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The Return of the PLO
Ehud Ya'ari

The soldiers found warehouse-quantities of explosives even in the private homes of senior police commanders

Here are a few conclusons that can be drawn, two weeks into Operation Defensive Shield:No. 1: The dimensions of the terror industry that Yasser Arafat built up in his kingdom far surpass even the most chilling assessments of Israel�s intelligence services. One senior Shin Bet figure describes them as "monstrous."

The documents that were seized, the information coming out of interrogations and the huge amounts of explosives and suicide-bomber belts that were found all add up to proof that the terrorist onslaught was on the verge of upgrading to a more intensive, dangerous stage than ever.

Every one of the branches of the Palestinian security regime was directly involved in the terror campaign. The soldiers found warehouse-quantities of explosives even in the private homes of senior police commanders. And the details have been published on how Arafat personally approved payments to well-known operatives, and funded the acquisition of weapons. This was no case of an underground operation of radical opposition groups, but rather a centralized, institutionalized and comprehensive effort to pose a massive strategic threat to Israel.

No. 2: Perhaps there is no military "solution" to the challenge of Palestinian terror, but there is certainly a worthwhile and effective point to confronting the threat militarily. The terrorist infrastructures have been dealt most severe blows. A significant number of key figures have been killed or arrested. Others, on the run and underground, have severed all contact with their men in the field for fear of being given up.

All in all, some 3,000 activists linked to terror have been captured, and an estimated 300 have been killed. In my opinion, the West Bank will never see the rise of another, similar terrorist network that works half-openly and on a mass scale. The next generation of Palestinian terrorists will adopt the modus vivendi of an underground. Instead of the quantity of attacks, the stress will be placed on their quality.

The capture of Marwan Barghouti -- who apart from being secretary general of the Fatah in the West Bank, was the chief of the Tanzim armed militia and acknowledged leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade -- has completed the destruction of the senior level of the Tanzim. Most of them are now under arrest. Barghouti�s arrest in Ramallah on April 15 is especially significant since he was probably the best-known spokesman for the intifada, its ideologue and its operations chief. His arrest and questioning may lead to a great deal of additional evidence being obtained by the Israeli security services on Arafat�s personal role in initiating the intifada and running it, since Barghouti was directly answerable to Arafat.

No. 3: The Palestinian Authority has in effect "passed away" in the West Bank, in the words of Hani al-Hassan, one of Arafat�s most veteran colleagues, and is struggling for air in Gaza. De facto, without it having been declared yet, the PLO has returned. That means we have gone back to the moment just before Oslo. The "fasa�il," Arabic for "factions," are now the core of all activity, rather than the various PA ministries. The power has leaked completely out of the official institutions to the political-military bodies beyond them. Any pretense that the PA is still functioning can only be maintained on condition that everyone accepts the lie. There is no longer a government in the territories with a police and national security force, but an alliance of militias that themselves control, among others, the regular forces.

No. 4: The passage from a "state of disorder," as this column defined Arafat�s method at the outset of the intifada, to a full-blown "regime of disorder" means that there is no chance of reaching a quick settlement. The slide into a mode of attrition will go on, and we might see a situation in which the Israeli army stays in the PA territory, or parts of it, for quite some time. That would require taking responsibility for the population. Israel must be on full guard lest its military needs end up leading it to reoccupation.

No. 5: The Gaza Strip is, for now, the only Palestinian area that has so far been spared the experience of an IDF takeover. Therefore, the PA administration is still on a stronger footing there than in the West Bank.

But that will only be temporary. In the absence of a genuine cease-fire, the army will be forced at some stage to undertake a "clean-up" in the Gaza Strip too -- first and foremost to deal with the rocket threat. Both Fatah and Hamas are working feverishly to extend the firing range of their improvised rockets, so that they will reach not only Sderot but Ashkelon as well.

No. 6: If Arafat pulls off yet another disingenuous cease-fire trick, the question of his remaining in the territories has to come into focus. Without getting him and his close cronies out of here, there will be no hope of draining the quagmire.