Analysis / Much ado about nothing

"There is no need to get too worked up about the political crisis and the rantings and ravings of the extremist Israelis; they won't cross the red line," explained yesterday Abed al-Rahim Mallouh, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Executive Committee on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, expressing his view on the significance of the political drama in Israel.

According to Mallouh, and most Palestinian spokespersons, the noise being made by the Israeli right with regard to the pullout from Gaza is nothing more than a big act designed to demonstrate to the world the terrible pain of the Israeli concession.

From the point of view of the vast majority of the Palestinian public, there is no pain at all because it concerns a few hundred families that are destined to receive a lot of money, while the real victims, the Palestinian refugees, are being left, as in the past, without anything.

The Palestinian media reported yesterday at length on the numerous victims of the Israel Defense Forces' raid on the Khan Yunis refugee camp, and Palestinian journalists defined as hypocrisy the Israeli excitement over the plan to evacuate the settlers as opposed to the apathy when the IDF destroys entire neighborhoods in Rafah and Beit Hanun and leaves their residents without a roof over their heads, without compensation and without a referendum.

As far as most of the Palestinians in the territories are concerned, the current struggle in Israel is one between the more radical and the less radical, with the Labor Party and Israeli left now marginal elements in Israeli politics that are providing a safety net to Ariel Sharon so as to get a piece of the government pie.

The Palestinian Peace Coalition's media adviser, journalist Elias Zananiri, said last night that one could ask the question if Sharon's plan was "a serving of honey with a little poison in it, or poison that contains a little honey." Zananiri believes there is a need to ensure that Gaza first does not become Gaza and that's it, and that the disengagement is followed by additional withdrawals and settlement evacuations, leading to a political process and an agreement.