MIDDLE EAST: The word many Arab politicians and commentators used to describe the latest spasm of Palestinian-Israeli violence is "inevitable". They regard violence as inevitable every time the region engages in peacemaking.
The Saudi newspaper Okaz echoed other Arab papers when it asked, "Is Sharon serious about peace?"
Okaz argues that he is not. At present, the paper says, he is determined to use violence to scupper the moribund peace process, given a new lease on life by last week's Sharm al-Shaikh and Aqaba summits.
The revelation by Israeli sources that Tuesday's failed helicopter gunship attempt on the life of the Hamas spokesman, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, which prompted Hamas' horrific retaliation, had been planned before the summits has strengthened this view.
Before the assassination attempt, the Arabs, Palestinians and the Bush administration believed that Mr Sharon had agreed to suspend his policy of targeting individual Palestinian militants.
Beirut's Daily Star said Mr Sharon "did his part" to initiate the new round of violence "by ordering the assassination attempt" and accused him of using the Israeli military "to provoke" a Palestinian response.The paper asked, "Who benefits?" and replied, "The fact that Hamas took 'credit' for the slaughter [on Wednesday] was extraneous because the only beneficiary was Ariel Sharon.
"The immolation of Israeli civilians will only serve to advertise and solidify his nefarious position, not discredit or undermine it, and to delay or obliterate Palestinian aspirations to statehood, not accelerate or strengthen them."
The Syrian Foreign Minister, Mr Farouk al-Sharaa, said the attack on Mr Rantisi amounted to an "attempt by Israel to torpedo the road map" drawn up by the US to provide for the emergence of a Palestinian state by 2005.
This led, in the Arab view, to Wednesday's retaliatory bus bombing by Hamas and further Israeli strikes which killed 24 Palestinians and Israelis and yesterday's Israeli attacks which left at least five Palestinians dead.
Salah al-Neami, writing in the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat characterised this week's blood-letting as yet another example of the policy of "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" adopted by both sides.
The Muscat newspaper, Oman, said Israel was trying to push "the Palestinians into a military confrontation amongst themselves" pitting the government headed by the Prime Minister, Mr Mahmud Abbas, who seeks to achieve a ceasefire and an end to the armed Intifada, against Hamas.