WASHINGTON — The assassination of Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi on Wednesday morning may diminish U.S. criticism of the Jewish state’s military policy and create heightened understanding of its plight.
At the same time, the slaying may lead the Bush administration to back away from pressuring Israel to resume negotiations with the Palestinians.
Discussing the assassination, Jason Isaacson, director of government and international affairs for the American Jewish Committee, said, “This has to throw into sharper relief the disconnect between the State Department’s criticism of Israel’s defensive actions against terrorists and the reality of the terrorist threat Israel faces on a daily basis.”
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a PLO faction, took immediate responsibility for shooting Ze’evi in the Hyatt Hotel in Jerusalem. Israel assassinated the PFLP’s leader, Mustafa Zibri, in August following a string of PFLP terror attacks.
Some U.S. Jewish leaders hoped Ze’evi’s murder would force the Bush administration to acknowledge the constant threat of violence Israelis face, and the need for military retaliations, regardless of a cease-fire.
“For our government to not recognize the awesome threat Israel faces and the obligation of Israel to respond to threats would not be the response of a government that is sympathetic with the people of Israel and the government of Israel,” Isaacson said.
Jewish leaders have been concerned that despite continuing violence, the Bush administration will pressure Israel to resume peace talks with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to bolster Arab and Muslim support for the U.S.-led coalition against terror.
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said Ze’evi’s death magnifies those concerns.
“It does give urgency to the issue,” Hoenlein said. “It validates the view that you can’t put the peace process together artificially without acts on the ground.”
President Bush, for his part, condemned the assassination “in the strongest terms,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. “This despicable act is further evidence of the need to fight terrorism.”
Concern is also rising about the role Syria will play in Bush’s anti-terror coalition and whether Syria, which harbors PFLP leaders, will be pressured to crack down on the organization.
Even those who favor peace talks believe Wednesday’s assassination will ice the Bush administration’s push to renew negotiations.
“It’s certainly likely to dampen recent hopes for diplomatic movement,” said Tom Smerling, Washington director of the Israel Policy Forum. “It may ignite more cycles of violence.”
The Palestinian Authority condemned the killing, and Arafat said he had ordered the killers’ arrest.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon froze all diplomatic contact with the Palestinian Authority, called off plans to ease restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank and reimposed the Israeli cordon around Ramallah. Some speculated that the easing of restrictions on Ramallah had allowed the killers to travel the few kilometers from there to the Hyatt on Mount Scopus in eastern Jerusalem, where the shooting took place.
“The full responsibility falls squarely on Arafat, as someone who has controlled, and continues to control, terrorism, and as one who has not — to this day — taken even one serious step to prevent terrorism,” Sharon told a special Knesset session in Ze’evi’s memory. Arafat “knew that not taking steps against organizations such as Islamic Jihad would lead to acts of murder and the responsibility is fully his.”