89 As a result of all these processes, the conflict is becoming less and less an Israeli-Palestinian confrontation, and more and more a Jewish-Arab one.The support extended by the vast majority of the Jewish Diaspora to Israel, irrespective of its actions, and the adherence of the Arab and Muslim masses to the Palestinian cause, irrespective of the attitude of their leaders, have consolidated this phenomenon. The assassination of Hamas leaders SheikAhmed Yassin in March 2003 and of Abd-al-Aziz al-Rantissi three weeks later fanned the flames even more.
90 After being besieged for two years in his Ramallah compound, Yasser Arafat died on November II, 2004. His sudden demise is shrouded in mystery, and many believe that he was murdered by means of a sophisticated poison. Masses of the Palestinian people turned the funeral of the father of the nation, as they saw him, into a huge demonstration of mourning. His last ten years were marked by the inherent contradiction between his two functions: leader of a liberation movement that had not yet achieved its aim and chief of a stateon-the-way. He was succeeded by his long-time partner in the Fatah movement, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen).
The radical Israeli peace movements can be likened to a small wheel with an autonomous drive which turns a bigger wheel, which in turn activates an even bigger wheel, and so on.
91 In the course of 2005, Ariel Sharon started carrying out the "separation", which included the dismantling of all the settlements in the Gaza Strip and some in the North of the West Bank. The implementation of the "separation" took a year and a half, in the course of which the confrontation looked as if it had only two sides: Sharon on the one side and the settlers on the other. The Geneva initiative and all the other peace proposals were eradicated altogether from the public mind.