Speaking to The Jerusalem Post about the growing threat of the swiftly advancing Iranian nuclear weapons program a few weeks ago, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz placed the burden of stopping this existential danger to the Jewish state on the US.

In his words, "The question is whether the world, under the leadership of the No. 1 power, the US, will allow the Iranians to achieve nuclear capabilities."

The answer to his question, apparently, is yes. The world, under the leadership of the US, probably will allow the Iranians to achieve nuclear capabilities.

Why is this the case? This week, the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency issued a report stating that its inspectors found traces of enriched uranium in the Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz.

Reacting to the disclosure, the Iranian government claimed improbably that the traces found at the site were simply a result of contamination of their nuclear devices that had been under prior ownership. Additionally, the Iranians said they would be willing to discuss entering into negotiations with the IAEA about allowing the agency unfettered access to their nuclear facilities. Such negotiations on starting negotiations could begin as early as next month, the Iranians promised.

Israel contends that the Iranian nuclear weapons program could reach the point of no return within the year. Current US policy regarding this urgent threat is two-pronged. On the one hand, the US is attempting to have the IAEA find Iran to be in breach of its signature on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Such a finding would turn the issue of the Iranian program over to the UN Security Council which could theoretically vote to levy economic sanctions on Iran or mount a military operation to destroy the Iranian program.

The second prong of US policy is to pressure governments like Russia, Pakistan, and China to cease their cooperation with the Iranian program and to pressure other states to stop economic cooperation with the Iranian regime until it comes clean and ends its nuclear weapons program.

Unfortunately, this approach has no chance of succeeding in preventing the Iranians from achieving nuclear capabilities. It was known that the Iranians were enriching uranium at the Natanz plant six months ago. If it took six months for the IAEA to discover traces of enriched uranium and the Iranians are but one year away from having enriched a sufficient amount of uranium to make atomic bombs, the chance that IAEA inspections could avert Iranian enrichment of sufficient quantities of weapons-grade uranium is low.

Add to that the fact that negotiations on unimpeded inspections could easily drag on for three to six months, and the Iranians will be able to announce they are vacating their signature on the NPT just as the IAEA announces that it has achieved agreement with the Iranians to allow for unlimited access to their nuclear facilities.

On the off-chance that the IAEA decides at its meeting next month that it is turning the Iranian nuclear program over to the UN Security Council, there is almost no chance the Security Council will take any concerted action. Ignoring for the moment the fact that Iran's closest strategic ally, Syria, is currently the rotating president of the Security Council, three of its permanent members are active supporters of the Iranian government. France has consistently rebuffed US pressure to end its economic cooperation with Iran. Russia and China have been implicated in assisting the Iranian nuclear and ballistic-missile programs.

The US is also now party to multilateral negotiations with the North Koreans over their illicit nuclear weapons program. Signaling willingness to placate the Stalinist regime in Pyongyang, the US dropped its own representative to the talks, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton, after the North Koreans called him "scum" for remarks he made about the dictatorial nature of the regime.

In spite of its stated policy of not conducting bilateral discussions with North Korea, on the first day of the talks Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly spoke privately with his North Korean counterpart Kim Yong Il. For their part, three of the four other nations participating in the talks - South Korea, China, and Russia - all support cutting yet another deal with the North Koreans. Only Japan supports the Bush administration's hard line on North Korea.

Yet Japanese opposition to nuclear proliferation is hardly consistent. Japan continues to rebuff US and Israeli pressure to end its $2.2 billion deal for oil exploration in southern Iran.

Put simply, in dealing with the issue of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, American rhetoric doesn't match its deeds. It speaks loudly and carries a small stick.

US timidity in advancing its own national security interests in the face of international hostility is of course matched by the administration's addiction to the cause of Palestinian statehood. Standing next to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan last week, US Secretary of State Colin Powell equated opponents to Palestinian statehood with Palestinian terrorists. In Powell's view, burying the road map in the wake of the Palestinian massacre of 21 people in Jerusalem is not an option because as he put it, "The alternative is what?... Let the terrorists win? Let those who have no interest in a Palestinian state win? Let those who have no interest but killing innocent people win? No. That is not an acceptable outcome."

In the same statement, Powell recognized Yasser Arafat as the de facto leader of the Palestinian Authority. Powell's request that Arafat allow PA Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to make use of the Palestinian militias is what spurred Arafat's actions this week to sideline Abbas and Security Minister Muhammad Dahlan.

The Palestinian media this week has been full of reports and commentary stating that Powell's statement amounted to nothing less than the US reconferring legitimacy on Arafat. Palestinian sources say that given Powell's statement, there is no way that Abbas and Dahlan will be able to assert any type of authority over the PA.

This of course would be fine if Powell's intention had been to unmask the fiction of PA reform under Abbas and Dahlan. But of course the opposite is the case. The US is acutely interested in eternalizing this lie. "A new Palestinian leadership is emerging that understands and says, in Arabic and English that terror is not a means to Palestinian statehood, but rather the greatest obstacle to statehood," said US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

In so reacting to last week's massacre, the message the US effectively sends the Palestinians is that terrorism pays. Arafat has learned that when bombs go off in Jerusalem and the precious road map is in jeopardy, Washington knows who to call. As for the Palestinian people, they have learned that Abbas and Dahlan were repaid for their mealy-mouthed antiterror rhetoric with their removal from power.

What we see then is US policy in full-blown retreat. That the US is now considering allowing a UN-sponsored force to operate in Iraq is simply another example of this surrender of initiative to an international community that shares none of the US's views or goals.

Perhaps given its naive and premature sense of triumph, the US now believes it can indulge a strategy of delay, deny, and retreat. But Israel cannot engage in such irresponsible self-deception. International conferences will not slow or prevent Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Concessions to the Palestinians will not convince the US or the UN to take concerted action against the Iranians. They will have no impact on Iran's desire to destroy the State of Israel. With 70 percent of our population concentrated in the kill radius of one atomic bomb, Israel cannot stand by idly and expect the US to ride in like a knight in shining armor to save us from destruction.

Iran has already made it clear that the threat of Israeli nuclear retaliation for a nuclear strike on Israel will not deter it from attacking. We owe it to ourselves to take this seriously. Our missile defense system, although the most advanced in the world, is not an impenetrable shield.

