The tanks of August

摘要

Tn the past week Ariel Sharon, Israel's leader, has turned up the heat of the Palestinian intifada by several degrees. On August 27th, Israeli helicopters hovering over Ramallah killed Mustafa Zibri (better known as Abu Ali Mustafa), the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a radical faction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. That night, Israeli tanks rolled into the Palestinian village of Beit Jala. Palestinian gunmen had been using the village as a base to fire on Gilo, a Jewish settlement built on land in occupied East Jerusalem.