jerusalem | The bombing in Tel Aviv’s crowded Carmel market was not connected to the illness of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat or the disengagement plan, according to members of the Israeli security establishment.
They see the Monday, Nov. 1, bombing as part of ongoing attempts by terrorist groups to strike at Israel. Indeed, there are about 45 warnings of attacks at this very moment; security forces nabbed two suicide bombers over the Halloween weekend.
Yet the timing of the attack has given it more impact. It came on the eve of the U.S. presidential election, during a serious leadership vacuum among the Palestinians, and while Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is fighting to push through unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip.
“At this period, when the future of the Palestinians is not clear … terrorism is a tool used to score points” by groups jockeying for position and power, said Boaz Ganor, executive director of the
Institute for Counterterrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.
He said most Palestinians still support terrorism and will continue to do so until there is a delegitimization of terror by their leadership.
While Arafat stand-ins were trying to present a situation of normalcy, the tiny Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine reminded everyone that it, too, is a force to be reckoned with.
The PFLP has been responsible for relatively few attacks, the most infamous being the assassination of Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi three years ago. It was last able to carry out a suicide bombing on Dec. 25, when four people were killed at the Geha junction. The PFLP has not taken part in any cease-fire and has been severely punished by Israeli security forces.
That it had to resort to dispatching a 16-year-old shows the difficulties it has in getting adult bombers through the army’s tight net.
Ironically, the bomb went off just as Shin Bet head Avi Dichter warned that the weak point in the war on terror is the residents of eastern Jerusalem. They are familiar with Israel and are able to travel freely with their Israeli identification. Dichter warned of their increasing involvement in hiding and transporting terrorists. Some 150 eastern Jerusalem residents have been arrested.
“There is a message to the Palestinian public that says that this tiny group should be taken into account because it can do what the larger groups have been unable to do,” Ganor told Israel Radio.
What is clear is that as the various groups maneuver in the post-Arafat era, Israelis will pay the price.