If our survival is important to him, Mofaz should not be trusting the Americans. He should be hunkering down with OC Air Force Maj.-Gen. Dan Halutz right now and mapping out plans to destroy the Iranian nuclear installations. Time is not on our side and, apparently, neither is the US.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Reacting to the IAF's strike in Gaza that took out Hamas terrorist Ismail Abu Shanab yesterday afternoon, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas minced no words. The man who had cautiously explained Tuesday that the massacre of children and their parents traveling on a bus on their way home from the Western Wall "did not serve the national interests" of the Palestinians, referred to the killing of Shanab, a murderer, as "a heinous crime."

PA spokesmen were quick to add that, as a result of Israel taking out a military target, the PA would take no action against its brothers in Hamas - a genocidal organization dedicated to the physical destruction of the Jewish state and its citizenry.

In responding in this manner to the IAF's action, Abbas was nothing if not revealing. Abbas is not Israel's partner in peace. Abbas is Hamas's partner in war. That is, he is an enemy of the State of Israel.

Abbas's security chief, Muhammad Dahlan, did not even need the strike on Shanab to make this point clear. On Wednesday, he sent his spokesman out to explain what his policies would be toward Hamas following its massacre of 20 Israelis. The spokesman explained that Israel was to blame for the situation, because Israel had violated the hudna (cease-fire). At the same time, he explained, Palestinian factions (as he euphemistically referred to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah), were taking provocative actions that were unhelpful. Still, Israel was first and foremost to blame.

Later in the day the PA announced, after theatrical debates in Gaza and further dramatic rumination in Ramallah, that it was going to take action against "the factions" that were harming the PA's national interest.

What actions would they take? Well, they decided that Islamic Jihad and Hamas spokesmen wouldn't be allowed to give interviews on television anymore. Unfortunately, al-Jazeera apparently didn't hear about the stunning move, since Thursday the station interviewed Islamic Jihad leader Muhammad al-Hindi on its morning broadcast. Then, too, the PA decided that no one outside of its own CIA-trained militias would be allowed to walk around in public with weapons.

The one move that the Abbas-Dahlan (Arafat) junta has made since ascending to international celebrity is the PA's sponsorship of the hudna. Over the past two months, every time that they were asked about their moves to dismantle the Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah terror organizations, they pointed to the hudna and said that this was all that was necessary to bring peace.

Initially, Israel decried the hudna as a farce. But once Hamas and its friends in Islamic Jihad and the PA announced its implementation six weeks ago, the government immediately began to play ball.

The media also got taken in by the hudna. The day after 20 Israeli children and their parents were disemboweled and scorched in Jerusalem, the question that dominated the papers was: Is the hudna over? Even after Hamas announced yesterday the hudna was off, Israeli commentators continued to ask whether Hamas was serious about "restarting" its terrorist slaughter.

In none of these discussions was mention ever made of what the hudna actually was. Since it was declared, it has been taken for granted that the hudna is a good thing for Israel, something that must be defended and preserved. Nothing could be further from the truth.

What, really, was this hudna? The hudna was a plan that was concocted by Egypt, the EU, the PA, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. Its declared purpose was to allow terrorist organizations to flourish, operate, and grow unmolested by IDF counterterror operations. The hudna was also geared toward enabling Abbas to continue to extract concessions from Israel, including statehood, without ever lifting a finger against terrorist groups. That is, the hudna aimed to establish a Palestinian terrorist state run jointly by the PA, Hamas, Fatah, and Islamic Jihad under the tutelage of Egypt and the sponsorship of the EU.

The hudna's architects never claimed that it involved a complete cessation of terrorist operations against Israel. Because of this, it is not at all strange that, after the Jerusalem massacre both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, who jointly claimed credit for murdering Jewish babies and parents, announced that they would continue to adhere to their hudna. There is no contradiction between attacks like the bus bombing and the hudna. The only side whose actions are constrained by the hudna is Israel.

This constraint on Israel's operations, of course is a decade old. Last Thursday I found myself engaged in conversation with a young IDF officer. A commander in one of the IDF's elite counterterror units, the officer contrasted the goal of the IDF with the goal of the US army in Iraq.

"They are there to win," he said of the US army. "We are not supposed to win. Our goal is just to survive," he told me.

Who can blame this 22-year-old officer for thinking this way? Since he was 12 years old his government has abandoned the notion of victory, let alone the provision of physical security to the citizens of the State of Israel as a national goal. Since the onset of the Oslo process, the policy of the governments of Israel has been to transfer responsibility for the security of Israelis to our sworn enemy Yasser Arafat and his PA and his strategic partners - Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah.

This policy, which was completely discredited three years ago with the collapse of the Camp David summit, has been maintained and upheld by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in spite of the fact that he was twice elected by a landslide for the direct purpose of reinstating Israel's security that is, victory over our enemies - as the goal of his government. The price of this policy has been steep. Over 400 Israelis were murdered from 1993-2000 and another 900 have been murdered since then.

This young officer fought with his men in Operation Defensive Shield last year. In the build-up to the offensive, senior IDF commanders told the soldiers and officers that they were going in to destroy the terrorists and would emerge victorious. The energy and excitement of the men, joined by an army of reservists, was palpable and real. For the first time, after a year and a half of sitting by and watching those they are charged with protecting being slaughtered, the army was finally receiving the order to do its job. And yet within a month they were told to move out. For the past 18 months, as they man their outposts and roadblocks, they stand by and watch the terrorists rebuild their strength and carry out still more massacres. In spite of what they accomplished in April 2002, they are told by their political leaders that their work is insignificant, because "there is no military solution." Israel cannot win.

Thus, even as Tuesday's massacre is described by the government as a "strategic attack," the response so far has only been tactical in nature. Even as Sharon refers to the PA's rhetoric as "a web of lies" he continues to finance it. Even as Abbas and Dahlan continue to make a mockery of Israel's demand that they destroy Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Sharon continues to pretend that Israel's real enemy - the PA itself - is his partner in peace negotiations.

It must be wonderful to be Abbas and Dahlan and Arafat. They can stand before the world and be embraced as peacemakers while making war on Israel. No matter what they do, no matter what atrocities they enable or conduct, they will never be blamed. Patience with them will never run out.

