"There is no use in proceeding with this war of attrition," Steinitz said.
"If Abu Mazen cannot destroy the terror groups, then it will be high time to do what the Americans did in Afghanistan: Destroy the terror-supporting regime altogether."
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