MIDDLE EAST: Jericho, the first Palestinian city to be evacuated by the Israeli army under the 1993 Oslo accords, is the only West Bank town not to be reoccupied by Israel.
Instead of sending in the tanks and troops, the Israelis simply surrounded Jericho two weeks ago and reimposed the siege which was lifted last February. Until the reinstatement of the closure, Jerusalemites and West Bankers could enter and leave Jericho and townspeople could come and go. Friends who have a hotel there said it did good business in July and August.
Jericho became a sort of French Riviera for Palestinian Jerusalemites longing for a change of scene. "Can you imagine, people went to swim and eat lunch in Jericho in August?" remarked one of the hotel owners. Jericho, at 1,000 meters below sea level, is the lowest human habitation on the face of the earth and one of the hottest in summer.
Today, access to Jericho, which competes with Damascus for the title of the oldest city in the world, is strictly restricted. The check point on the main road into the town is back. Lines of vehicles and people have sprung up out of the stony desert.
Applicants for admission are summoned four by four by the soldiers on duty. There are no hard and fast rules, no clear orders. I was able to visit Jericho, but not my driver who is a Jerusalemite. Other Jerusalemites, with blue covers on their Israeli identity cards, were waved through by a sour, thin faced Israeli soldier.
An eight-seater taxi waited for me on the Jericho side and whisked me off to town, past the empty Oasis Casino, a highly profitable joint Palestinian-Israeli-Austrian business venture closed down early in the Intifada which erupted in 2000. The casino died without its Israeli gamblers just as the thick green banana plantations which used to ring Jericho dried in the 1970s when Israel siphoned off the town's water supply. Today the fronds of the date palms are yellow and brown, farmers are not planting the vegetable gardens or cultivating the citrus trees which used to be their staple sources of income because there is no water.
I told the driver I wanted to go to the "baladia", the municipality. He replied, "Saeb". I asked: "Is he here?" "Yes," he replied and took me to the office of the veteran Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat.
Jericho is a small place. Everyone knows the movements of its most prominent citizen. All foreigners go to see Saeb. Two fit young men with earphones and badges went up the stairs ahead of me and into Dr Erekat's outer office, checking out security for the US envoy, Mr John Wolf, due to visit later in the day. Although I did not have an appointment, I was soon ushered into Dr Erekat's office. He sat behind his desk, a photo of himself and the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, on the wall. I asked Dr Erekat how he interpreted Israel's threat to "remove" Mr Arafat.
"Threats are part of Sharon's whole end game," he said. "He wants to get rid of the peace process, kill Arafat and renew the occupation. No Palestinian could have done what Arafat did - recognise Israel in 78 per cent of Palestine. Now he is being treated like this. Sharon wants anarchy and chaos. He wants the [Hamas and other] militias to take over and destroy the moderates who want peace. There will be no negotiations with the militias. Sharon has chosen occupation and dictation over negotiations. We have not seen the worst yet."
Dr Erekat thinks US intervention forced Israel to postpone implementing last Thursday's threat against Mr Arafat.
But Dr Erekat said the Israeli security cabinet's decision had not been retracted so it still stands. "Israel is in the habit of implementing its decisions," he said. "Sharon now has a card in his pocket which he will use at the right time."
Shops at the town centre were open, but there were few customers. The people of Jericho cannot afford even the most essential goods. Fruit and vegetables come from Israel.
On the face of the stone sculpture on the edge of town are carved the words, "Jericho, City of the Moon". Caught between barren purple moonscape mountains and the silver expanse of the Dead Sea, Jericho is now as distant as the moon from Jerusalem and the Palestinian hinterland.