Ariel Sharon’s Folly

With its continued occupation of key West Bank cities, Israel is falling into a trap set by Palestinian militants and beneficial to Osama bin Laden.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the Israeli public are understandably incensed by the assassination of Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi last Wednesday by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Yasser Arafat’s failure to apprehend, let alone turn over, Zeevi’s murderers has resulted in Sharon’s dispatch of Israeli troops and tanks into the West Bank.

Meanwhile, the far right is demanding that he launch an all-out attack to topple and even kill Arafat and expel the Palestinian Authority. The extremist religious settlers believe that with Arafat gone, the Palestinian leadership would be reduced to fanatic militants who command no legitimacy in the West and that Israel would be able to subdue the remaining Palestinians.

Nothing could be more wrongheaded. As Foreign Minister Shimon Peres’ emergency visit this week to Washington shows, Israel’s actions threaten to throw relations with the United States into crisis. This may be in the militants’ and Bin Laden’s interests, but not in Israel’s or the United States’.

However emotionally satisfying it might be to attack Arafat, Israel needs to heed the increasingly urgent calls from President Bush and the State Department to withdraw immediately from the West Bank. At the same time, the Palestinian Authority, as the State Department urged, must “do all in its power to halt violence and terror.”

Israel has made its point just by reentering the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority exists at its pleasure. Unfortunately, however, the Israeli military will probably be unable to compel Arafat to hand over terrorists, including Zeevi’s killers. Confronted with the rise of Hamas and other militant groups, Arafat has chosen to do what comes naturally to him--equivocate and prevaricate.

For now, Peres is toeing the Sharon line by stating that Israel will remain in the West Bank until Arafat hands over Zeevi’s killers. But the longer Israel remains, the greater the danger that it will become mired in the volatile area, making a truce an impossibility.

Toppling Arafat is not only a recipe for chaos, it would severely damage the American campaign against terrorism. Moderate Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia are already jittery about their restive populations who equate the Israeli occupation of the West Bank with terrorism. Pakistan also could be severely affected by an Israeli offensive.

Bush is right to call for restraint. An offensive against Arafat would be strategic insanity.