Israel's military successes during Defensive Shield and even the successful operations undertaken yesterday in Nablus, Jenin, and Ramallah make clear that if our leaders would just muster up the will to win, our armed forces will deliver the victory.

A decision to kill, deport, or arrest Arafat and try him for crimes against humanity in an Israeli court of law would be an immediate catalyst for a military operation that would in fact bring this country victory and the security that would ensue. Why is this? Because the only way to win a war is to identify who the enemy is. After 10 years of lying to ourselves, the blood on the streets of our capital city calls out the truth. Hamas and Islamic Jihad could never operate if it weren't for the PA and Arafat and his new straw men Abbas and Dahlan. The longer our leaders dither and deceive us, the longer our army officers will believe that their work is meaningless and the longer our lives will be at the mercy of our enemies.

Our future lies in the hands of our leaders. Victory is the only option. What will it take for them to find the will to lead us to it?

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Just past noon Tuesday, the news that the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan took Saddam's vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan into custody and transferred him to US forces flashed across the wires. Ramadan, known as 'Saddam's knuckles' was one of the ousted leader's most enthusiastic henchmen.

The fact that the Kurdish forces are cooperating with the US military government is a clear sign that most citizens of Iraq continue to view the US and British forces as their liberators from the reign of terror and tyranny that was their lot in life before Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The truck bombing at UN headquarters in Baghdad just hours after Ramadan's capture was reported shows just how difficult the road to true stability and freedom for the Iraqi people is. Over the past two weeks, terrorist and guerrilla fighters have intensified their terror and sabotage operations countrywide in an effort to derail the US-led plans to stabilize the country and enable it to develop in freedom. The bombing of the Jordanian Embassy was followed by two bombings of the oil pipeline to Turkey that halted Iraq's oil exports. The bombing of Baghdad's water main earlier in the week left a large portion of the population without running water.

Just as the terrorist and guerrilla fighters have ratcheted up their attacks, so too have they intensified their propaganda blitz. On Monday, a taped message from al- Qaida operative Abdur Rahman al-Najdi was played on Al- Arabiya television. Najdi called for all Muslims to go to Iraq to wage jihad against US forces. A series of fatwas from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries over the previous weeks have also called on all Muslims to fight against the US in Iraq.

This week the identity of many of the terror and guerrilla factions terrorizing Iraq was somewhat clarified. The US civilian administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, said in an interview to Al-Hayat newspaper that half of the guerrillas have come to Iraq from Syria. In addition, media reports have indicated that several thousand Saudi men have gone missing from the kingdom and are assumed to have crossed the border into Iraq. Iran stands accused of transferring fighters to Iraq from its territory and Saudi charities stand accused of financing the transfer of Chechen jihadists to Iraq.

It is clear from the intensified violence and sabotage that the forces fighting the US are growing in number, training, and organization.

It is also clear that they are waging a campaign to demoralize the Iraqi people by convincing them that their future lies with those fighting the coalition forces there to free them. No less importantly, these forces work to frighten international relief agencies into leaving the country and to demoralize the US and British publics.

For their part, the US and its Iraqi and coalition partners doggedly continue to hunt down members of Saddam's ruling clique and fight the guerrilla groups every day, clearly signaling that the US is not bending to their pressure. And yet, given the infiltration of fighters from the neighboring states, it is clear that simply fighting the hostile forces in Iraq will be insufficient to end their campaign. The battle must be taken to their state supporters and enablers in Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. Until the coalition forces act against these terror- supporting states, stability in Iraq will remain an elusive goal.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Eyebrows were raised on Tuesday when, just hours after Fatah and Hamas bombed civilians in Rosh Ha'ayin and Ariel, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said that Palestinian terrorism would have no effect on US Middle East policy.

"We will continue to move forward on the road map," he said. "We will not be stopped by bombs, we will not be stopped by this kind of violence."

The question arises: How can the US not reassess its policy of coddling the Palestinian Authority when the policy has already failed so abundantly?

Unfortunately, the Bush administration's policy on the Palestinian issue is part and parcel of an overall inconsistency in the administration's approach to the Middle East that bodes ill not simply for Israel, but for the US and its allies all over the world.

Laying out the foundations of the administration's foreign policy doctrine last week, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice explained that US foreign policy is aimed at making the world a safer and better place.

The former, she said, is advanced through military campaigns like those in Afghanistan and Iraq. The latter is done by promoting freedom and democracy abroad.

"There is one region of the world where all the challenges of our time come together, perhaps in their most difficult forms: the Middle East," Rice said.

She's right. After the 9/11 attacks, it is inarguable that the Arab world, whose 22 states have not one democratic government among them and whose clerics daily call for jihad against the US, manifests the most direct threat to US and global security.

Iraq and the PA were Rice's two examples of how the US is advancing its dual agenda in the Middle East. She referred to the recently inaugurated Iraqi Governing Council as the "most promising" advance toward stability and democracy since Saddam Hussein's regime was deposed in April. In her words, "It serves as a first step toward Iraqi self-government and toward a democratic Iraq which can become a linchpin of a very different Middle East in which ideologies of hate will not flourish."

Yet there are indications that the Bush administration will squander much of the good work US forces have done in destroying the Ba'athist regime. Over the past month, reports have surfaced that the White House intends to appoint former secretary of state James Baker to lead the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Proponents of the appointment note Baker's tremendous experience in the region and his close association with regional leaders.

But a Baker-led occupation government is cause for alarm. "Putting Baker in charge of Iraq means the US is handing the country over to the Saudis," one senior diplomatic source told me this week.

Baker is one of the Saudi government's chief supporters in the US. His law firm, Baker Botts, is now representing the Saudi government in the $1 trillion law suit filed against Saudi Arabia for its alleged role in the 9/11 attacks by the victims' families. Baker also serves as senior counsel and partner in the Carlyle investment group, which is a financial adviser to the Saudi government.

In view of this, it is not unreasonable to assume that as head of the Iraq occupation authority, Baker would not support the geostrategically vital idea of keeping liberated Iraq out of the OPEC cartel.

As for the Palestinians, Rice applauded the "reformed" leadership of PA Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and security chief Muhammad Dahlan. "A new Palestinian leadership is emerging that says, in Arabic and in English, that terror is not a means to Palestinian statehood, but rather the greatest obstacle to statehood," she said.

