In a bad year for the ‘peace process’, the death-toll mounted daily. By September, and end of the first year of the renewed Palestinian intifada, more than 570 Palestinians and 150 Israelis had been killed.

In February elections Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak lost heavily to the notorious hard-liner Ariel Sharon. It was Sharon who, among other things, had contrived to spark the intifada with a deliberately provocative visit to the Temple Mount, Jerusalem. Prospects for peace began to look bleak indeed.

However, Sharon’s Likud Party held only 19 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. A divided Labour Party, spurred on by former premier Simon Peres, agreed to join a national-unity government.

Within weeks Israeli troops had entered a Palestinian-controlled part of the Gaza Strip and destroyed four border posts. The new Government insisted on supporting the ‘natural growth’ of illegal Israeli settlements in Palestinian areas.

In June a nominal cease fire was declared. Sharon stipulated a ‘total cessation of violence’ and a ‘cooling-off’ period of at least six weeks before ‘confidence-building measures’ could begin. But the violence continued: Palestinian militants setting off two car bombs and the Israeli Government employing an explicit policy of ‘targeted’ assassination. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat refused to condemn Hamas and Islamic Jihad for acts of terrorism against Israel, while Sharon rejected proposals for an international monitoring force to operate in the West Bank and Gaza.

For a few weeks the events of 11 September in the US jolted the conflict closer to some sort of resolution. President Bush referred to the desirability of a ‘viable Palestinian State’ as the US wooed Arab states in support of its ‘war on terrorism’. Sharon, who quickly took advantage of the confusion to intensify Israeli incursions into Palestine, was prevailed upon to withdraw and keep a low profile.

However, hopes for a resolution began to recede very rapidly. Once the bombing of Afghanistan began, they disappeared without trace. Over the weekend of 1 December at least 25 people were killed by a series of suicide bombs in Israel. The attacks, claimed by Hamas, were condemned by Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat. Nonetheless, Israeli retribution came in the form of missile attacks on Arafat’s residence and headquarters, Sharon complaining that the Palestinian leader was doing nothing to control Islamist militants. Observers questioned whether it was possible for an increasingly enfeebled and unpopular Arafat to do so. During December violence continued to escalate on both sides, Israeli victims exceeding Palestinians for the first time since the intifada began. Israel seemed bent on crushing the Palestinian Authority. By the end of the year the peace process appeared to have been killed off by extremists on both sides.