Background / Betting on Abu Mazen - to Lose

The "road map" has been unfurled at last, its destination a independent Palestine by 2005. So why are so many Israeli government hawks walking around with smiles on their faces?

The war in Iraq may be one big reason, the newfound sense among rightists that the Middle East can be made over by force of will, force of arms, and force of example.

Another possibility is rooted in the gambling instincts of George Bush and Ariel Sharon, who may well be betting heavily on new Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen - to lose. (...)

What's in it for Sharon? Eldar believes that the Israeli leader quietly but genuinely believes what Israeli ultra-hawks like Likud cabinet minister Uzi Landau and American neocons like Richard Perle are pleased to say out loud: that everything connected with Oslo must go - up to and including the whole of the Palestinian Authority.

Because the road map is at heart a return to many of the aspects of Oslo and its offshoot the Peres-Abu Ala plan, even with a similar cast of characters, the hawks reject its very basis. As in U.S. neocon recommendations to then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996, "They reject the principle of land for peace. They believe that Israeli-Palestinian military cooperation doesn't work. They believe in peace by force, by regime change. They believe that the victory in Iraq proved that they were right, that the way to deal with terrorism is simply by force."

At the end of the day, "If 'Bush comes to shove' and the administration must decide whether to crack down on Sharon or on Abu Mazen, it's very clear what they are going to do."
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It looks like the Palestinians are being taken again. The bloodshed will continue until the Palestinians get their own country (a real country, not the phony country Israel wants for the Palestinians) or the Israelis make all the Palestinians go away — one way or the other.