Then she added that "Israel has to fulfill its responsibilities to help that peaceful state emerge."

It is debatable at best whether either leader has made such anti-terrorist declarations. Not debatable is that Dahlan and Abbas refuse to take any action against terror groups. Far from working toward reconciliation, they, like their boss PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, have used every opportunity to condemn Israel and to undermine the legitimacy of its actions to defend itself against the same terrorist aggression that they are supposed to be combating.

In insisting on backing its hand-picked Palestinian leadership, the Bush administration is both rhetorically and effectively embracing a terror regime and abandoning a democratic ally.

Speaking of the US's own fight against terrorism, Rice briefly noted operations by the Homeland Security Department to secure potential targets like airports, power plants, and government buildings against attacks. "But if we in the United States are to preserve the nature of our open society there is only so much of this 'hardening' that we can do. We must also address the source of the problem. We have to go on the offense," she said.

So while the Bush administration claims to be going on the offensive, it attacks every move Israel makes - both defensive and offensive - to protect itself against terrorism.

Last week, the administration attacked the newly passed legislation that makes it more difficult for Palestinians who marry Israelis to receive citizenship. This law, whose national security implications are clear, is no more draconian than procedures the US itself enacted in 1986 to protect itself against foreigners who enter into fictitious marriages to receive residency status. The decision to build a fence to protect itself against terrorists is even more strongly condemned. From Bush to Powell to their spokesmen, the entire apparatus of the US government seems to have ratcheted up its rhetoric in placing the IDF's counterterror operations on a moral par with the massacre of Israeli civilians.

The administration has also ordered Israel not to take action against the growing Hizbullah threat from Lebanon, which over the past month has taken the form of direct aggression against civilians and military installations.

As for the greatest strategic threat presently emanating from the region, the Iranian nuclear program, the US is now moving steadily toward repeating with Iran the same failed policy of UN weapons inspections it used for 12 years against Iraq.

While Israel estimates that the Iranians are only one year away from nuclear capabilities, the US has moved discussion of the imminent threat to the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency.

In a fine imitation of the policy of Iraq's former government, Iran is making a show of cooperating with IAEA officials. Now IAEA officials are apparently set to present a second inconclusive report about Iranian compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at their meeting in September.

The consequences of the Bush administration's policies for Israel can be simply put: We must no longer seek to coordinate our activities with Washington. The US is actively abandoning Israel, while embracing its authoritarian and terrorist enemies and neighbors even as it hollowly claims to be doing just the opposite. The unreformed and unrepentant PA leadership cannot be given control of territory today or statehood tomorrow.

Hizbullah bases in Lebanon must be destroyed. And the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran must not be allowed to materialize as the UN impotently engages the duplicitous Iranian government.

The consequences of the administration's policies for US national security are no less apparent. Its current fetish with Israeli-Palestinian engagement has allowed the Palestinians, Syrians, Egyptians, and Saudis to continue with their support for terrorism and incitement against the US.

Perceiving the US as unwilling to confront its open hostility, the Arab League did not bat an eyelash when it voted to refuse to recognize the Iraqi Governing Council.

As the Egyptians loudly proclaim their support for Israeli-Palestinian peace and blame its nonexistence on Israel, a weapons smuggling tunnel from the Sinai to Gaza unearthed this week was found to have originated in an Egyptian border guard base. On July 30, Egyptian religious authorities reiterated their call for all Muslims including women and old people to attack US and coalition forces in Iraq.

As for Syria, President Bashar Assad is directly arming and enabling Hizbullah as well as the guerrilla fighters in Iraq. He also continues to aid and abet Palestinian terror groups headquartered in his capital city.

For their part, the Saudis have taken no steps to close down the offices of their government supported charities either at home or abroad that have been directly implicated in global terror funding.

The US's abandonment of Israel is also liable to impact its strategic posture in Asia. Why should China be deterred from overrunning Taiwan when the US is abandoning Israel to similar totalitarian forces? Why should South Korea or Japan trust the US's commitment to their security from the North Korean nuclear threat when the US is not taking action against Iran and reportedly reining in Israel from taking action against Iran on its own?

In concluding her remarks, Rice said, "The desire for freedom transcends race, religion, and culture The people of the Middle East are not exempt from this desire. We have an opportunity and an obligation to help them turn this desire into reality. That is the security challenge and the moral mission of our time."

Again, Rice is correct. And yet, with its current Middle East policy of embracing terror regimes like the PA and anti-American tyrannies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, while publicly condemning Israel for trying to advance the administration's own stated policy, the US is failing to meet this challenge. Instead, the Bush administration's policies are damaging America's credibility, moral standing, and national security.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Mofaz to 'Post': PA must halt terror by end of September

In a 90-minute interview with The Jerusalem Post Wednesday evening, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz warned that Israel will have to reassess its relations with the Palestinian Authority if the latter fails to take action against terrorist organizations by the end of September.

"At the end of September, there are three dates that come together," said the former chief of General Staff. "First, it will be three years since the start of the conflict; second, it will be three months since the start of the hudna [cease-fire]; and third, it will be the end of [PA Minister of State for Security Affairs Muhammad] Dahlan's 90-day plan to work against the terrorist infrastructures."

At that point, he said, "We will have to tell the PA, 'Either you're going to take care of this or we are going to take care of this.'"

Speaking from his second-floor office in the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, Mofaz also warned that concessions to the PA are "reversible."

"If tomorrow there is an attack, I can decide that we are going back into Bethlehem," he explained. The IDF did not redeploy to Bethlehem after last week's shooting attack near there in which Tzila Hayoun and her three children were wounded, but Mofaz did impose a total closure on the city.
Although Mofaz allowed that the hudna had brought about a marked reduction in the number of attacks against Israeli targets, he also sounded a pessimistic note on the likelihood of continued quiet.

"The PA has taken no action against [the terrorist organizations] or their infrastructures," he said. "The security services have to prepare for the possibility that there will be an outbreak of renewed violence, and the army has received orders to prepare for such an eventuality."

Setting out what Israel requires of the PA in combatting terrorism, Mofaz was categorical: "These organizations have to cease to exist as organizations." He warned against a "honey trap" in which Palestinians maintain relative calm, demand negotiations, but allow the terrorist structures to exist and grow unhindered.

