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THE SIEGE CONTINUES: An Israeli armoured jeep surrounded by Palestinian demonstrators in Ramallah.

OFTEN, THE West Asian situation resembles a shadow play performance when the lights are switched on. Suddenly, all the drama and tension that had riveted the audience disappears and everyone is left looking at the screen wondering whether they had actually seen something on it moments before.

For a fortnight in December, it seemed that the dialogue between the Israelis and the Palestinians was dead and buried and/or that the Palestinian Authority was about to disappear.

Then some decisions were made, some actions taken, rumours of fresh plans to advance the peace-making process made the rounds and the situation appeared to have reverted to the relatively normal condition of humdrum violence.

Anthony Zinni, retired U.S. Marine Corps General and now the latest in a long string of international peace-makers, was back in business and the Israelis and the Palestinians were back to the routine job of jockeying for advantage before the next phase of negotiations.

It was as if all that had taken place in December was a bad dream that the residents of the area shook off as they returned to the times before Gen. Zinni. The sharp deterioration in the West Asian situation had its starting point a few days before Gen. Zinni first arrived in the region on November 26 in his new role as the special envoy mandated to get the Israelis and the Palestinians to enforce a ceasefire and re-launch substantive negotiations. Gen. Zinni's appointment itself was the most prominent sign that the U.S. administration of the President, George W. Bush, had finally recognised that it could not continue to be disengaged from the West Asian situation. If nothing else, the ``fight against global terror'' and the need to sustain the ``international coalition against terror'' necessitated that the U.S. convince the Arab world that its concerns too were being taken on board.

Three days before Gen. Zinni arrived in the region, however, there occurred the event that was probably the starting point of the latest spell of heightened tension.

Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, a Hamas activist long hunted by Israel for master-minding suicide bombings, was ambushed and killed in a helicopter-gunship attack. This came as a fresh reminder that Israel's policy of liquidating wanted militants who had not been incarcerated by the Palestinian Authority had not been put aside. The Hamas threat that it would take revenge could not have been taken lightly but the violence that followed in the next few days was not markedly different from that which has become ``normal'' since September 2000 - random fire-bomb attacks on Israelis by Palestinians, shooting at lightly armed Palestinians by Israelis and clashes between armed men from both sides.

There was even reason to hope that Hanoud's death, and the proof it provided that Israel's policy of assassinating wanted Palestinians had not been put in abeyance, would be overlooked by the Palestinians.

The U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, had by then delivered a long-awaited speech in which he had set out the administration's rough outline for West Asian peace. Following on Mr. Bush's earlier speech, in which he said he envisioned a Palestinian state side-by-side with Israel, Gen. Powell acknowledged that Israel was an occupier of Arab territories.

The U.S. Secretary of State outlined that in the short-term his, and therefore Gen. Zinni's, objectives would be to achieve a complete ceasefire, an end to incitement (from the Palestinian side) and by acknowledging that there were causes which provoke incitement (Israel's settlement construction policy) try to mitigate this problem as well. All in all there was promise of a serious effort to push forward after months of stagnation.

Those hopes were blown to pieces by a triad of deadly suicide bombings over the late hours of December 1 and early hours of December 2. Two Palestinian youth blew themselves up one after the other in Jerusalem's Ben Yehuda mall on a Saturday night, when the cobbled complex of eateries and shops is usually crowded after the Sabbath. All the ten Israelis killed were under the age of 21. The next day another suicide bomber climbed into a bus in the northern Israeli city of Haifa and blew himself up taking 15 elderly persons with him.

These attacks, thrusting themselves onto the consciousness of a world extremely sensitive to the threat of terrorism and Al-Qaeda type of activities, swung the diplomatic pendulum decisively against the Palestinians.

In terms of the number count there can be no comparison between the casualties suffered by either side. Well over two-thirds of the 1,000-plus who have died since the outbreak of the current uprising have been Palestinians. While over 60 of these Palestinians were killed for their alleged involvement in terrorist activities, a large number of the others have been boys throwing stones or children and adults whose only fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But suicide bombings have their own stunning, revolting impact and when the game was all about getting U.S. backing for one position or the other, these attacks could not have come at a worse time for the Palestinians, politically speaking.

Israel responded with predictable ferocity. Fighter planes and gunships rained missiles and bombs on Palestinian security establishments, the runways of the Palestinian airport in the Gaza Strip were dug up and Israeli tanks smashed into Palestinian-populated areas. More ominously, Israel indicated that it was just about restraining itself from attacking the Palestinian Authority President, Yasser Arafat, himself.

