The events of September 11, 2001 altered the Israeli-Palestinian equation both directly and indirectly.
Directly, because Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat fairly quickly sorted themselves out into the two dichotomous camps that emerged in the Bush administration's view of the Middle East after September 11: good guys and bad guys, those who support the American war on terror and those who (accurately or not) are deemed to be against it.
With regard to terrorism, this development dramatically upgraded the Israeli-American alliance. Yet, this was hardly an automatic outcome of September 11. After all, Arafat also condemned the Al Qaeda attacks (though the Palestinian street seemingly did not). And Israel initially dealt with the ramifications of September 11 clumsily.
Ariel Sharon briefly angered the US by comparing George W. Bush to Chamberlain. I recall a senior American official telling a senior Israeli, to the latter's consternation, that for the US September 11 was the equivalent of the Holocaust, thereby implying that its ramifications were not open to Israeli interpretation or manipulation - as in comparing Arafat to Osama Bin Laden or equating the Palestinians, with whom we have a dispute over land and history, with the Al Qaeda terrorists.
Ultimately it was the Karine-A affair - the attempt by Arafat to import sophisticated weaponry from Iran in January 2002, several months after September 11 - that sealed Arafat's fate in American eyes by allying him with the axis of evil camp.
Israelis, in the midst of the intifada, felt a huge sense of relief: we were no longer alone in our struggle with radical Arab terrorism; we had a mega-power ally. We would be supported in taking increasingly extreme measures against Palestinian terrorists and their supporters.
Yet it is questionable whether the Bush administration's approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict itself (as opposed to Israel's struggle against Palestinian terrorism) would have been appreciably different without September 11.
Even before that tragic day, Bush showed little inclination to become actively involved in our conflict. Even after it, he endorsed a two-state solution and the roadmap.
Karine-A would probably have happened without September 11. It was the European attitude toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that changed measurably to Israel's advantage after September 11.
Indirectly, September 11 triggered a chain of American actions and reactions in the greater Middle East region that have profoundly affected our conflict.
The conquest and occupation of Iraq was declaredly intended to implant democracy in the region as an antidote to terrorism, reduce the danger of weapons of mass destruction and eliminate a state supporter of terrorism.
It did indeed remove a key supporter of Palestinian terrorism, Saddam Hussein, from the arena. It placed nearly 150,000 American troops in the heart of the Middle East, thereby affecting the regional military balance. And it eliminated any near-term prospect of a coalition of Arab countries making war against Israel.
This further freed Israel's hand in its dealings with the Palestinians, both militarily and in terms of political risk-taking, as in the August 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza.
But the occupation of Iraq and the earlier occupation of Afghanistan also had the unintended effect of strengthening Iran, a major supporter of Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamist organizations, by removing its neighboring enemies from power and elevating the Iraqi Shiites to dominance.
America inadvertently turned Iraq into a hotbed of terrorism that affects the entire region. And the misguided American attempt to foster instant electoral democracy in Iraq, Palestine, and elsewhere, without heed to the armed and radical nature of Islamist parties, helped enfranchise Hamas and legitimize its rule in Palestine.
Hamas' approach to the conflict, in turn, has to an extent moved the Israeli-Palestinian conflict out of the realm of a mere territorial dispute and into the "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West.
The current fighting with Hamas, and the recent war with Hezbollah in Lebanon and indirectly with Iran and Syria, have galvanized an initial degree of Egyptian, Jordanian, and Saudi support for Israel that is unprecedented in the history of the Arab-Israel conflict and that reflects the emergence of a Western-oriented anti-Islamist camp in the region.
On balance, the US role in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq has, from Israel's standpoint, contributed to a dangerous escalation of the confrontation with militant Islam, including in the Palestinian sphere.
The United States certainly bears part of the blame. For that matter, so does Israel, for not supporting and aiding Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas when that support might have made a difference.
But the primary blame for the current state of affairs between Israel and the Palestinians, and in a larger sense between Israel and the radical Islamist camp, both Arab and Iranian, is . . . Arab and Iranian. It did not begin on September 11. But September 11 was definitely a turning point.
{Bold} Yossi Alpher is coeditor of the bitterlemons family of internet publications. Acknowledgement to bitterlemons.org
Commentary: 9/11 was a turning point
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