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Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faced new pressure this week to launch a fierce military response after a wave of Palestinian attacks, but political and international constraints make it unlikely he will do so.
Right-wing Israeli politicians and several newspaper editorials demanded tough action following a Palestinian suicide bombing that killed nine people on a bus in northern Israel on Sunday and consequent attacks in which four Israelis have been killed.
But political analysts say Sharon is unlikely to change his current military policy, under which Israel has occupied seven West Bank cities, held 700,000 Palestinians under curfew and regularly sent troops on raids to arrest militants.
"We're looking at more of the same...and that means there is unlikely to be a breakthrough for at least several months," said Mark Heller of Israel's Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies.
Sharon has few options left at his disposal after 22 months of conflict.
Room to maneuver is limited by his desire to appease members of his cabinet who oppose tough military action and hold the coalition government together.
Political analysts say Sharon has also set himself a goal of avoiding a major escalation of violence in the coming months, in the hope two key events will pave the way for a breakthrough.
Sharon is pinning his hopes on the removal of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in the belief their departure could induce important political changes in the region.
The United States has called for Arafat's removal, saying he has failed to prevent violence and wants Iraq to oust Saddam.
"Israel is taking a wait-and-see approach. It is waiting to see what happens in Iraq," said Shmuel Sandler of Israel's Bar-Ilan University.
Ephraim Inbar, an analyst at the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies, said Israel would clearly welcome US action in Iraq.
"US intervention in the 1991 Gulf War brought Palestinians to more moderate positions and started the Madrid peace process," he said.
"Israel would hope for a similar effect now."
The 1991 Madrid peace conference set Israel and the Palestinians on the road to the 1993 Oslo interim peace accords.
Israeli officials say Sharon has shown restraint in his efforts to quell the uprising that began in September 2000 against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
But Palestinians describe the Israeli military action as collective punishment and say it fuels violence by stirring anger and resentment against Israel.
Israel launched its latest military operation in June, occupying seven of the eight Palestinian-ruled cities in the West Bank after back-to-back suicide bombings in Jerusalem.
The number of suicide bombings subsequently fell, before rising again last week and culminating in Sunday's bus attack after Israel killed a leader of the Islamic group Hamas, his deputy and 13 other Palestinians, including nine children, in a Gaza air raid on July 22.
"The (West Bank) operation has been a total failure," said Mustafa Barghouthi, a Palestinian human rights activist who was one of the delegates at the 1991 Madrid peace conference.
"Sharon is feeding radicalism," he said.
"He's creating poverty and suffering, making people more determined than ever to struggle for freedom."
The resurgence of the bombings highlighted a dilemma the army says it faces in trying to crackdown on Palestinian militants without causing undue harm to civilians.
The military started easing curfews in the West Bank cities only days before the bombings resumed.
"We face a dilemma -- how to help the civilian population when every time we do so we suffer," Israel's chief military spokeswoman Brigadier-General Ruth Yaron said.
She said there would be no major change in policy and promised a continuation of the measures taken in recent weeks.
The army later imposed an almost complete ban on Palestinian travel throughout most of the West Bank.
Sharon has taken a series of new steps to discourage suicide bombers, including demolishing homes of the families of suicide bombers and laying plans to deport family members to Gaza.
Political analysts on both sides believe such measures are unlikely to deter would-be attackers and suggest they are at least partly designed to satisfy public demand for tough action.
Sharon retains a high level of public support, according to opinion polls, but right-wing pressure is mounting.
"What country would allow its citizens to be slaughtered this way in every place they go or sit, year after year, month after month, day after day?" Amnon Danker, editor-in-chief of the Maariv newspaper, wrote in a hard-hitting editorial.
One cabinet minister was quoted by Israeli media as saying Palestinians needed to know "there is a price for Jewish blood."
But Sharon seems reluctant to face an international outcry like the one provoked by Israel's Gaza air strike.
(China Daily August 7, 2002)
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