Their bombs blew up parts of Mr. Arafat's headquarters in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and blasted to bits three helicopters assigned for his use. Mr. Arafat was confined to his headquarters in Ramallah as Israeli troops and tanks thrust forward from the ring they had enforced around the town to within a few hundred metres of the building.

Hardliners who dominate the Cabinet of Israel's Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, were demanding that Mr. Arafat be expelled to Tunis and, the constant strikes against the Palestinian Authority personnel, establishments and infrastructure suggested that Israel was bent on dismantling the Authority itself.

Amidst all this, Mr. Sharon's Ministers declared that Mr. Arafat was no longer ``relevant'' in any search for a solution to the imbroglio and that Israel could wait for the emergence of a new Palestinian leadership. The fact that the latest Israeli crackdown came in the course of a visit to the U.S. by Mr. Sharon, that the U.S. did not call upon Israel to exercise restraint and that the U.S. froze the funds of the Hamas and the Islamic Jehad, were all interpreted by the Palestinians as signs that the U.S. had given the nod to Mr. Sharon to do what he willed.

The signs were ominous enough for the European Union and Turkey - who have good relations with both sides - to warn that there should be no question of toppling Mr. Arafat or dismantling the Authority. Gen. Zinni, meanwhile, was carrying on with the increasingly futile-looking task of getting security officials from both sides to work out the arrangements for a ceasefire.

By about the middle of last fortnight, Israel came out with a concrete demand that 36 militants be arrested by the Authority. In the light of what happened later it would appear that Israel, and probably the U.S. as well, also wanted Mr. Arafat and his Authority to close down the Hamas and the Islamic Jehad and arrest those alleged to have killed the Israeli Minister, Rehavam Ze'evi, last year.

Hundreds of Hamas activists ringed the residence of the Hamas spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, when Mr. Arafat's policemen tried to arrest him. Warnings were apparently issued, but later retracted, by the Hamas and the Islamic Jehad that they would turn their guns on the Authority's security forces if attempts were made to arrest their members.

It appeared for a while that Mr. Arafat, the great survivor, was finally losing the power to control his people. Meanwhile, the deadly strikes from both sides continued with dozens of Palestinians being killed in Israeli air and tank raids and at least one major bomb attack on an Israeli bus.

In the middle of December, the U.S. announced that it was recalling Gen. Zinni for consultations. On the next day, in a speech to commemorate Id, Mr. Arafat called for an end to the attacks on Israelis and announced his intention to crack down on all those who planned and carried out attacks.

Over the next few days, his security forces were reported to have sealed the offices and institutions of the Hamas and the Islamic Jehad and begun taking their activists into custody. The two organisations, which at a point had appeared ready and able to topple Mr. Arafat, meekly said they would not cause any trouble for the Authority so as to maintain Palestinian unity.

Irritants, such as Israel's refusal to allow Mr. Arafat to leave Ramallah or attend Christmas gatherings in Bethlehem till Ze'evi's killers were handed over, remained. But just after the New Year, Gen. Zinni was back in the area and there were reports not merely of a ceasefire agreement but even of a limited agreement on substantive issues.

Even as the Authority's security services continued to arrest members of the Hamas and the Islamic Jehad, the two outfits announced that they were suspending actions against Israel to strengthen Mr. Arafat's hands. Israel's Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, still playing a lone hand at peace-making, was reported to have reached a tentative deal with the Palestinian negotiator, Ahmed Quorei.

All details of this deal were disputed as it was said to contain provisions for a quick acceptance of Palestinian statehood on the 42 per cent of the West Bank that the Authority controls, fully or partially, and most of the Gaza Strip. Negotiations on the other substantive issues would follow after the establishment of Palestinian statehood.

The lights had been turned on and it appeared that the shadow play of December had not occurred. But the situation is still fragile. On the one hand, no one really knows whether Mr. Sharon is in any way ready for a deal that would give the Palestinians a great part of what they desire and which the rest of the world believes they should get. Mr. Sharon's attachment to the West Bank settlements is well known and there is much scepticism about his claim that he is willing to make painful and historic compromises once there is an end to violence from the Palestinian side.

So long as Israel persists with its policy of assassinating wanted Palestinians there will always be sufficient cause for provocation.

On the other hand, the Palestinian Authority has declared that its current crackdown on the militant organisations has not been done to please Israel but to establish that it is the sole power in the Palestinian territories. But the Authority will have to persist with this new policy for a long time before Israel or the U.S. is convinced that Mr. Arafat has abandoned the method of using these militant groups as his proxies.

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