JERUSALEM, April 21-- The Muslim holy month of Ramadan ended quietly on Friday with no escalation of Israeli-Palestinian violence despite the tense situation earlier in the month. Analysts attributed it to the belief held by both sides that no one would benefit from further escalation.
Everyone's nerves were on edge when Israeli police clashed with Palestinian worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem on April 5, the flashpoint holy site in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The violence sparked rocket attacks from Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria, for which Israel retaliated with airstrikes.
In the West Bank, several Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military forces in different locations, and two British-Israeli sisters and their mother were shot dead in a Palestinian drive-by attack. Over 200 Palestinian protesters were injured on April 10 during clashes near the West Bank City of Nablus, after seven Israeli ministers and over 17,000 settlers organized a march toward an unpermitted outpost to demand legalizing it.
These clashes fueled fears about further escalation of violence during the holy Muslim month of fasting, which overlapped the Jewish holiday of Passover. Yet, such fears were gradually eased in the following days.
On April 7, the Home Front Command of the Israeli Defense Forces announced the lifting of restrictions on the residents of towns close to the border with the Gaza Strip. Israeli media reported that "unless more projectiles are launched at Israel, the current round of fighting might be over."
For the embattled Israeli government, mired in a 15-week standoff with the public over the controversial judicial overhaul, further escalation of the Israel-Palestinian conflict will only aggravate the situation, Israeli analysts said.
Orna Mizrahi, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, said that the strong military power of Israel also constitutes a deterrent to its enemies.
Israelis and Palestinians are probably on a "new normal," characterized by tit-for-tat violence that does not constitute a gigantic eruption but a new constant grind of reciprocal brutality, wrote Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington D.C., in an opinion piece on The National, a newspaper published in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, believed that Lebanon and Syria "have small or no interest in the escalation of violence.
"There is a tight connection between the strategic regional developments and the Israel-Palestinian situation," Milshtein told Xinhua, referring to the recent regional rapprochement in the Middle East marked by the reconciliatory steps taken by regional rivals, notably Iran and Saudi Arabia, to restore diplomatic ties.
The trend reflects the growing confidence of relevant regional countries, and Israel's enemies are keeping an eye on the possible escalation of tension "to examine Israel's deterrence and resiliency," he said.
"The normalization of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran is a turning point for regional political landscape and there is no interest of countries to support the escalation of Israel-Palestinian conflicts," Assaf Meydani, president of the Israeli Political Science Association and dean of the School of Government and Society at the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo, told Xinhua.
For the Israeli government which expected to reach diplomatic breakthroughs with more Arab countries, a new round of large-scale military actions will only backfire, analysts said.
Nimrod Goren, president of the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, told Xinhua that the current geopolitical landscape for Israel is becoming more complex as cooperation in various fields among Middle Eastern countries keeps expanding.
"Now we also see the increasing exchanges between Israel and some regional countries, out of strategic considerations that have gone beyond economic gains," Goren said. "Though political differences are still in place, cooperation based on common interests is gaining momentum." Enditem