"We must never allow this to happen," he said. "We must stand on our demand that the PA's dismantling of the terrorist infrastructure must come before we move ahead in any way in the process."

Mofaz bemoaned Israel's failure to deport PA Chairman Yasser Arafat in the course of Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002.

He now considers such a step "provocative," but warns that "If we see that... Arafat is the main obstacle to the process, I think it would be reasonable to think about what the proper thing will be to do regarding Arafat."

Over the course of his 10-month tenure at the Defense Ministry, Mofaz has burnished a reputation as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's closest ally in the government, with no political camp of his own.

The full interview with Shaul Mofaz

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz spoke with The Jerusalem Post in Hebrew on the occasion of Tisha Be'av.

We meet on the eve of Tisha Be'av and I am wondering whether you think that we have given up the Temple Mount. Jews haven't been allowed to pray there for almost three years except for a couple of weeks this past month. Have we given up the Temple Mount?

I think the issue of the Temple Mount is very sensitive, especially now that we are involved in a diplomatic process with the Palestinians. I think we are forbidden to concede the Temple Mount. We just have to enforce our sovereignty in a proper, measured way. The way to do this is by acting in a non-provocative way. But I believe that the issue of the Temple Mount is felt very deeply in the hearts of the citizens of Israel.

Yes, we feel it, but we can't act on it. We aren't allowed to go up to the Temple Mount and aside from that the Palestinians are working steadily to destroy all the archeological remains of the Second Temple.

I believe that the steps being taken now are sufficient to enforce our sovereignty on the Temple Mount. I just believe that we must not make provocative moves. In the past, through wise moves, we have achieved much without provocation. I believe that on the Eve of Tisha Be'av especially, but also more generally, there is no dispute in the government about where we stand on this issue. We just have to find the right timing and way to demonstrate our sovereignty over the Temple Mount.
 

Well, on the provocative side, we have statements by Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas where he denies that the Temples existed.

I don't think we have to pay attention to every statement made by the Palestinian side. This is a very sensitive subject. He makes a statement like that. Arafat would probably make a statement much worse and large numbers of Palestinian leaders would make similar statements. I would be surprised if they said anything different.

We have to take into account that this is not a subject on the agenda of the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. My view is that united Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the State of Israel.

Yes, but Abbas's denial that there ever was a Temple on the Temple Mount goes along with his denial of another important event in our history the Holocaust. I hear this and say to myself here is a man who doesn't recognize our history, doesn't recognize our rights, and doesn't recognize our disasters. He doesn't even recognize our existence as a people. How can such a man be a partner in peace with us?

We have entered into a process, a renewed process that is not an agreement process. It isn't Oslo, it is different from Oslo, because Oslo was based on agreements and the notion that peace would bring security. We are talking about a process that isn't signed, it is a declaratory process that is based on the road map. The idea is that security will bring peace. This is the elected government of the Palestinians.

When was it elected? There were no elections.

No, there weren't elections, but he was elected by the legislative council. He at least declared at the Aqaba summit that he plans to lead the Palestinians in a different way. That is, not by terrorism and violence. Eight months ago he said that the Palestinians' biggest mistake was the decision to achieve their goals through violence and terrorism. He and Arafat have the same goal the establishment of a Palestinian state in the territories with its capital in Jerusalem and with the right of return for refugees. Their mode of achieving it is different.

Now, as for the denials, in my view we can't choose their leaders he was elected by the Palestinians, not by us. On the other hand, he has enough time to learn what he doesn't know. These statements don't need to move us away from our path even if it hurts my ears to hear them. And they hurt my ears. It doesn't make him an unacceptable leader. When the day comes when we arrive at the stage of negotiations, the central issues will be on the table borders, territory and there are things that in my view we will have to insist on. At the same time they are things I can say today, like the fact that Jerusalem united with the Temple Mount is the eternal capital of Israel.

The Palestinians have called their war, not the Palestinian war against Israel, but the Aksa intifada. In doing so they have signaled to the Islamic and Arab world that they are not fighting in their name only, but for the entire Islamic world. As well, they have received funding and instruction in this war against Israel from the Saudis, the Iranians, and other foreign sources. Given all of this, can you really say that it is possible to see this war as a local fight between the Palestinians and the Israelis or are the Palestinians simply the representatives here of a larger group of people?

There is no doubt that the Palestinians are receiving support from parts of the Arab world and particularly from states that don't have peace treaties with us.

These groups support the Palestinian Authority and are attracted to the demand for Islamic control of the Temple Mount. It isn't just the Temple Mount, of course.

They support the terrorist organizations. A large amount of the money that comes to the Palestinian terror groups came from Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia. We can today point to a number of the terrorist cells still actively involved in terrorist attacks against us that receive support and instruction from abroad, mainly from Iran and Hizbullah. And the connection that exists between the terrorist organizations and the PA, when Arafat led it, to this confrontation with us with Iran was most clearly exposed with the Karine A weapons ship. With the Karine A the strategic link between the PA and Iran was exposed.

Given this, can you describe this war as a local Palestinian-Israeli conflict?

I believe that it is mainly a Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but the Palestinians are supported and encouraged by parts of the Arab world, particularly those that openly call for the destruction of Israel. These forces are mainly led by Iran through Hizbullah. Iran is involved in two different ways that are aimed at bringing about bloodshed and the destruction of the State of Israel. First, through its support for terrorism starting with Hizbullah and the threat from the northern border as well through its support and instruction of Palestinian terrorist organizations. More gravely, we see Iranian action in their moves to acquire surface-to-surface long-range ballistic missiles. They already have the Shihab-3 with a range of 1,300 kilometers. And we see their actions to attain nuclear capabilities.
 

So are the Palestinians independent actors who can be dealt with independently?

The terrorist organizations have two leaderships. They have leadership in the territories and leadership outside. The leadership here sits mainly in the Gaza Strip and the leadership abroad sits mainly in Damascus. The infrastructure is based on split leadership when the leaders here and the leaders abroad communicate with one another, sometimes they agree with one another, sometimes they don't, but they communicate with one another. During the conflict the strength of the local leadership increased naturally, because of its direct involvement in the violence and terrorism.

Now, as the local leadership has agreed to a temporary cease-fire, their power has decreased and the leadership abroad has been strengthened, because it objects to the cease-fire. They demand that the terrorists continue to hurt Israelis and prevent an agreement. I would say that it manifests a continuation of terrorism against us.

