Former Premier: Arafat Must Go

Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that if he is reelected as prime minister, his top priority would be to force Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat into exile. But Israel’s current leader said the nation should not “act in haste.”

Netanyahu’s remarks, which drew cheers at the Likud Party convention Tuesday night, put him at odds with his boss, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has sought to marginalize Arafat but has stopped short of driving him out.

Instead, Sharon told the convention in a speech immediately following Netanyahu’s that Israel shouldn’t move too fast on expelling the Palestinian leader.

Both Sharon and Netanyahu are hawks who have taken a tough line with the Palestinians and blame Arafat, ultimately, for militant attacks on Israelis. The Likud Party will hold a ballot Nov. 28 to choose one of them as party leader ahead of January elections.

Just hours after the convention, dozens of Israeli tanks and armored vehicles swept into the West Bank city of Nablus in response to a Palestinian militant attack that killed five Israelis at a kibbutz Sunday, witnesses said.

Helicopter gunships hovered overhead as tanks fired heavy machine guns in the air.

The army said in a statement that it had begun an operation “against terrorist targets” in Nablus, its surrounding refugee camps and the town of Bir Zeit. It said troops had arrested 30 wanted militants.

The incursion came a day after Israeli troops and armor raided the nearby West Bank town of Tulkarm and an adjacent refugee camp in search of suspects in the kibbutz attack.