Settlers Have Taken Palestine Hostage 
	
	
 A few days ago the parties in the Palestine conflict found themselves at a crossroads. The escalation of the conflict has now cost over 1,000 people their lives in the space of the past 18 months. 
	
	
 One-third Israelis, two-thirds Palestinians. Circumstances have led to a situation where today the two parties in the conflict find themselves on the road that leads swiftly to the abyss. 
	
	
 On Thursday the Arab Summit in the Lebanese capital of Beirut ended with the adoption of a resolution whose content illustrated how far the Arab world has come since the summit that took place in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum in 1967, shortly after the Israeli victory in the Six Days War. 
	
	
 It was then that the Arab heads of state adopted the three noes: no to negotiations with Israel, no to recognition, no to peace. 
	
	
 On Thursday the summit adopted a resolution that proposed the recognition of the Jewish state, normal relations, and an end to the conflict in return for Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories that Israel has occupied for almost 35 years. 
	
	
 Even the mention of one of the cardinal problems between Israel and the Palestinians - the future of the 3 million Arab refugees - was couched in terms softer than at any time in the past. 
	
	
 The summit's declaration was the best piece of news the Middle East has produced since the Oslo Accords between Prime Minister Yitzhaq Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat were signed on the lawn in front of the White House in Washington in 1993. 
	
	
 The resolution that was put forward by Saudi Arabia was a plea addressed to the Israeli people over the heads of Ariel Sharon's government. No Arab leader was in any doubt that from Sharon's standpoint the resolution was not welcome. 
	
	
 The resolution forced him into a corner. Sharon neither can nor will give up the occupied territories, and so he would be unmasked in the eyes of the whole world as the man standing in the way of peace in the Middle East. 
	
	
 A few hours after the end of the summit chance came to Sharon's rescue. 
	
	
 On Thursday evening a Palestinian suicide bomber attacked a hotel in Natanya where a couple of hundred people had gathered for the traditional Passover meal. Twenty-two people were killed, in addition to the suicide bomber, and 130 were injured. 
	
	
 The bomber was a member of Hamas, the radical Muslim organization. He was known to the Israeli intelligence service. His name figured on a list that Israel had shortly before handed over to the Palestinian security service. 
	
	
 Despite Arafat's promise to take action to neutralize the people on the list, he did not lift a finger. 
	
	
 That same night the Israeli security cabinet met. They decided to take steps to destroy the "Palestinian terrorist structure, arrest its leaders, confiscate arms, and so on." 
	
	
 As a first step Israeli forces were sent into the main Palestinian town, Ramallah, where Arafat has his headquarters and from where the autonomous Palestinian areas are administered. 
	
	
 A few weeks previously Sharon had described Arafat as "irrelevant." Now he declared that Arafat was an "enemy." 
	
	
 He is now a prisoner in his own headquarters. The Palestinian Authority has effectively ceased to function. 
	
	
 Prior to the Natanya massacre Washington had imposed a number of limitations on Sharon. Israeli's antiterrorist operations must not bring the Palestinian Authority to collapse, Israeli forces must not reconquer the territories under the jurisdiction of the authority, and Arafat the man must not be molested. 
	
	
 This time Washington is largely keeping silent. It has not sent the usual appeals to both sides. Quite the reverse: Anonymous U.S. sources say that Washington holds Arafat responsible for the fact that U.S. mediator Anthony Zinni's endeavors to arrange a cease-fire have now foundered. 
	
	
 According to these sources, Sharon had accepted the cease-fire proposal, while Arafat hesitated. Before he had announced his agreement, the Natanya massacre and the Israeli counteraction occurred. 
	
	
 For the time being at least the United States has thus given Sharon a free hand. His problem is that he does not know what to do with it. The action that is currently taking place can at best only throw the terrorist groups off balance for a time. 
	
	
 It cannot solve the Israeli people's security problems, because the root of the terrorism is the Israeli occupation and the Israeli settlements on occupied territory. 
	
	
 The settlers, who number around 220,000 people, have taken the Israeli Government and consequently both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples hostage. 
	
	
 Sharon is a master of escalation. He demonstrated this he as defense minister during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which led to Arafat's being forced into exile in Tunis. It is likely that at present Sharon is entertaining similar thoughts and wants to create step by step a situation that will make it possible for him to rid himself of his enemy. 
	
	
 But this is a conflict without winners. Military superiority cannot solve problems that are fundamentally of a political nature. The day the Israeli tanks again leave Ramallah they will have sown the seed for new terrorist actions. 
	
	
 Terrorism thrives in an atmosphere of hate, and the Israeli occupation and the use of military force are creating the fertile soil from which future terrorists will be recruited.