Israel resolved to respond this week to several horrific terror attacks on civilians, the most recent of which were two at public transport targets inside Jerusalem during peak hour traffic, and one inside a private home in the village of Itamar, with a death toll of 19, 7, and 4 people respectively - all "non-combattants", including babies, schoolchildren, young women and the elderly.
These savage attacks were perpetrated by three different terrorist organizations with cells in the Samaria region of the West Bank, including the PLO's Tanzim Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigade, directly under Yassir Arafat's authority.
[Please see Disputed Territories zoom map on http://web.israelinsider.com/bin/en.jsp?enPage=BlankPage&
enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=Zone&enZone=StaticSpecials&enInfolet=IndexSpecial.jsp& ]

The IDF immediately began calling up a brigade of reservists under emergency orders, as Israel anxiously anticipated a continuation of the uncompleted Operation Defensive Shield, following a re-establishment of patterns of escalating terrorism. The prime nature of the Operation, known as Operation Determined Stand, is not an attack on multiple known targets, but a search to locate and remove genuine threats to Israeli citizens and security, and send a clear message to terrorist organizations and their sponsors on zero tolerance.

It was well described by U.S. Army Maj. Bob Bevelacqua, formerly of the Green Berets, who told Fox News,
"What Israel has to do is to take the areas controlled by Hamas, cordon them off, and then start going house to house. If they find someone with a gun, he's a bad guy and should be arrested, and if he resists arrests, they should shoot him."

Early Days

It is anticipated that the focused Operation will carry on for several weeks in an effort to arrest as many terror cells and uncover as much weaponry as possible, varying according to the individual locations and incoming intelligence information. Another possibility is that it will remain in the field, where necessary, until improved security arrangements are in place to protect the Israeli population from penetration by terrorists.

The likelihood of a prolonged Israeli presence throughout the disputed territories is, however, undesirable, both in terms of assuming responsibilities for civilian life in the PA and of the overall international impact on Israel's image. One of the international factors in consideration was the anticipated policy speech by US President Bush, but this was largely supportive of Israel's right to self defense and critical of terror in the PA - although recommending that Israel should leave the territories, lift the curfew, freeze settlements, and engage in negotiations (confidence building measures).

• On Saturday night June 22nd, some 60 tanks entered Kalkilya (adjacent to the center of the Sharon Plain) and took up positions in several neighborhoods in the city. A curfew was declared on the city, and troops began house-to-house searches for terrorists, weapons, and explosives.
• IDF forces are also in Shechem (Nablus), Jenin, Bethlehem, Tul Karem, and Bethunya, as well as many villages in these regions. In Jenin, illegal weapons laboratories were blown up, as this was safer than risking booby traps to recover the explosive belts, shells, grenades and other weaponry.
• Over Monday night, troops also entered Ramallah, seeking terrorist cells, but not attacking Yassir Arafat's compound.
• Following the race against time to catch a terrorist from the Hebron area, en route to an attack in or near Bet Shemesh on Monday, the IDF entered Hebron and surrounding villages on Tuesday, encountering fire from the Hebron compound.
• The IDF is and will be attacking targets in Gaza, the stronghold of Hamas, following international media coverage that Hamas is indeed responsible for specific murders, but Israel is not engaged within the Gaza Strip.

Official Sources

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stated that, "The troops will stay until the suicide bombings stop."

Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said that, "There is no intention to establish IDF civil-administrative control over the residents of the Palestinian cities in which the IDF is present, in order to fight terror."

He stated that the wave of terror that has "swept over Israel in recent days... has necessitated deep and thorough IDF action against the terror infrastructures in [these] cities in order to foil attacks" - but that the army will facilitate routine activities by the PA's civilian institutions and international organizations for the Arabs' needs "in the fields of infrastructure, education, health, commerce and the ongoing supply of food and water."

Other Israeli government officials described the second incursion into the West Bank as "open-ended."

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said he hoped that it would not last "more than a few months."