At the same time, I would say they constitute a threat to the Palestinian Authority, because they are becoming an alternative leadership for the Palestinian people. I think that the Palestinian Authority understands this today. They understood it in the past, but the PA exploited the terrorist organizations as a means to achieve their goal of suicide bombings. But today, as the terrorist groups get stronger because the PA has taken no action against them or their infrastructures they can make it impossible for the PA to achieve its goal of achieving an agreement and ending the violence.

Concerning this alternative leadership, do you think the fact that Egypt invited Hamas to Cairo to participate as an equal side in diplomatic negotiations toward the hudna [cease-fire] strengthened Hamas in the eyes of the Palestinians?

There can be no doubt. First of all, it gave legitimacy to Hamas. It turned them into partners. At the same time, we claim that terrorism is terrorism is terrorism. We say you cannot be a partner in a dialogue with terrorists certainly they cannot be our partners. The Palestinians and the Egyptians have chosen this path, because they fear that a conflict with Hamas can lead to bloodshed and a civil war.

But that is what is demanded of them. When we say that they have to dismantle terrorist infrastructures, we mean that they have to go to war with Hamas.

That's right. But they have chosen as their strategy to bring about quiet and to avoid a conflict with Hamas. By their way of thinking about it they will go with Hamas unless or until later on, as they move ahead with the process, if Hamas stands in their way then they will deal with them. That is their strategy. That is how they see it.

We say that as long as there are terrorist infrastructures that are getting stronger because the PA is doing nothing against them, that can one day be a threat to us and to the Palestinian Authority, we cannot proceed with the process.

Also regarding the Egyptians, we know that most of the weapons being smuggled to the PA are being transferred from Egypt to the Gaza Strip. Do you believe the Egyptians are doing enough to stop the smuggling from their territory?

It is hard to give them a grade. I don't think that Egypt has an interest in seeing additional weaponry getting to Hamas. As a result they are taking some action to thwart it. I don't know how to characterize the strength of these actions. What is clear, they aren't making a 100% effort to prevent the smuggling of weapons through the tunnels.
 

The security cabinet met today [Wednesday] to hear a report on the fact that the terrorist organizations are using their self-declared cease-fire to rearm. The PA is doing nothing to stop them.

What preparations is the IDF making for the day they decide to end their cease-fire?

The security services have to prepare for the possibility that there will be an outbreak of renewed violence and the army has received orders to prepare for such an eventuality. The army knows what it needs to do to be ready for the possible outbreak of renewed terrorism or for the possibility that this process is halted or ends or doesn't succeed.

At the same time, we are watching everything going on in the Palestinian-ruled areas very carefully particularly what is happening in the terrorist organizations. And we are responding very forcefully to every terrorist attack or attempted attack. For instance, after a Palestinian terror cell from Bethlehem attacked the Hayoun family on their way to Gilo, I informed the Palestinians that we are not handing over additional cities to their security responsibility.

Are we redeploying back to Bethlehem?

Not at this stage. But we have closed off all the routes leaving Bethlehem. We are not allowing workers out of Bethlehem. The city is surrounded by IDF units. And we have demanded that the PA take action inside Bethlehem to find those responsible for the attack and to arrest them.

Are they doing anything?

From what I can tell they are taking some limited actions. I can't say exactly what the quality of their actions is, but they are making some moves to locate those responsible. What we have done is a measured response. It says we aren't willing to accept any terrorist attacks of any kind, because we are involved in a process with the Palestinians and we are giving them responsibility.

What do the Palestinians have to do for the government to reach the conclusion that their whole peace rhetoric is fiction? Do they have to shoot a Kassam rocket at Ra'anana? Will that end it? Will blowing up another bus suffice? What is the redline for the government that will bring you to the conclusion that the risk we are taking in giving them territory is too big?

I don't think it is dependent of this or that event. I think the minute we assess that, as we move forward, there is a fear that the security situation will deteriorate, we will at that stage have to stop and make a new assessment.

When will that happen? We've been in the hudna now for a month and they are rearming. How long will it take?

There is no precise time. I think we have to see what is happening. But if you ask me when is a good time to evaluate the situation, I believe that at the end of September there are three dates that come together. First, it will be three years since the start of the conflict; second, it will be three months since the start of the hudna; and third, it will be end of the 90 days of Dahlan's 90-day plan to work against the terrorist infrastructures.

If we see that at the end of September our security situation is better fewer attacks, fewer indications of attacks, that is one thing. If we see increased armament and strengthening of the terrorist organizations, we will get to a point where we will have to tell the PA, "Either you're going to take care of this or we are going to take care of this."

Why aren't we telling them that now?

We are telling them. We tell them that today there are two developments that concern us in particular. First there is the weapons smuggling from Egypt. Second is all the work on the Kassam rockets both the increased production and the extension of the range. We tell them that if they don't take action against this, then we will have to take action. They know this. They say that they need time.

How much time do they need? It's been two months since Aqaba, a month since their hudna, and they have done nothing.

They are talking about 90 days.

Ninety days. Well, since we have already been to this movie, I have a question for you. Say it's September 27. The next day will be three years since the war and three months of hudna and all that. You come to Dahlan and say, "What have you done?"

He looks at you and says, "Well, yesterday I arrested 100 Hamas members." After all, in 1996, after the attacks in February and March, Arafat arrested several hundred of the usual suspects. After a week he had already released over a hundred of them, but those arrests sufficed to convince all concerned that he was fighting Hamas. Arafat also arrested Rantisi several times. What will you do if Dahlan tells you that on September 27?

When we talk about dismantling terrorist infrastructures it is a very broad thing. These organizations have to cease to exist as organizations. Their armaments have to be taken away from them the arms and the explosives and their ability to produce Kassam rockets and other weaponry all have to go. The incitement has to be changed dramatically, all the poisoning of the minds has to end, because it is what gives them the ability to create an atmosphere conducive to and encouraging of terrorism.

I think that it is too early to eulogize the process, but we have to watch very carefully everything that is happening in the Palestinian areas especially what is happening with the terrorist organizations and what the PA is doing about the terrorist infrastructures. We are doing this on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to see the trends.

