Israel’s bombing deep into Syria on Sunday was an audacious but calibrated act reflecting the Israeli government’s inability to stop suicide bombings and its calculation that neither the Damascus regime nor the Bush administration would significantly penalize Israel in return. The airstrike on an alleged Palestinian terrorist camp, which followed a suicide bombing Saturday that killed 19 people in the seaside city of Haifa, is not likely to spark a wider war. But it could further dampen hopes of reviving a U.S.-backed Middle East peace process. And it could aggravate anti-U.S. feelings in the region and deepen the identification of Israel and the United States in the minds of many in the Arab world who equate Israel’s 36-year-old occupation of the West Bank and Gaza with the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The attack “is not good for Syria, not good for the United States and not good for the peace process, if there is one,” says Murhaf Jouejati, referring to a U.S.-sponsored “road map to peace” that aimed to rebuild confidence between Israelis and Palestinians and establish a Palestinian state by 2005. Full Story
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