As the summer sun sinks into the Mediterranean in a pink flare, the patios of Gaza City's seaside restaurants fill with chatter and smoke. Weddings are common in this season and the beach hotels are booked with them. There is gaiety and excitement in the air, a rare intrepid feeling due to a month-old ceasefire between the Palestinian armed factions and Israel. No one need fear Israeli military action on these warm, lazy nights.
Eighty kilometers up the coast, and a world away in Israel, the scene is nearly identical. Foam from the lapping waves glows the same incandescent white under the moonlight. Beach restaurants serve the same hummus and flatbread and local sea bream. Weddings fill the newly renovated Tel Aviv port area. Everywhere there is chatter and drink and smoke and gratitude toward the ceasefire, known to both sides by the Arabic word, hudna.
After nearly three years of daily violence, Israelis and Palestinians are in the middle of an extraordinary three-month break. While nearly 100 people died in political violence monthly from October 2000 through June, last month the total was nine.
The news from the Middle East, then, sounds promising. But having covered this conflict for 20 years, I have found that moments of apparent hope often turn out to be the most dangerous. There is a false belief on each side that the other has had its fill of suffering and will now change its ways. I see little evidence to support that.
It is true the two sides have taken positive steps. The Israelis have withdrawn troops from several areas, increased the number of work permits for Palestinians, removed roadblocks and checkpoints and promised to release hundreds of prisoners, including some associated with the radical groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The Palestinians have prevented a number of terrorist attempts on Israel and have begun to work on the vicious incitement common to their television. The frequent repetitive showing of Israeli troops destroying Palestinian homes and uprooting trees has ended.
But you don't have to be a journalist to see the danger signs, to realize that despite the vacation from violence, rage and aggression are just below the surface. Each side has its monuments to pain. A short walk along the Israeli coast brings you to the site of the discotheque suicide bombing in June 2001, where 21 young people were massacred. A small sculpture with flowers stands in memorial, with the words, "We will not stop dancing." Not far away is Mike's Place, a blues bar and the scene of another suicide bombing.
In Gaza, the path of pain is less subtle. In the border village of Beit Hanoun, you face kilometers of destruction from the months of Israeli military reoccupation that recently ended. Uprooted orange groves, collapsed buildings, ripped-up roads are all evidence of what was before the recent withdrawal. For months, the main north-south road in Gaza was shut, meaning intercity travel was exceedingly difficult. It has reopened, but an Israeli military outpost communicates with the Gazan police by radio, telling officers to halt movement whenever an Israeli settler vehicle needs to cross.
And while the mood has changed temporarily, the talk on both sides has not. Israelis say that until the Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas begins arresting and disarming Islamic militants, they will not do much to adjust their military positions in the West Bank. Abbas' security chief, Muhammad Dahlan, replies, inexcusably, that he is willing to stop terrorist attacks but not arrest the perpetrators until the Israelis withdraw. What is needed is genuine Israeli help for Abbas -- withdrawal from several cities, for example -- but in exchange the Palestinians must move against the extremists. The Palestinians say they need not disarm Hamas and Islamic Jihad because they will become normal political parties. That is delusional.
Some Hamas leaders are already threatening to end the hudna and say they will never stop fighting till every inch of what they consider their homeland is liberated. Ismael Abu Shanab, an engineer who studied at Colorado State and helps lead Hamas, says his group is obeying the ceasefire to give peace negotiations a chance and will disarm if Israel withdraws to the 1967 boundaries and a Palestinian state is declared. But then he tells you in all seriousness that the US supports Israel to get rid of all its Jews by encouraging them to move to Israel.
Aides to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon are far more grounded but their political base includes extremists, and when it comes to Israeli settlements in occupied territory, they, too, sound as if they are from a distant planet. They argue, without blinking, that Israeli military deployments in the West Bank have nothing to do with the settlements and are done only to defend Israel itself. Last Thursday, the government approved 22 more housing units for settlers in Gaza in violation of the American-sponsored peace plan.
Both sides are playing a double game, talking about compromise while giving away little. Like a fine summer vacation, the <
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