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Ramallah Plus
Ehud Yaari

Arafat�s house arrest should be temporary. The threat of expulsion must hang over his head constantly.

THE MILITARY CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED BY ISRAEL in the territories over Passover must reach a decisive conclusion. If the operation is stopped half-way by yet another diplomatic quasi-formula, it will be a cardinal failure in Israel�s battle against the Palestinian terrorists. Israel should not expect applause -- there won�t be any -- and mustn�t be put off by condemnation from the international community. It is absolutely imperative to carry on with the showdown until Israel has obtained its goal: the collapse of the terrorist onslaught that has now reached new peaks with four or five suicide bombers setting out every day. Though most, fortunately, are intercepted, those that get through are exacting an intolerable price.

The government need not order the reoccupation of the entire territories. Who wants that anyway? It will be enough to impose stricter containment around the Gaza Strip and to "clean out" parts of Bethlehem and Hebron. There is no need to retake quiet towns like Jericho. The main objective should be to wipe out the commands of the armed militias in Ramallah, the intifada capital, and to flush out the fugitives all the way to Nablus. The army doesn�t have to go into that city either, but only to tighten the encirclement around it. Tul Karm, Qalqilya and Jenin can be dealt with by means of intermittent incursions, like those we have seen already. In other words, between the two options of affording the Palestinian Authority complete immunity as before and total reoccupation, there lies a third path that is less dangerous, and undoubtedly more effective than the methods tried so far.

It will be critical to maintain the hold on Ramallah over time. Ramallah is the nest where most of the attacks on Jerusalem are hatched, the terrorist nerve center of the West Bank. Paralyzing the terrorism industry there will place a wedge between the Hebron Hills and Samaria, and put a spoke in the wheel of the terror machine as it has been functioning over the past 18 months.

Israel must also start to look upon members of the political echelon in Ramallah and elsewhere -- those that shape and direct the attacks or provide the ideological justification for them -- as candidates for arrest or even expulsion. Some of Yasser Arafat�s cronies who came with him from Tunis, for example, have become arch-inciters to terror. There is no reason not to deport types such as Sakhr Habash (Abu Nizar), the veteran ideologue of the armed struggle. Israel must convey the message that such behavior comes with a price. Nor would any great disaster befall us if one or two members of the PA cabinet were among them.

The same goes for Arafat himself. The house arrest under which he was being held at press time should only be a temporary measure until another decision is taken about his future. The threat of expulsion must hang over his head constantly. And he ought to be totally secluded from his subordinates, which means no cellphones either.

Simultaneously, Israel would do well to embark on building a security barrier of obstruction and defense. Even without subscribing to the illusion of "unilateral separation," Israel should no longer delay what common sense dictates: a system of security fences, trenches, sensors and other installations that will make it harder to infiltrate into Israel, and first and foremost, Jerusalem. Too much time has been wasted on this front in vain because of the political reservations of Sharon and Peres. This will be a long process requiring substantial resources and patience. Since it is clear to all of us that there is no escaping it in the end, it is silly to waste a single hour more. Ehud Barak thinks most of the work could be finished within a year, at a cost of half a billion dollars.

Furthermore, Israel should commit itself to the approach that negotiations can start at any moment, even under fire, and in any direction the other side wants. If the Palestinians say they want to start negotiating a permanent status agreement, then ahlan wa-sahlan, welcome, let the two sides sit down at the table -- while the army, of course, continues with its "Ramallah Plus" formula and all that stems from it. Similarly, if they prefer to talk about a cease-fire or some kind of interim agreement, so be it. But the military pressure mustn�t let up until the desired agreement has been reached.

Who should Israel talk to? To whoever would like to talk. If Arafat is inclined to talk to us, then the government should send an envoy to his office to hear what he has to say. The same goes for any other parties, the Tanzim and Hamas included.

Many, many Palestinians are as fed up as we Israelis are with the war-mongering rhetoric, the hollow slogans and the shrill declarations of the apparatchiks on the TV screens. Very many Palestinians are embarrassed by the plague of the suicide bombers, and particularly by the recruitment of terminally ill patients and teenage boys and girls for the job. The Palestinian public has its own way of expressing its will, even amid the maelstrom of the intifada: They simply stick quietly to the sidelines. They understood long ago that Arafat has not succeeded in achieving what he promised. And the "millions of martyrs" speeches are not exactly music to their ears.