by George S. Hishmeh

All eyes nowadays are focused on the beginning of next week's much-anticipated Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, where some 1.4 million Palestinians, mostly refugees, and 8,000 Israeli settlers have been living separately since Israeli troops occupied this narrow coastal area 38 years ago.

But it was the bloody racist attack last week by a young Israeli fundamentalist - an illegal settler and member of the extremist Jewish group Kach - on a bus carrying Arab Israelis to their hometown in northern Israel that recalled the recent deplorable bombings in London and similarly horrific events elsewhere. But in this case international reaction to the killing of the four Arab passengers, including two sisters, was disappointingly muted when compared to the outcry, deservedly, that followed the shocking events in the British capital.

The Israeli reaction was glaringly subdued compared to the hue and cry that is routinely voiced (equally by others, particularly in the US) following similar actions by so-called Islamic jihadists. Some exceptions were noteworthy, however. The Israeli daily Haaretz lashed out at the rabbis in control at the settlements where these extremists live, accusing them of leading "the incited masses to a violent clash." The paper said: "The murder in Shafaram (Shafa Amer, in Arabic) made clear, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the final line has been crossed," and it called on the Israeli government to deal with "a strong hand" against these extremist groups "and their rabbis, and the outer circles that nourish them."

This makes one wonder whether we are talking here about a Jewish "madrasa."

Another commentator, Sever Plotzker of Yedioth Ahronoth, maintained that the intention of Eden Natan-Zada, the bloodthirsty Israeli extremist who "committed the murder(s) in the Arab town, "was aimed at "destroying Jewish-Arab coexistence" and "igniting a large flame that would burn" the Israeli disengagement plan. But (he) was mistaken, the Arab public responded to the news of the terrible terror attack with restrained mourning, maturely and moderately."

There is yet another powder keg lurking in the distance, namely the sinister Israeli machinations involving Jerusalem, the capital that both Palestinians and Israelis claim. "What happens in Jerusalem over the next few months," a just-released report by the respected Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) says, "may have a more decisive impact on the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations." The report underlines that "Israel's ongoing efforts to consolidate control over the city are increasing."

In other words, what Israel may be dealing with the right hand in Gaza, it may be taking away with the left hand in Jerusalem. The ICG report stresses how the route the separation or "apartheid" wall is taking and the projected link between Jerusalem and the nearby West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim, and the other Jewish settlements in and around Jerusalem, "are undermining the territorial integrity of any future Palestine state, the hope and expectation that Arab East Jerusalem will be its capital and Palestinian pragmatists."

If this Israeli scheme is successful, the report pointed out that some 200,000 Palestinians Jerusalemites will end up inside the so-called "Jerusalem envelope" and be increasingly separated from the West Bank, "while 55,000 others will be outside the barrier, disconnected from their city, and the West Bank will be close to being split in two."

Robert Malley, director of ICG's Middle East and North African Programme, believes that the current Israeli activity "will not only undermine chances for a viable two-state solution, but (will) create an explosive mix that will imperil the very security Israel states it is trying to guarantee."

If nothing else, the abrupt though not unexpected resignation of Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has exposed the ill intentions of this divisive Likud leader despite his earlier votes in support of the Gaza withdrawal. Thus the looming split within the Likud Party, now led by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and the anticipated Israeli elections later this year, as well as the indecisiveness within Palestinian ranks pending a national election in the new year, are bound to diminish the chances of any movement in the immediate future on the roadmap that set the course for a negotiated Palestinian-Israeli settlement.

It is time for the US and the Quartet to be more decisive.

This article was published in the Friday-Saturday, August 12-13, 2005 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.