The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, has plunged Israel into its ugliest diplomatic confrontation for years with its prime strategic ally, the United States, after accusing the Bush Administration of preparing to "sacrifice" Israel in order to "appease the Arabs".
President Bush was said yesterday to have been infuriated by Mr Sharon's verbal assault. A White House spokesman said Mr Sharon's comments were "unacceptable in the President's opinion". Mr Sharon made the remarks on Thursday night in an extraordinary speech denouncing American policy in the Middle East and in the battle against international terrorism. In the same speech, he also appeared to rule out any further cooperation with Mr Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, declaring that all ceasefire efforts had been "torpedoed" by the Palestinians and that Israel would henceforth "rely only on ourselves". Those comments appeared to represent the abrogation not merely of the much-breached current ceasefire, but of any partnership with the PA.
In apparent confirmation of this dramatic hardening of Mr Sharon's policies, Israeli troops yesterday took control of two Palestinian neighbourhoods in the disputed West Bank city of Hebron, killing at least six Palestinians in gunbattles as their tanks rolled forward. The military action followed days of violence in the divided city that included Palestinian shooting attacks on Israelis celebrating the Jewish festival of Tabernacles at the holy Cave of the Patriarchs.
Also yesterday, Palestinian gunmen from the Islamic Jihad group shot dead an Israeli settler near the West Bank city of Tulkarem. Israeli officials said this latest killing was further proof of the PA's disinclination to rein in Palestinian militants. US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell telephoned Mr Arafat on Thursday night, and reportedly warned him that the US was losing patience with his failure to fulfil ceasefire obligations.
The Palestinian Authority yesterday reaffirmed its commitment to the ceasefire, which was formalised 10 days ago by Mr Arafat and the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres. Palestinian negotiator Mr Saeb Erekat charged that Mr Sharon was seeking to "sabotage" the American anti-terror coalition "by killing more Palestinians". Mr Sharon's speech, which was savaged by several Israeli newspaper commentators yesterday as both unwarranted and deeply damaging to the national interest, was made in the heated aftermath of Thursday's killing of three Israelis by a Palestinian gunman at a bus station in northern Israel and the crash of a passenger plane full of Israeli citizens into the Black Sea.
Addressing himself to the United States, the "leader of the free world", the Prime Minister stormed: "Don't repeat the terrible mistake of 1938. Then, enlightened European democracies decided to sacrifice Czechoslovakia for a convenient temporary solution. Don't try to appease the Arabs at our expense. We won't be able to accept that. Israel won't be Czechoslovakia. Israel will fight terrorism."
The remarks reflect Mr Sharon's sense that the Bush Administration, in attempting to draw the Arab world into its anti-terror coalition, is turning a blind eye to what he regards as terrorism fostered by the PA. In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, he had apparently anticipated that the US, Israel and other Western democracies would work in concert to uproot terrorism worldwide - including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militant groups operating from territory controlled by the PA. Instead, Israel has been told by the US. it can play no overt role in the coalition, since this would alienate Arab support, and has been urged repeatedly to work with Mr Arafat to calm the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Remarks by Mr Bush earlier this week, in which the President spoke of an American "vision" of Palestinian statehood, were privately denounced by aides to Mr Sharon as a case of "America rewarding Palestinian terrorism". Bush Administration officials, however, have been privately assuring Mr Sharon that their anti-terrorism effort will eventually focus on Palestinian rejectionist groups and on countries sponsoring terrorism, such as Iran and Syria. And they have been stressing that Israel can only benefit from the smooth functioning of a global alliance against terror.
In the light of those assurances, Mr Bush is said to have been "angered and disappointed" by Mr Sharon's speech. Aides say that he regards the implied comparison between himself and Neville Chamberlain as odious and utterly unwarranted, and that he considers Israel to have no better friend and stauncher ally that the US. Mr Bush sent messages to this effect to Mr Sharon yesterday - via the State Department, the National Security Council and the Ambassador in Tel Aviv, Mr Dan Kurtzer.
Because of a technical error in the editing process, an article from Jerusalem originally published two weeks ago appeared on this page yesterday. Material from the piece has been incorporated here.