Improved Starting Point

The context of "Operation Determined Stand" finds Israel in a distinctively better position than it was at the outset of "Operation Defensive Shield". The IDF incursion into Palestinian Authority areas also takes place in a totally different political and diplomatic context from the earlier operation in April.

* The IDF has provided the US and the world with evidence that show that Arafat is totally and directly involved with every aspect of terror activity on the ground.

The senior diplomats and major intelligence services represented in Israel have viewed the warehouses that display authentic Palestinian Authority documents, fortuitously preserved as evidence by the simple absence of a shredding machine in the Ramallah compound. Thousands of precise orders to carry out, finance and reward terror activities, all carrying either Arafat's signature or that of many senior PA officials, have put to rest any illusion that the Palestinian Authority is operating to discourage, disarm, or clamp down on terror organizations.

• Israel has created waves about the credibility of the UN and UNRWA, who were the prime agencies that libelled Israel as conducting a massacre in Jenin, when the IDF provided carefully collected data proving that the UN, UNWRA and associated human rights groups which made such allegations were providing falsified reports.
• Moreover, Israel has been able to single out UNRWA as an agency that harbors terrorists and arms, in conflict with its regulations. The IDF disclosed its discovery of numerous weapons caches in UNRWA facilities and revealed active terror networks are indeed active within UNRWA facilities. All this occurs at a time when the UNRWA is requesting a renewal of its mandate, along with additional funds from the US.
• The IDF uncovered the direct involvement of the EU in the funding of the PA military apparatus, by revealing the PA accountant reports which showed that the PA was skimming funds received from the EU and transferring 25% of these funds to the Fatah terror groups. EU funds represent about 8% of the PA budget. The EU, however, simply denies that these auditable documents represent conclusive evidence; they claim that their allocations are not visible as separate, auditable items in the PA's budget and that there is therefore no direct, or traceable financial link to their donations.
• The international context has changed since the tension in Kashmir between India and Pakistan. Furthermore, IDF has been sharing security reports with Israel's loose and newly formed anti-Islamic strategic alliance that now includes Turkey, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and India, as documented by Jim Lederman in the Canada National Post on June 13th, 2002. The perceived Islamic threat from Iran and Pakistan has therefore found Israel less isolated than only a few months ago, when the IDF seemed to be fighting an isolated battle.
• The President of the United States has consistently expressed little patience for the direct involvement of Yassir Arafat and the PA in terrorism. Unlike his predecessor, President Bush links Arafat and the PA directly to escalating terror attacks and openly states that Israel has a right to self-defense and to the defense of its civilians.
• The international media has publicized the Hamas connection to the terror attacks, and that their stronghold is located in the Gaza Strip - from where it is incidentally reported that Hamas political leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, was placed under house arrest, on Arafat's direct orders.

Forwards from the Operation

Operation Determined Stand is not solely a military and intelligence program. It is located in the wider context of international diplomatic activity on the violence, and other measures being considered by Israel, to discourage or prevent terrorism.

1. Diplomatic measures

In a situation of escalating violence against ordinary Israelis, where there is no serious or effective message from the PA that terrorism is unacceptable morally, socially, legally, tactically, or strategically, the Israeli government refuses to reward terror by negotiating under pressure with an unreliable Palestinian leadership. This state of affairs is also reflected in US President Bush's policy speech demands to the PA.

At the same time, the President does support the creation of a Palestinian state - a state with interim borders in the medium term - conditional upon great improvements in the current situation. The upcoming four power-sponsored regional conference could change the current inflammatory context and prove beneficial in establishing parameters of behavior, but hopes are not high.