Yes, but when I hear reports of the rearmament and mobilization of new terrorist recruits on the Palestinian side and I hear on the other hand that the government is giving them territory and dismantling roadblocks and letting out security prisoners and letting Palestinians work in Israeli cities and the IDF is curtailing its counterterrorist operations and not killing terrorists, I wonder if you aren't endangering the security of the citizens of the State of Israel?

No, and I will tell you why not. You have to judge an issue like this by its results. As of now, there are fewer Israeli casualties and there are fewer attempts to harm Israelis. As of now, we are continuing to operate against terrorism in the cities we haven't transferred. In the past few weeks we have arrested [would-be] suicide bombers and other terrorists in these areas. So there isn't a situation where we have ceased to operate. The IDF continues to operate. The Shin Bet continues to operate.

I think that there is an overall improvement in the security situation and there is an improved sense of security. That doesn't mean that we can rest on our laurels. We aren't going to let the decrease in attacks blind us to the fact that the terrorist infrastructures are getting stronger. As I said, that is why we have to carefully watch the Palestinians and continue to pressure them on all levels and in all channels, to dismantle the terrorist infrastructures. And if this doesn't happen and we see that there has been an overall deterioration in our security situation if the terror organizations get to the point where from then on they constitute a danger to our security situation we will have to tell the Palestinians that we have had enough.

Why is what we are doing making concessions to the Palestinians and receiving nothing in return any different from what we did in Lebanon? We left without an agreement and allowed our enemy to take over and become stronger. Here it seems we are doing the same thing. How is it different?

Because if there is no agreement, this whole situation is reversible. If we reach the conclusion that the situation that develops constitutes a danger for the future even larger than what happened before, we will exercise our right to fulfill our duty to our citizens. There is no question. If tomorrow there is an attack I can decide that we are going back to Bethlehem.

In the future, there is nothing that will prevent us from returning to Palestinian cities and acting. I believe that if we want to go ahead with the process we have to move step after step and act in a measured way.

Avi Dichter, the head of the Shin Bet, said on Monday that one in eight released terrorists on average return to terrorism. Today the government released some 350 terrorists from jail. So does that mean that there are now more than 40 terrorists on the loose?

I don't believe that the PA will allow their people to carry out terrorism, because the PA has an interest in beginning negotiations as quickly as possible. Here we can fall into a trap which we call a "honey trap," because they will create a reality here where there is quiet while they do nothing against the terrorist infrastructures. They will say, "We ended the terrorism, so now let's open negotiations on an interim accord or the permanent status." We must not ever allow this to happen to us. We must stand on our demand that the PA's dismantling of the terrorist infrastructure must come before we move ahead in any way in the process. This has been made absolutely clear to them.

The Americans are "de-Ba'athifying" Iraq. So why is it wrong for us to do the same thing regarding Arafat and the PLO? What's wrong with us taking away the remnants of his terrorist regime and giving voice to those Palestinians willing to live at peace and in freedom? Don't the Palestinians have a right, wouldn't they be better off with a different regime?

We did it in a different way. We conducted Operation Defensive Shield. We degraded the terrorist infrastructures, brought about the delegitimization of Arafat. I thought at the time that we should have deported him.

Why don't we do it now?

Because now we are in a dialogue with them.

So does that make him legitimate?

No, but a step like that would be considered provocative. We should have deported him a year and a half ago. But if we do it now then it could cause the process to move in a direction we don't want it to move in. But if we see that Abu Mazen [Abbas] is working against the terrorist infrastructures and that Arafat is the main obstacle to the process, I think it would be reasonable to think about what the proper thing will be to do regarding Arafat.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post

On Sunday, July 27, just hours after abducted IDF soldier Oleg Shaikhet's body was found, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah broadcast a call for the kidnapping of more Israelis.

Just a few days later, 17-year-old Dana Benett went missing, and then 19-year-old Eliezer Zusia Klughaupt disappeared. Several Israelis have reported attempted kidnappings - some at gunpoint - from which they were able to escape. Most of these attempted abductions emanated from the same area in the North. All have taken place since Nasrallah's call.

The fact that Benett and Klughaupt disappeared shortly after Nasrallah gave the order to kidnap Israelis naturally lends to the impression that Hizbullah has Israeli Arabs working for it who, like al-Qaida members, receive their orders from television broadcasts by their commander.

This week the IDF and the government both fingered Hizbullah and its patron, Iran, as the forces behind the Fatah terror cells that have not ceased operations during the hudna. Hizbullah is also known to be the source of Hamas's recently acquired ability to increase the range of Kassam rockets and to manufacture them in Samaria as well as the Gaza Strip.

During its war against Israel in Lebanon, Hizbullah operated on three levels simultaneously.

It conducted a guerrilla war of attrition against IDF forces in Lebanon; it conducted a terrorist war by shooting Katyusha rockets at the North; and it conducted psychological-warfare operations. Each of these operational tactics complemented the others, and together they brought about the achievement of Hizbullah's short-term objective - IDF withdrawal from Lebanon without Hizbullah's dismantlement or disarmament. Hizbullah's long-term objective -- the destruction of Israel and its replacement by an Islamic state -- was advanced during those years mainly through its attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe and South America.
 

Another important aspect of Hizbullah's strategy against Israel in Lebanon involved the interruption of its guerrilla and terror operations with limited cease-fires. These cease-fires worked to force Israel to restrain its counterterror operations against Hizbullah, while placing no effective limitations on Hizbullah itself.

Hizbullah's actions against Israel were informed by its awareness of our diplomatic isolation. Understanding that Israel has no allies other than the US, Hizbullah could be certain that no international body, NGO, or alliance would back Israel's right to defend itself in Lebanon.

With Israel's precipitous unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, Hizbullah achieved its short-term goal. Since then it has been moving forward with its long-term goal of destroying Israel itself. Its refusal to recognize the international border set the international context of its continued aggression. The UN's unwillingness to stand up for Israel on the issue of borders proved Hizbullah's assumption that Israel has no international support regardless of its actions was correct. Its current cooperation with Palestinian terrorist organizations and the Palestinian Authority and its employment of Israeli Arab operatives within Israel allow Hizbullah to work toward its objective from its safe base in Lebanon.

There it continues to arm itself with tens of thousands of rockets now capable of hitting Haifa. The presence of this rocket arsenal gives Hizbullah an ever increasing military deterrent against Israel.

