AL QUDS: With the US-backed road map peace plan in danger of being swallowed up by the latest round of bloodletting in the Middle East, the prevailing sense among Palestinians is that they are hopelessly trapped, unable to end 36 years of Israeli occupation either through negotiation or through armed conflict.

“Palestinians want an end to all of this but can’t see a way out of the whole situation,” says Ali Jarbawi, professor of political science at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank. “They tried negotiations, in the form of Oslo, for nine years and it didn’t work. Then they tried confrontation and it didn’t work. They see no way out, but to endure. Endurance has become the strategy.”

There was talk Friday of security contacts between Israeli and Palestinian officials being revived, and of a renewed dialogue between Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), and Hamas leaders over an end to attacks on Israelis. But violence continued unabated.

If the appointment of a new Palestinian prime minister in late April, US pressure on Israel to accept the road map last month, and the decision by President George W. Bush to personally back the plan, had bred some hope among Palestinian leaders, it has rapidly evaporated.

The idea of an armed international monitoring force in the region to separate the two sides was revived on Friday by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. Not surprisingly Palestinian leaders, who have always been keen to internationalise the conflict, embraced the idea. Palestinian minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said an armed force “is the only realistic solution to get out of this cycle of violence and counter-violence.”

But Israel strongly opposes international intervention in the conflict, insisting it will not place its security in the hands of a third party. So, for now, the only game in town is the roadmap. Palestinian leaders, especially Abbas, know this.

Nevertheless, when Abbas and other Palestinian officials returned from the US-orchestrated summit in the Jordanian port city of Aqaba on June 4, they were somewhat buoyed. They felt Bush had listened to their case, including their demands for the transfer of funds frozen by Israel. They believed also they had found time to reconstruct the Palestinian Authority security apparatus destroyed by Israel in 32 months of fighting.

But since then, and as a result of his speech at the summit, Abbas’s credibility among his own people has crashed. He called for the end to the “armed intifada” and recognised “Jewish suffering” but forgot to mention the suffering of his own people and their demands.

He arrived home to a barrage of criticism. If the US and Israel detected moderation in the Palestinian Prime Minister’s words, his own people viewed what he said as a capitulation to international dictates. “Abu Mazen did himself a lot of harm with his declaration in Aqaba,” says Jarbawi.

Now, the latest series of strikes by Israel has further weakened Abbas and the moderate message he has been peddling. Hamas leaders who have not hidden their desire to torpedo the road map have broken off truce talks with him.

Mahdi Abdul-Hadi, who heads the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs in East Jerusalem says Abbas was appointed by Arafat, constantly reports back to him, and so poses no threat to the Palestinian leader. “Abu Mazen has no political ambitions and no charisma,” he told IPS. “And he cannot afford to anger Arafat who appointed him and who can destroy him with a single remark.”

In fact, since Aqaba, Arafat’s position among his own people has strengthened. Following the summit, he explained Abbas’s failure to mention key Palestinian demands by saying that the prime minister had not been allowed to say what he wanted — an explanation that helped cultivate further the portrayal of Abbas as a US lackey.

Despite Israel’s insistence that he crush Hamas, Abbas has made it clear he does not plan to use force in persuading the armed militias to lay down their weapons. Jarbawi says that for Hamas leaders to be convinced to suspend attacks, Abbas will have to get a guarantee that Israel will stop assassinations.—Dawn/Inter Press News Service.