End Game! Commentary By Benjamin Netanyahu (Also, Unusual movement Arab countries)

03/29/02 Commentary By Benjamin Netanyahu An unremitting carnage that indiscriminately slaughters all who come within the murderous reach of Palestinian terrorists shows the depths of their hatred. Clearly, the only constraint for Arab terrorists is their destructive capability. Given the power, they would destroy all of us, down to the last infant.

The primary objective of Arafat's terrorist regime is not to establish the twenty-second Arab state, but to destroy the only Jewish state. This was and remains the heart of the conflict.

In 1948, the Arabs rejected an international resolution that would have established an Arab state, and instead attempted to destroy an embryonic Jewish state. Fifty-two years later, Arafat rejected a similar offer and demanded the flooding of Israel with millions of Palestinians, a measure that would effectively bring about the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state.

With such a regime, whose ultimate objective is our destruction and which pursues this objective by the most barbaric means imaginable, there is no place for negotiations and no hope for reaching any sustainable peace agreement.

Indeed, the much vaunted political solution to end the conflict was in fact attempted two years ago at Camp David, and it utterly failed. Arafat rejected a scandalously far-reaching Israeli offer of a sovereign Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, which included half of Jerusalem, and instead chose to unleash the present war of terror against Israel.

There is only one option that is now available to Israel: to decisively win the war that has been forced upon us. What is required of us today is not a willingness to clench our teeth and bear this ongoing violence. We must instead seek a total military victory against an implacable enemy that is waging a terrorist war against us.

First, we must immediately dismantle the Palestinian Authority and expel Arafat. Second we must encircle the main Palestinian population centers, purge them of terrorists, and eradicate the terrorist infrastructure. Third, we must establish security separation lines that will allow Israeli armed forces to enter Palestinian territory, but prevent Palestinian terrorists from entering our towns and cities.

The choice we face today is not between military victory and a security separation. Rather, we must do both together. Only by combining the two can we stop the terror, restore a deterrence that has been dangerously eroded in the last two years, and enable a realistic and moderate leadership to emerge among the Palestinians with which we can pursue a political settlement in the future.

Like a partial dose of antibiotics that is not sufficient to cure the disease, the partial actions of the government and the fitful changes between a policy of restraint and half-hearted military action has not and will not achieve anything. Our excessive concern about the international community has also borne bitter fruit. Israel's refusal so far to act as would any other self-respecting nation heightens the doubts in the minds of our friends of our belief in the justice of our cause and encourages our enemies to increase the bloodshed.

The only way to win international understanding for our position, especially in America, is to steadfastly assert our basic right to defend ourselves and achieve a quick and decisive military victory that will stop the terrible massacre of our citizens.

Finally, the claim that we have tried all military means to end the terror is baseless. We have not even used a fraction of our military power, and the little we have used has not been directed at the right target, namely ending Arafat's regime. Today, after 18 months of terrorism, the government continues to work under the illusion that it is possible to stop terrorism without dismantling this main terrorist engine.

What is absolutely clear is that we cannot continue, even for one more day, on a path of indecision, without a goal or a policy. We must do what any nation in our position would do: stop bickering among ourselves, fight the war that has been forced upon us, and vanquish an enemy who is determined to annihilate us.

(The writer is former prime minister of Israel.)
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2002/03/29/News/News.46032.html

DEBKAfile’s Exclusive Military Sources: Unusual Military Movements in Arab Countries – Despite Israeli Assurances

29 March: Israel’s extended military offensive against Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Ramallah stronghold, launched Friday morning, March 29, quickly took on a wider regional context. By afternoon, DEBKAfile’s military sources began to pick up signs of unusual military movements in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
They may reflect the growing nervousness among Arab leaders over Israel’s announced partial call-up of reservists and preparations for a full mobilization, despite the Passover holiday. The first announcement of 20,000 reservists to be called up was stepped up later to 30,000. Arab governments were already put on edge by the upheavals attendant on US preparations for its campaign against Iraq,
At the same, Arab political and military chiefs refuse to tolerate any Israeli move that might physically harm Arafat or isolate him, a tactic they regard as tantamount to taking the Palestinian leader prisoner or placing him under house arrest.
Anticipating this sensitivity, Israel conveyed its assurance to Washington in good time for relay to concerned Arab governments that the IDF call-up was solely aimed against Arafat and his terrorist apparatus and had no wider goals.
In a further series of messages conveyed through Washington, Israeli provided additional clarification of its Ramallah operation.
The military operation was vital, Israel explained, not only to isolate Arafat and cut off his terror machine, but to uncover the vast stores of secret weapons he has amassed in violation of the Oslo Framework Accords he signed with Israel in 1993. Israel intelligence had learned that Arafat hid these forbidden depots beneath Palestinian Administration buildings in the government compound in Ramallah. As Israeli tanks and bulldozers advanced through the compound during the day, huge tunnels came to light containing an array of weaponry, including anti-tank and anti-air missiles – apparently only one section of a many-branched storage system.
Under the headquarters of Col. Tawfiq Tirawi’s Palestinian General Security Service, Israeli elite units turned up a large bunker in which were stacked hundreds of M-72 LAWS (Light Anti-Tank Weapons). A similarly packed store was concealed under the Palestinian Authority prison, also captured by Israel forces.
Bunkers under Arafat’s offices were found to contain electronic surveillance devices for tracking Israeli military movements, as well as detailed diagrams of the bases and movements of senior Israeli officers stationed in the Ramallah region, with notes on the security details guarding them and their routines. Also found were aerial maps of at least one Israel air base.
Israel’s military and intelligence command ordered military bulldozers to systematically break through suspect buildings in the compound for two purposes: To uncover the illicit weapons stores and to leave Arafat isolated in his undamaged office and living quarters amid the ruins of his compound.
Israel’s assurance meant to calm, had the opposite effect. Sharon’s declaration that the military operation could last weeks did not help soothe edgy Arab nerves either.
Moderate Arab leaders are additionally concerned lest Saddam Hussein or the Lebanese Hizballah opt for opening a second front against Israel to ease the pressure on Arafat. The Iraqi ruler is capable of shooting missiles or suicide aircraft over Israel’s main cities, while the Hizballah’s newly-supplied rockets can cover most of northern Israel up to a point south of Haifa – and area with a population of nearly a million.
If either attack came to be, Israeli would strike back against Iraq and Hizballah bases in the Lebanese Beqaa Valley.
Faced with this potential scenario – not to speak of the complications of an American attack against Baghdad - Arab leaders do not want to be caught unprepared militarily. Hence the military movements.
The nature of the American response to these developments is anyone’s guess. Would Washington lend Israel’s military moves full or partial support? How would it react to an Iraqi or Hizballah attack on Israel and how far would the Americans go to integrate this unfolding Middle East chapter into the broad US global war on terrorism?
DEBKAfile ’s military and political experts say it is too soon to offer definitive answers to these questions. The highest authorities in the US, Israel and Arab governments may be called upon to make such decisions at very short notice - within days or hours. In view of these uncertainties, Israel’s action against Arafat and the Palestinian Authority already has an impact on world financial and oil markets. The dollar is strengthening and oil prices, which have been rising slowly and steadily for the past several weeks are continuing to climb.

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