Battle of Jericho

THE ISRAELI military siege of a prison in Jericho was a case of irresponsible parties playing with matches in the middle of a tinder box. This was an avoidable crisis that should never have been allowed to reach the pitch of violence the world witnessed yesterday, when Israeli Defense Forces used heavy weaponry in a graduated application of force, leading, after nine perilous hours, to the surrender of six Palestinians accused of complicity in the murder of an Israeli minister.

Coming at a fraught moment, when the Islamist movement Hamas is taking power within the Palestinian Authority and Israelis are a scant two weeks away from a crucial election, the Jericho crisis illustrates the need for all concerned parties to communicate and at least coordinate with each other. What is particularly alarming about the run-up to the Jericho siege is that Palestinians, the Israelis, and the British and US monitors of the six prisoners all acted on the basis of their own parochial interests and anxieties.

Despite a 2002 negotiated agreement that British and US monitors would have custody of the accused prisoners, Hamas was openly declaring its intention to set them free. Foolishly -- or in an admission of weakness -- Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas chimed in to say he would let the prisoners be released. Listening to these threats, and taking them seriously, the small group of foreign monitors requested that Abbas provide enhanced security. When that request was not heeded, the monitors withdrew.

Israeli leaders such as Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz cannot be expected to acknowledge that they had political motives for ordering tanks and bulldozers to assault the Jericho prison. The operation killed at least two people and might still incite a new wave of generalized violence. The logic of electoral politics, however, suggests that they felt they had to prevent the six accused murderers from being released. That logic dictated that Olmert not allow his right-wing rival Benjamin Netanyahu to use the emotional issue of such a release against Olmert and his centrist Kadima party.

These obtuse, self-regarding actions by Palestinians, US and British monitors, and Israelis flow from a failure to institute continuing dialogue and cooperation. Hamas, as a point of pride, has long insisted on gaining the release of prisoners it regards as resistance fighters. Abbas plainly fears looking like a quisling for Israel. The foreign monitors merely asked for more security, without mobilizing international pressure on Abbas to provide security and renounce any intention of letting the prisoners go free.

The Middle East is too flammable to go on dropping lit matches on the tinder.