Time of transition begins for Palestinians and Israel

Both sides won't rule out the possibility of violence as a power struggle arises.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
JERUSALEM -- The death of Yasser Arafat could help break the logjam in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking efforts and perhaps usher in a political realignment as well, Middle East analysts and officials say.
The transition period, though, will be perilous. It is likely to be marked not only by succession struggles among Palestinian factions, but by the advent of long-suppressed change in a society that has seemed, like its late leader, to be somehow frozen in time.
Arafat, who died today in Paris, was very much in the mold of autocratic Middle Eastern leaders who surrender power only in death. Although the 75-year-old leader presided over a national movement rather than an actual state, he was for decades synonymous, in the eyes of his people, with a Palestinian state to be.
Arafat's personal prestige among Palestinians lent him the authority to make momentous decisions, such as the adoption of the interim Oslo, Norway, peace accords -- sealed with his famous handshake on the White House lawn in 1993 with Israel's then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin -- which were supposed to have culminated in Palestinian statehood.
However, his status also gave Arafat the ability to almost single-handedly confound peace efforts when he chose to do so. Israel considered him the chief architect of the bloody Palestinian uprising that is now in its fifth year -- although senior Israeli policy-makers privately acknowledge grave mistakes and missed opportunities on their side as well.
More than a year before Arafat's death, Israel and the Palestinians had simply stopped talking to one another. The last high-level meeting took place in summer 2003, between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas, who was then Palestinian prime minister. All but a few informal negotiating tracks had dried up long before that.
Opportunity
"This is a golden opportunity for Israel to change the course of things," said Ephraim Sneh, an opposition lawmaker and onetime deputy defense minister. Arafat's demise "demands accommodation with the new Palestinian leadership. ... This is a real chance, and we will regret it for generations if we miss it," he said.
But no one believes re-establishing some form of rapport will be easy .
"A window of opportunity will open, but not in the immediate future, as Arafat's successor will not be one person, but rather a group of people who will together fill the roles Arafat held for himself," said Amos Malka, a former head of Israeli army intelligence. "Both sides need time before moving forward."
Neither Israeli nor Palestinian observers discount the possibility of an outbreak of serious violence as Palestinians jostle for power in the post-Arafat era. Even though his influence waned in his final years, particularly in the Gaza Strip, Arafat was always able to maintain a fragile equilibrium among competing factions.
"It is clear what a dangerous stage through which the our nation is passing," said Sheikh Ibrahim Moderis, the imam at a leading mosque in Gaza City. "No one can deny that Arafat has been a kind of safety valve."
Avoiding confrontations
The first test of any new Israeli-Palestinian relationship could come even before Arafat has been laid to rest. Israel is deeply worried about an outbreak of unrest in the West Bank and Gaza in connection with his funeral.
In the meantime, many Israeli commentators are urging that army activity be kept to a minimum to avoid sparking an ill-timed confrontation.
"Clearly, Israel must do everything to restrain military activity -- it must not initiate new operations, and should put off previously planned ones," military-affairs commentator Zeef Schiff wrote in the Haaretz newspaper.