Global Policy Forum

Israel's shooting over the weekend of a Hamas leader and the deaths of four members of another Palestinian militant group, al-Aqsa Brigades, will not help attempts to reach a ceasefire. But international mediators are still trying.

The recent round of tit-for-tat attacks by Palestinian militants and the Israeli security forces, which has left dozens dead and many more injured, continued over the weekend, despite the pressure that Colin Powell, America's secretary of state, put on the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers when he met them on Friday. In the run-up to Mr Powell's visit, Israel had shown restraint, by not reacting to several killings of Israelis by Palestinian gunmen. But on Saturday, after Mr Powell had moved on to a regional summit in Jordan, Israeli soldiers shot dead Abdullah Kawasme, a senior Hamas official, in the West Bank town of Hebron. And on Sunday, four members of another Palestinian militant group, al-Aqsa Brigades, were killed in an explosion at Beit Hanoun in Gaza.

There were conflicting accounts of both incidents. The Palestinians said that the shooting of Mr Kawasme was a deliberate assassination; the Israelis insisted that they were trying to arrest him but had to open fire when he pulled a gun. Some at the scene of the explosion that killed the four al-Aqsa fighters said it was caused by Israeli tank rounds. Other witnesses said they had been killed by the bomb they were about to plant, which went off prematurely. Whatever the truth, the weekend of violence will make it still harder to make progress on the "road map" towards Middle East peace, which has been proposed by the Quartet group of international mediators—America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations—and on which President George Bush persuaded the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, and his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, to shake hands on June 4th.

At the summit in Jordan, the Quartet members issued a joint statement deploring both the "brutal terror attacks" on Israelis by Hamas and expressing "deep concern" at the deaths of Palestinian civilians in recent Israeli reprisal attacks. George Papandreou, the foreign minister of Greece, which currently holds the presidency of the EU, condemned both "extrajudicial killings" by Israel and Palestinian suicide attacks. The international mediators are trying to appear even-handed in the pressure they are applying on both sides: on Mr Sharon to end Israel's "assassination policy" against Palestinian political leaders, and on Mr Abbas to use the security forces of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to disarm the militants.

Though the assassination policy is deeply unpopular among Israelis, Mr Sharon is anxious to avoid appearing soft on terrorism at a time when he is arousing the ire of the Israeli settler movement and its political backers. He recently ordered the dismantling of some unauthorised Jewish outposts in the occupied territories—one of Israel's obligations under the road map. Though Mr Sharon has seemed prepared to stop targeting Palestinian political leaders, he insists on Israel's right to eliminate "ticking bombs"—those it believes to be actively preparing suicide bombings or other attacks. Earlier this month, he persuaded Mr Bush to tone down America's criticism of Israel's attempt to kill Aziz Rantisi, a senior Hamas leader, by presenting intelligence that Israel said showed Mr Rantisi's direct involvement in planning attacks.

Mr Abbas, in turn, is under fire from his hardliners: they reject the road map and accuse him of a sell-out for not insisting on full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and on the right of return for Palestinian refugees who fled when Israel was created in 1948. Mr Powell told Mr Abbas on Friday that, if the PA's forces took control of the situation in Gaza, the scene of most recent attacks, then Palestinians would come to realise that "Hamas and other terrorist organisations perhaps do not have the right answer." He pressed Mr Abbas to hurry up with reforms of the PA's forces and to produce detailed plans on how these would take over the security of those parts of the occupied territories from which Israel is prepared to withdraw its troops. Mr Abbas, however, is reluctant to try to use force against the militants for fear of setting off a civil war among his people.

International efforts to secure a ceasefire will continue, despite the blow to their prospects from the weekend's violence. Egyptian mediators have been negotiating with Palestinian militant leaders to try to persuade them to end attacks on Israelis in return for an Israeli pullback in parts of the occupied territories. So far these talks have been inconclusive, but on Sunday Ahmed Maher, Egypt's foreign minister, said they would continue. Though Hamas threatened "thundering retaliation" for the shooting of Mr Kawasme, it said a ceasefire was still possible if Israel agreed to stop targeting Palestinian leaders and pull back its troops in Gaza.

If it were not for the heavy pressure now being applied by international mediators, the recent rounds of attacks and reprisals might already have killed off any hopes for a ceasefire, and with it the road map's prospects for success. To encourage the Palestinians and their Arab backers to support the peace process, Mr Bush is holding out the prospect of extending across the Middle East the free-trade agreements with America that Israel and Jordan already enjoy. As Mr Powell noted on Monday, for the peace process to succeed it must be accompanied by economic development and better job opportunities.

If a lasting truce can be agreed, a considerable peace dividend could be in prospect: Israel's security clampdown in the occupied territories, in response to the Palestinian intifada (uprising) launched in 2001, has cost many Palestinians their jobs and left them in penury. The uprising has also hit Israel's economy: the country's central bank reckons it cut as much as 3.8% off Israel's national income last year. In a sign that the economic benefits of peace are being recognised, even in the midst of the current conflict, Israel's infrastructure minister, Yosef Paritzky, revealed on Sunday that he had held talks with Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian finance minister, about a project to build a $400m pipeline so the Palestinians could sell Israel natural gas from reserves off the shores of Gaza.

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