Three years later, intefadeh goes on

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Three years after their conflict exploded anew, Israelis and Palestinians are trapped in a cycle of stalled peace initiatives, violence and blame-fixing.

Israelis live in fear of the next suicide attack. Palestinians suffer army raids and the humiliation of Israeli roadblocks. And as this latest intefadeh, or uprising, reaches its third anniversary today, with 2,477 dead on the Palestinian side and 860 on the Israeli side, few hold out hope for a change.

"I don't see an end anytime soon," said Uri Savir, a former Israeli peace negotiator who helped design the 1990s agreements that created zones of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Israelis blame Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, accusing him of orchestrating the uprising and encouraging suicide attackers, or at least of refusing to crack down on them.

Palestinians say Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's occasional words of peace are a charade. They point to continuing Jewish settlement construction and to military measures that have killed hundreds of civilians and demolished normal life in the Palestinian areas.

Yet the violence has strengthened both Arafat and Sharon.

By virtually imprisoning Arafat in his offices in the West Bank city of Ramallah, and by threatening to exile or even kill him, Israel has cloaked the Palestinian leader in a martyr's mantle.

On Israel's side, even though polls show a majority would happily part with most of the Palestinian-populated lands seized in the 1967 war, Sharon was resoundingly re-elected in January on a wave of fear created by the constant suicide attacks.

The Palestinians "are claiming that the problem is with this Israeli government without acknowledging or even entertaining the possibility that they are the ones who put this government into office," said Mark Heller, an Israeli political analyst at Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies.

Hani Masri, a Palestinian political analyst, says the Palestinians miscalculated by taking up guns and suicide bombings. Otherwise, "I think that we would divide Israeli society and attract international support to the Palestinian people."

Recent international peace efforts have bogged down.

The U.S.-backed "road map," a peace plan that envisioned the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005, was launched with high hopes at a June summit in Jordan with President Bush. It was stalled by Palestinian suicide attacks and Israeli attempts to kill Palestinian militant leaders.

Under Israeli and U.S. pressure, the Palestinians chose Mahmoud Abbas as prime minister to shave off some of Arafat's power and give the Israelis a new negotiating partner.

Abbas resigned after only four months, worn out by his power struggle with Arafat. He is being replaced by Ahmed Qureia, another moderate but also a longtime Arafat aide unlikely to steer an independent course.

Sharon stunned Israelis before the June summit by accepting the road map -- albeit with reservations -- and the theoretical creation of a Palestinian state.

But he has done little to dismantle or freeze construction at the Jewish settlements as dictated by the road map.

Besides that, Israel is now building a massive security barrier which has angered Palestinians by encroaching on West Bank land and leaving them with far less territory than the minimum they are willing to accept for a state.

In Israel, the violence has decimated tourism, agriculture and construction, dampened investment and consumer confidence and plunged the nation deep into recession. Unemployment is approaching 11 percent, and the Bank of Israel reported in March that the uprising had cost the economy 3.8 percent of its gross domestic product in 2002 alone.

Palestinians, far poorer to begin with, have about 50 percent unemployment, and Israeli travel restrictions make it harder for them to job-hunt in Israel or even within the West Bank and Gaza.

Daily routines for both peoples have changed in painful ways.

"Nothing is innocent or spontaneous anymore," said Eldad Almaliach, a 55-year-old locksmith. "I can't just go out for a drink at a cafe, I have to take into account that Palestinians kill civilians there. I can't just add that extra something to my shopping basket, because the intefadeh has ruined the economy. I can't allow my 17-year-old boy to take the bus to school because a Palestinian might blow it up."

"Daily, banal things have become questions of life or death," he said.

"This is a life of fear and horror," said Sopheia Awad, a 32-year-old Palestinian mother of two. "It is so difficult, and I am afraid to send my kids to school every day."

"It is true that we couldn't get our rights through negotiations, but we can't get them through the intefadeh either," she said.

Still, many Palestinians continue to support attacks on Israelis, if only as revenge for Israeli army raids and travel bans.

Heller, the Jaffee Center analyst, said the Palestinians could still put Israel on the defensive by accepting the deal they rejected in 2000 for a state in the Gaza Strip and most of the West Bank, plus a foothold in Jerusalem.

Ali Jerbawi, a political scientist at the West Bank's Bir Zeit University, said chances of a two-state peace deal have diminished. "Israel has almost closed that option," he said.

In their desperation, many have taken to gazing into the distant future.

Many Israelis believe the Palestinians are still generations away from accepting a Jewish state in their midst. Jerbawi says Palestinians will simply wait a few decades for their population to outnumber Israel's and then take over through the ballot box.

Still, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat looks at the two exhausted peoples and sees a sliver of hope that change will come sooner.

"I believe in my heart that the majority of Israelis and the majority of Palestinians want peace," he said.