Israelis see their experience mirrored in attack

PHIL REEVES reports on Middle East reaction to the terrorist strikes on the US.

JERUSALEM - Israel lost no time yesterday, even as it mourned the colossal tragedy suffered by its closest ally, in seizing the opportunity to apply more pressure on the Palestinians.

Although there is no sign of a direct link between the mass murders in the United States and Palestinian guerrilla groups, Israel's Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, declared that Yasser Arafat now faced a choice between renouncing the "world of terrorism" or facing the wrath of the entire world.

"This is a genuine opportunity for him to get out of the world of terrorism, and this is, in fact, the real test. He cannot hang on to both things at once; no one can, simultaneously busying himself with terror and at the same time being accepted by the world. What happened in America sharpened this choice into one that can no longer be a matter of compromise."

The attack in the US has been a crushing blow for the Palestinians, which Israel is sure to press home. The mainstream Palestinian paramilitary leaders argue that they are engaged in a guerrilla war in the occupied territories to end 34 years of illegal Israeli occupation. They routinely - and ineffectually - denounce the deadly attacks on civilians by Islamic suicide bombers inside Israel. But these distinctions are likely to be swept aside by the assault on the US.

Israel was in the grips of a massive security alert against the possibility that those who attacked the US would move against the Jewish state. Its land borders with Egypt and Jordan were closed. For most of the day, Tel Aviv airport was closed to all foreign flights, allowing only the Israeli airline El Al to operate.

And the nation was in official mourning. Schools were closed, flags were lowered to half mast. Everywhere, Israelis saw their own experience of conflict reflected in events in America. "Our Own Hell Magnified 1000 times," said a headline in Ma'ariv newspaper.

Scores of Israelis donated blood to be sent to victims of the attack. Flowers were laid outside the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, and thousands of people contacted the Israeli Embassy in the US for news of relatives.

For Palestinians, bitterness has set in as the loss of Palestinian lives has risen steadily over the last year to more than 600. With it, has come a deepening of a long-held antipathy towards the US for the money - some $US3 billion a year - and weapons and political support it has lavished on Israel.

Most of the world will have been disgusted by the television footage of Palestinians dancing in the streets in the hours after the catastrophe in the US. It was far more shocking, and even more self-destructive, than the Palestinians' mass demonstrations of support in favour of Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War, or the hideous pleasure regularly expressed on their streets over the ruthless murder of Israeli civilians by Islamic suicide bombers.

Many Palestinians were at pains to point out yesterday that these revellers did not reflect the majority view. "These are people in total despair," said one PLO official, "They know that they will be blamed for these attacks, even though the Palestinians were not involved, and they believe Israel will now be allowed to do what it likes to them."

People in the streets condemned the massacre - along with Arafat who donated blood for the victims while other Palestinians held a vigil in Jerusalem. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, leaders of the Palestinian Hamas and several radical Islamic clerics, came out against it. So did the countries on America's blacklist of nations which it accuses of "sponsoring terror" - Libya, Sudan and Iran.

And yet, at street-level, Arab opposition to American policy in the Middle East remained unshaken, and often emerged entwined with the view that the assault on America represented a terrible form of divine justice, a counterblow by Islam against the world's secular, consumer-mad superpower. It is not - Palestinians argued - a contradiction to oppose the mass murders in the US but to continue to argue that American conduct in the Middle East has been wrong and cruel.

The Palestinian leadership looks to Washington as the only power that can ultimately mediate between them and Israel. The Bush Administration will now keep its distance.

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