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| By Ellis Shuman June 22, 2001 |
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International pressure brought Israel and the Palestinians to agree to a cease-fire that has not resulted in an end of the violence. Additional international intervention may be necessary to keep the tenuous cease-fire alive and to strengthen it. Recent editorials in the international media dealt with the cease-fire and its consequences.
"Both sides consented to a truce without signing it. Both Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon felt pressured to enter into it, if only to be in a better position to blame the other if or when it fails."
San Jose Mercury News
"Why did Mr. Sharon stay his hand? And why did Yasser Arafat sign the cease-fire? The simple answer is that Mr. Sharon believed that Israel had the moral high ground in the eyes of the international community after the Tel Aviv bombing and he felt it was more valuable to preserve that moral high ground than to seize more physical low ground with yet one more retaliation against Palestinians."
Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times (registration required)
Will the cease-fire last?
"The smart money says that Israel and the Palestinians will be unable to sustain their current tenuous cease-fire. The reason? The truce arose out of tactical necessity for both sides, rather than being driven by a strategic vision."
Tony Karon, Time.com
"Can Israeli and Palestinian leaders keep their word to stop violence that has cost some 600 lives since a new Palestinian uprising began more than eight months ago? Will they?"
Sacramento Bee
"But don't be surprised if violence recurs. There's something all-too-familiar about Tenet's cease-fire. It obligates Arafat and his Palestinian Authority to halt violence, arrest Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists and confiscate illegal weapons. Those are precisely the promises that Arafat made - in writing - in the original Oslo Accords. And again in the Oslo II Accords. And once more in the Wye Plantation pact. And yet again in the Sharm-el-Sheikh agreement. So why believe him this time?"
New York Post
"At some point this cease-fire will break down, but its underlying logic won't go away so easily. That's the good news. The bad news is that while neither side can muster decisive force, neither side can muster a decisive compromise either. Mr. Arafat can't let Israeli settlements stay, and Mr. Sharon doesn't have the power or the will to remove them; Mr. Sharon can't accept the right of return for Palestinian refugees to Israel, and Mr. Arafat doesn't have the power or the will to give up that demand."
Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times (registration required)
What hope does the cease-fire bring?
"Diplomatic successes are, by the nature of this Israeli-Palestinian clash, temporary and maddeningly incremental. Yet to buy time is to save lives -- and to maintain the hope of an eventual peace settlement."
San Francisco Chronicle
"Both [Sharon and Arafat] agreed to small, sequential steps that, over the next week, could build momentum for a longer period of calm and the restart of political talks. That is the hope."
San Jose Mercury News
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