The latest teenager kamikaze attack in Tel Aviv provides a further occasion to reflect on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how it can be solved. Writing in the Frankfurter Rundschau (19/4), Andrea Nüsse comments: “ The tragedy continues to unwind. The Palestinian government led by Hamas has failed to distance itself from the attack in Tel Aviv, on the contrary. And the reaction of the Israeli government seems only initially to be contained. But freedom of movement, already very limited, within the Palestinian territories will be further restricted. Even members of the Palestinian government may be killed if Israel thinks it fit to do so. And three ministers and deputies of Hamas from East Jerusalem will be deprived of residence permits to prevent them from residing in their birthplace. This is one of the most terrible and momentous weapons Israel has at her disposal. For Israel is trying systematically to maintain low or reduce the number of Palestinians in the occupied area of East Jerusalem and so resolve the dispute over the city through demographic means. The measures adopted by the government do not kill, but they tighten the already tight noose round the neck of the Palestinians. According to UN data, Gaza is already threatened with hunger because since January Israel has virtually banned the entry of goods into the closed area. 150,000 state-sector workers will not receive their wages because Israel is withholding Palestinian tax receipts and the West has stopped sending aid. A policy of pinpricks that has always in the past led to new eruptions of violence”. And in Die Welt , Jacques Schuster observes: “ Israel has reacted moderately and for many reasons. One of these can be summed up in one word: perplexity. Just like the Europeans and Americans, not even the Israelis know what strategy to adopt towards Hamas. For weeks their security experts have been discussing all the options, from the toppling of the Hamas government to open war, to discussion on mediators to targeted homicides. Everyone knows that no provision will lead to a solution of the crisis. One example: if Israel blocks the flow of capital in the Palestinian areas, she will not help improve the living conditions of the Palestinians under a government that wants only death and terror. If she interrupts the financial flow, thus destroying the already fragile state structures, Palestinian autonomy would be reduced. In such circumstances, the number of extremists would increase and the security of Israel diminish. So no option is satisfactory. Meanwhile Hamas is busily re-arming itself with weapons acquired from Iran“. The suicide bomb blast in Tel Aviv and the rising price of petrol following the international crisis over Iran’s nuclear ambitions are the two main issues discussed by the Spanish press in recent days. In its editorial entitled “The price of petrol is rising from day to day” El Periodico of 19/4 comments that “since we are one of the countries of the 25-member European Union that is most dependent on the importation of this fuel and its derivatives, we must now acknowledge, as the Bank of Spain has warned, that we will have to revise the optimism of our model of growth. For the cheap prices of raw materials are coming to an end, perhaps forever. The irreversible growth of energy costs only underlines the need to find a national economic model better adapted to this reality”. In its editorial under the title “ The new scenario of the Middle East” the Catalan daily Avui of 19/4 points out that “after the death of 10 people in a terrorist attack, the government of the Palestinian National Authority cannot justify it with the doctrine of legitimate defence… But the inappropriate response of the Hamas government seems even more sterile after the reaction of the new Israeli government of Ehmud Olmert, who has already announced that he is not thinking of mounting a massive attack in response to Monday’s terrorist attack”. The French paper Le Monde (19/4) speaks of a “new terrorism without Al-Qaeda” , following the kamikaze attack in Tel Aviv and the conclusions of the inquiry of the terrorist attacks that have struck Europe in 2004 and 2005. In an article signed by Jean Pierre Stroobants , the author notes that “the real challenge of the years ahead will be, for Europe as a whole, to identify and defeat the autonomous ‘cells’ (…). Small groups united by friendship or by kinship ties, linked to the nebulous movement of the jihad thanks to the mediation of the Internet, and impregnated by a religious message that is not merely a pretext, these new structures are revealing themselves to be more threatening than those that feel themselves invested with a mission of solidarity”. The birth of “autochthonous terrorism” , concludes the French daily, represents “a particularly threatening phenomenon for the Muslim minority living in Europe. The far from extremist Muslim majority could be the first victim of the exacerbation of tensions that are being expressed in various places”.