2. Security measures

The Israeli government's recent decision to begin constructing a 112 kilometer security fence and "seam" zone, with security precautions (electric fence, cameras, obstacles, ditches) [a section from North of the Sharon area to just below Rosh Haayin and a section around Jerusalem, in the first stage] is highly controversial, but timely in international terms:

• The Army, Police and security forces have long maintained that a fence and barrier zone could save many lives and is long overdue. It would make a significant contribution to preventing entry to many potential terrorists and blocking the transfer of illegal arms, although it would not exclude them. They point to the effectiveness of the fence and patrols around the Gaza Strip.
• The security forces indicate that a fence would enable Israel to retain the benefits of its anti-terrorist operation to a far greater extent;
• The political center-left sees it as the beginning of separating Israel from the Palestinian entity and population to live their different lives, as well as a step forward for Israeli democracy, while towards ensuring that Israel will remain legitimately a Jewish state;
• The Israeli government, with its right-wing dominance, made the decision out of pure necessity, since the majority of its members view any barrier as a major, international political concession on the integrity of the historical and modern Jewish connection to the disputed territories - including the Israeli communities and cities established there - and a statement about those who choose to live in these communities;
• The right-wing vehemently opposed the security fence, demanding a buffer zone; they deplore the "ghettoization" of the Israeli villages and cities inside walls and fences in the disputed territories.

The fence and other measures are nevertheless under construction along and largely eastwards of the pre-1967 border lines, to allow for topographical features and include large blocs of Israeli community villages. This comes significantly and precisely at the moment when President Bush is discussing interim (provisional) borders for a future Palestinian state - and it appears that Israel therefore has about a year or so to complete it, which might just suffice.

3. Deterrent measures

Minister Ben-Eliezer also told the Israeli Cabinet that he plans to "deal with" the families of suicide terrorists, referring to the possibility of deporting terrorist families.

Israeli officials in the Justice and Defense Ministries are exploring avenues of dealing with family members of suicide terrorists from the West Bank, particularly that of deportation to the Gaza Strip. The questions at hand are the legality of whether they can be deported eve to Gaza, under Israeli law, and no less: what international implications would ensue.

• Attorney-General Elyakim Rubenstein estimates that the families can be deported to Gaza, but says even that would be a complex legal procedure and would include allowing the families a chance to appeal to the Israel Supreme Court.
• The State Military Prosecution says that unless the applicable laws are changed, this cannot be done legally.
• The Israeli Association for Civil Rights, working under the assumption that the family members of suicide terrorists are innocent, calls upon Israel not to "blur the lines between a democratic state… and terrorist organizations", by taking such action against the murderers' families.
• President Moshe Katsav, who paid a condolence call to the family of fallen soldier Chezky Gutman in Beit El on Sunday June 23rd, expressed support for the deportation of suicide terrorist families.

It is widely held in Israeli security circles that such a move would have major deterrent value, although it is also feared that deporting the families would:

• Create waves in many Arab-supporting countries;
• Lead to American criticism;
• Generate litigation in the Israel Supreme Court on limits of Israeli jurisdiction and compliance with International conventions;
• More significantly - it could generate multiple litigation in international tribunals.
  [The banishment of mothers who openly encourage their sons to commit homicide bombing attacks might present less of a legal problem, as this is considered incitement.]

In Conclusion

While military action is not and cannot constitute the solution to the problem, terror must not dictate the outcomes of political disputes. The Palestinian leadership question remains at the core of the ongoing violence and Israel's disappointment with the Peace Process. Were financial and arms supply lines to dry up in the PA, and were there clear Palestinian messages and deterrents to terrorists, there would be no danger of military conflagration in the Middle East - and the fundamentalist threat to the world, emanating from these same organizations and their sponsors, would be marginalized.

Points to Ponder

1. Is the "house-to-house" approach more effective response in rooting out terrorists than the full-scale military strikes used in Afghanistan?

2. In an age of "spin-doctoring", how much does it matter that Israel has amassed documented evidence implicating the UNRWA and PA in supporting and carrying out terrorist acts respectively?

3. What can be done to disseminate this information to a wider audience?

4. "Good fences make good neighbors", was Robert Frost's ironic observation in his poem "Mending Wall". What is the purpose of the proposed security wall and will it bring Israel closer to living together with its neighbors?

5. Israel's actions have frequently been defined as reactive steps to stop terrorism. What pro-active options remain for Israel to explore in achieving the same objectives?