By Tony Karon
(TIME.com) -- A lynching in a dusty West Bank town may have not only dashed the fragile hopes for ending the current violence in the Palestinian territories; it may also symbolize Yasser Arafat's increasing inability to rein in his own people. After two Israeli soldiers in the custody of the Palestinian police were beaten to death by a mob in Ramallah, Thursday, Israel ratcheted up the ante by firing rockets that destroyed the police station where its men had been held, and at targets in Gaza City, where Arafat was meeting CIA director George Tenet to discuss ways of ending the violence. The latest outbreak came a day after Israeli officials and diplomats noted that violence had been abating, and casts doubt over whether the current confrontation can be brought under control any time soon. After all, the killing of two of their soldiers who'd been under the protection of Arafat's police was met with swift and massive retaliation from the Israelis. And that's going to prompt the hard-liners on the Palestinian side to raise the ante themselves. Prayers Friday in Jerusalem and throughout the Palestinian territories could well raise the stakes once again.
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The image most troubling to U.S. officials and international diplomats in the region must be the incident in Ramallah. Palestinian police had apprehended a group of four Israeli soldiers in civilian clothes -- on an undercover mission, say the Palestinians; lost on their way to their post, say the Israelis -- and had taken them to the police station in Ramallah. But as word spread that Israelis had been captured, a raging mob of up to 1,000 Palestinians converged on the station, brushed past Arafat's officers and beat the Israelis to death. The salient point is that when confronted by an angry Palestinian mob, the local police were either unable or unwilling to restrain them -- forced to choose between killing fellow Palestinians or allowing Israeli captives to die, the requirements of the peace process came a poor second for Arafat's police. It's a sign that no matter what his intention, the failures of the peace process and the rising tide of conflict may leave the Palestinian leader unable to impose the terms of any new agreement on his enraged population. And as Israeli tanks and helicopter gun-ships pounded Ramallah, the Jewish State and the Palestinians appear a lot closer to war than to peace.
Copyright © 2000 Time Inc.
