Walking in Jewish West Jerusalem the other day, amid the hustle and bustle of afternoon shoppers, I could have been in the centre of any modern city. The people were generally younger and more tanned, but like any other town, there were bargains galore in the windows and the traffic revved and beeped just the way it does back home. The only incident of note was an aggressive verbal confrontation between two drivers, but even that was normal in frenetic everyday Israel.
I turned off the street into a bookshop, because like people who cannot pass a church without saying a prayer, I cannot pass a bookshop without browsing.
When I emerged after about 10 minutes, all was changed. The previously busy street was deserted. There were no cars and no people except a few men in uniform. I did not need to have spent the last few years in Northern Ireland to know that this was a bomb scare. But which way was the bomb, left or right? I was also acutely conscious of the glass shopfronts on every side. Eventually a security officer waved me in the right direction. The crowd was assembled at that end of the street, behind a cordon but looking on almost with an air of mild amusement, like spectators at a junior league football game. Recalling Omagh, I hoped we were all in the right place.
Within a few minutes, there was an all-clear. I went to a restaurant for a meal and read one of my newly purchased books but when I came out again, there was another bomb scare.
Although these were thankfully minor incidents, they reflected the current level of tension in Israel and the Palestinian territories and the way the great issues are intruding into everyday life. The morning before, Israeli helicopter gunships had targeted a senior member of Yasser Arafat's security detail as he drove his car in the Gaza Strip. There were pathetic descriptions of the driver's attempts to escape from the vehicle and the hand of Israeli vengeance. Afterwards, the wrecked car looked like a piece of charred and crumpled toast.
Masoud Ayad was a major player. The Israelis said he was a key figure in Hizbollah, the highly effective Iranian-backed Islamic guerrilla movement which forced Israel to end its long occupation of South Lebanon. The Palestinians denied this but, one way or the other, he was no insignificant flunkey.
Israeli spokesmen and politicians were completely unapologetic about the killing, the latest in a controversial programme of assassinating what we in Ireland would call "the godfathers of violence". But one wondered, as they spoke, when the counterattack would come and could such deeds ever be forgotten and put to one side in a future peace deal.
This is the land of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and vengeance is never long awaited. Young Israelis in their late teens are conscripted into the army, and everywhere you go you will see clusters of them in uniform, on a break, or on patrol, or waiting for transport to camp; back in Ireland they would be checking out the local discos and working their way through college. Such a group was assembled near Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning. Palestinian bus-driver Mr Khalil Abu Elba, whether acting under direction or simply maddened by his feelings of oppression, mowed down the young soldiers, killing seven along with one civilian and injuring 21.
At time of writing, no major counterpunch has been delivered by Israeli forces, although the security blockade of the Palestinian territories has been intensified and there has been shelling on the Lebanese border. A major military counterstrike may assuage some of the anger on the Israeli side but seems unlikely to halt the spiral of violence in the region.
It hardly needs saying that the situation badly needs to be defused. The policy of outgoing Prime Minister Barak towards the Palestinians was: hit them hard on the security front while offering the most attractive possible alternative if they sign on for peace. It may be that the security measures, particularly the killing of 13 Israeli Arabs in demonstrations last October, were so harsh that they made it impossible for the Palestinian leadership to cut a deal.
Another reading, favoured by some Israelis, is that the Palestinians are playing the Kosovo card, seeking to turn the region into an international basket-case requiring full-scale foreign intervention, perhaps under the flag of the United Nations.
One of the most striking features of Israel/Palestine is its modest geographical scale. An Israeli tourist brochure had to delete a reference to Tel Aviv being a "stone's throw" from Jerusalem but they are as close as, say Edinburgh and Glasgow. Ramallah, the chief town of the West Bank and de facto Palestinian capital until they can run up the flag in East Jerusalem, is only half-an-hour's drive from the Holy City. It is a very small arena in which these gladiators contend for dominance, and one thinks of Yeats's phrase about Ireland, "Great hatred, little room".
MR BARAK continues in office for now, while Mr Sharon continues his efforts to form a national unity government. Latest reports suggest that the final touches are being put to a coalition agreement between the Likud and Labour parties with Barak tipped for the post of Defence Minister. Whatever happens on the political scene, no slackening of Israeli security can be expected and the iron fist may even strike harder than before.
While Mr Sharon is far less ambitious than his predecessor when it comes to suing for peace, the negotiations between Barak and the Palestinians prior to the recent election gained such momentum that there is bound to be some form of carry-over, especially if Labour holds key positions in the new government.
The new US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, begins a visit to the region next weekend but we are told he will be in listening mode. The measured approach of the Bush administration contrasts strongly with the fevered last-minute efforts by Bill Clinton to broker a peace agreement. But no administration can afford to be isolationist when it comes to the Middle East. While the new President may be the butt of many jokes about his limited foreign travel, he is surrounded by some of the most experienced foreign policy hands in the business. It has been famously observed that "the United States has no friends, only interests", and it is in Washington's interest to keep the lid on the Middle East situation.
Here, ironically, Mr Sharon may be more in tune with the US approach than Mr Barak, provided he can resist any temptation to settle accounts physically with the Palestinians. Although he gave away little detail during the election campaign, all the indications are that he wants to maintain the status quo without any daring initiatives a la Clinton and Barak. The signals coming from Washington these days suggest that a period of "masterly inactivity" and minimal escalation on the security front would suit just fine for the moment.
As always, one returns to the enigmatic President Arafat. His failure or inability to grasp the olive branch held out by Mr Barak has precipitated the latter's downfall. Israeli commentators called him the "third candidate" in the prime ministerial election. He has taken a conciliatory approach towards the Prime Minister-elect while reflecting wryly that Mr Sharon "tried to kill me 13 times" in Beirut in the early 1980s. It is the task of the international community to persuade the two ageing gladiators to put aside their swords and shields and shake hands for peace, because the alternative is too awful to contemplate.
