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The Real War of Independence
Hirsh Goodman

Seder night will go down in history as the night the Palestinians lost everything -- their quest for independence, their institutions, their hopes and their dreams.

SEDER NIGHT 2002 WILL BE REMEMBERED AS ISrael�s Kristallnacht -- the night the Palestinians went too far, sending a suicide bomber into a Seder at the Park Hotel in Netanyah, killing 22 and injuring dozens more. It was a blatant act of anti-Semitism, not anti-Zionism, it was directed against our Jewish soul, not the Jewish state.

The Palestinians are going to remember March 27, Seder night, as well. It is going to go down in their history books as the night they lost everything: their quest for independence, their institutions, their leadership, their hopes and their dreams. They are going to remember it as the night Israel, for the first time, went to war against the Palestinian people and especially their undisputed leader, Yasser Arafat.

The 1948 War of Independence was fought against the Arab world trying to nip embryonic Israel in the bud. The Sinai Campaign in 1956 was an ill-conceived adventure with the British and the French against the Egyptians over the Suez Canal. The 1967 Six-Day War was precipitated by the decision of Egypt�s Nasser to shut off access to Israel�s southern port of Eilat. Jordan and Syria, fatefully, later decided to join in, which resulted in Jordan losing the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and Syria forfeiting the Golan Heights. In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Egypt and Syria, trying to regain territories they lost in 1967, attacked Israel. The 1982 War in Lebanon was a war against Palestinian terrorists, based in Lebanon, and their Syrian protectors.

This is different. This is the first war since the War of Independence that Israel is fighting for its survival; this is the first time Israel is facing its real enemy. Not the Arabs fighting on the Palestinians� behalf, but our core enemy, the Palestinians themselves, under the leadership of Arafat. It is not a war in the distant sands of Sinai, but a war on our block, on our doorstep, over our homes. It is Israel�s true war of independence. If we lose this one, we lose our country.

There is much argument about Ehud Barak�s legacy. But there is no denying what he offered the Palestinians: 94 per cent of the West Bank, a division of Jerusalem, a land swap, an equitable solution to the refugee problem and imaginative thinking over the Temple Mount -- as a basis for negotiation. Arafat refused.

Even if there was much tactically wrong about the way Clinton and Barak tried to pressure Arafat into a deal he thought he could improve on, had he genuinely sought reconciliation he could have agreed to keep talking. Instead, he opted for killing Jews on Seder night and a year and a half of disgusting, cowardly and sick suicide-bomb attacks on babies, families, grandmothers. That is barbaric.

But the atrocity has served a cause. We, in Israel, now know with whom we are dealing. And we can see the issues with Kristallnacht clarity. Oslo, for Arafat, was a Trojan horse. No question about it. He proved that by turning Allenby Street in Tel Aviv and King George Avenue in Jerusalem into the battleground, by making targets of babies and old people. He is a threat to every household in this country, left or right, secular or religious, rich or poor, thief or righteous man.

ISRAEL ENTERS THIS WAR WELL PREPARED. IT CAN take care of threats from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinians and whoever else decides to enter the fray simultaneously. Yes, we have our problems. The settlements are a nightmare, a huge historical mistake, a waste of billions of dollars and a bone in the throat of peace. And there are officers who are refusing to serve in the territories. Sharon is yesterday�s man, devoid of vision, and his cabinet is impotent. The economy is hurting and so are we, the people, those who never know where death will next show its face.

But it is not the settlements Arafat has chosen to attack. He has not even chosen to attack the army of occupation. There are no suicide bombers protecting their leader from tanks and special forces by throwing themselves against the Israeli troops in Arafat�s Ramallah backyard. No, it is far easier to kill Jews celebrating Passover eve in Netanyah or kids eating pizza on Jaffa Road or in Ganei Shomron.

Of all the enemies Israel has had to fight, of all the wars the country has been through, this is the most critical. It is also the most amorphous. The enemy is a coward who hides behind confused 18-year-old girls prepared to kill themselves together with shoppers in a supermarket. We, on the other hand, are a regional superpower with tanks, and planes, and helicopters with missiles that can penetrate the window of a house from 20 kilometers away.

This will probably be Israel�s last war. It will end within a year -- or two or three or four -- after Arafat and Sharon have left the stage and new leadership brings the conflict to its logical end, with Israel out of the territories and the Palestinians genuinely happy with a two-state solution.

But until then, this is a war. And thank God we have the helicopters and the missiles and the technology and the strength. Their hate knows no limits. Our answer is our military prowess. This needs to be used with prudence. But the Palestinians have to know we have faced annihilation.