For their part, the Palestinians have from the beginning of their war against Israel three years ago invoked the Hizbullah precedent. On every score, on every level they have repeated Hizbullah's strategy. On the guerrilla-warfare front, the PA has deployed its security forces in limited shooting attacks against IDF soldiers. Then too, armed militias working with PA security forces have been involved in other guerrilla operations against IDF forces, like planting roadside bombs against tanks and firing at IDF outposts along the border with Egypt to prevent the uncovering of weapons smuggling tunnels. Ambushes of forces manning roadblocks have been conducted in Judea and Samaria to great effect.

On the terror front, terror cells have vastly increased the lethality of their attacks. If a decade ago such attacks were characterized mainly by shooting and stabbing incidents, today the suicide bomber has become the chosen weapon. And aping Hizbullah again, the Palestinians have acquired remote access to Israeli civilian targets by developing the Kassam rockets.

From the perspective of psychological operations, the Palestinians are of course operating with distinct advantages over Hizbullah. Not only do the Palestinians have a large constituency of Israeli supporters for their operations against Israel, they have the legitimacy of the entire international community, including the US, for their phase-one goal the establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza with its capital in Jerusalem and the expulsion of Jews from the areas under its control. The US is even unwilling openly to oppose the Palestinian demand for the transfer of millions of Palestinian refugees into Israel.

The Palestinians have succeeded in their campaign to convince both Israel and the rest of the world that their declared intention to destroy Israel is simply rhetoric. As well, through the road map, they have achieved their most stellar success. The road map grants them their phase-one goal without their even having to negotiate an accord with Israel. The road map dictates that the international community, not Israel, will be the granter of Palestinian sovereignty and the arbiter of when the Palestinians will be accorded such sovereignty.

Through their actions today, the Palestinians have shown that like Hizbullah, they intend to achieve their phase-one goal without disarming or disengaging from their military campaign against Israel. Like Nasrallah, Mahmoud Abbas has made clear that he will not lift a finger against Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, or any other terror group that is or may begin operating from the territory the PA controls.

By maintaining their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, their insistence on the "right of return" and their identification of Israeli Arabs as Palestinians, the Palestinians are setting the context for the next phase of their campaign against Israel, which will begin immediately after they are granted statehood.

Already in the present phase of their campaign, Palestinian terror groups have utilized Israeli Arabs to carry out attacks against Israel. Through its alliance with the Islamic Movement, Hamas has made official inroads into the Israeli-Arab community. For its part, the PA has its representatives in the Knesset, from Ahmed Tibi to Azmi Bishara, who wage a continuous campaign to delegitimize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.

Neither the Palestinians nor Hizbullah have made any real attempt to hide their actions or intentions. The actions of both the Israeli and US governments have shown that there is no reason for them to bother. Where Hizbullah is concerned, both Israel and the US have made concerted efforts since May 2000 to ignore the fact that the group is involved in achieving its long-term goal of destroying Israel.

Its sporadic and deadly attacks against the North have gone unanswered. Who recalls Ehud Barak's promise that the minute Hizbullah tried to act against Israel, the IDF would return to Lebanon and destroy the organization? What price has Syria been forced to pay for its direct armament of Hizbullah and its continued refusal to allow the Lebanese army to deploy to the border with Israel?

As for the Palestinians, both Israel and the US are pretending that by repeating the exact policy adopted with such abysmal results toward Hizbullah, the opposite result will be achieved. Both claim that by granting legitimacy to the PA, it will somehow be magically transformed from a terrorist actor to a peaceful neighbor.

The toll this irrational policy will take on US national security interests will be indirect. The decision to embrace a terror regime will no doubt erode America's deterrence against the terror groups it is actively fighting. But for Israel, the decision to repeat the strategic catastrophe of Lebanon with the Palestinians puts the future of the country itself in jeopardy.

Today, at the end stages of the PA's phase one, the Palestinians are developing rocket and artillery capabilities in Judea and Samaria. These capabilities will of course cancel any military value accrued by the defensive fence, which is being built to protect against phase one attacks: Palestinian bombers. The minute the Palestinians achieve statehood, they will no doubt use their territory as a training ground for Arabs who live on the Israeli side of the fence. Their rocket and artillery arsenals will allow them to attack from a safe distance.

Just as in Lebanon, the government claims that if the Palestinians attack after they receive a state, the IDF will be free to go in and destroy their military capabilities.

But given the unconditional support the Palestinians now receive from the international community headed by the US, it is difficult to imagine that Israel will have more international backing for such a move in the future than it has today. Just as in Lebanon, we will sit on our side of the fence, worriedly count the number of rockets the Palestinians are building, and do nothing.

One needs to wonder what is motivating Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who in 1982 had the strategic vision to understand that a PLO base in Lebanon was an unacceptable risk to the security of the state. How is it that he is financing and building Fatahland in Israel's heartland?

Ma'ariv investigative reporter Yoav Yitzhak reported last Friday that Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein has been delaying his investigation into alleged bribery charges against Sharon to allow him to advance in his peace bid. One would hate to think that given the precarious nature of Israel's situation, an unelected civil servant is gearing up to push Sharon into further imperiling the security of the state.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Aside from suicide bombers, the weapon most emblematic of the Palestinian terrorist war against Israel that began three years ago in September, is the Kassam rocket.

The Kassam, a crude rocket that contains between 10-15 kilograms of explosives, made its debut in Gaza during the first months of the war. Ever since, Kassam rockets have been fired extensively, if sporadically, at the town of Sderot, as well as at smaller Israeli towns abutting the Gaza Strip that fall within its 6-8 kilometer range.

As an imprecise weapon, the Kassam rocket has no military value. It cannot target tanks or aircraft. It is an indiscriminate weapon of terror aimed against civilians for the purpose of killing and hitting random targets.

During Operation Defensive Shield, IDF forces uncovered workshops with lathes for Kassam rocket production in Jenin and Nablus. These were shut down and to date, the Palestinians have not deployed Kassam rockets in Judea and Samaria.

This may soon change.

Testifying before the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, a senior IDF intelligence officer explained last Monday that Hamas is now assembling Kassams in Nablus, and receiving assistance from Hizbullah in developing the rocket.

Moreover, Hamas members in Gaza are now working intensively to increase the range of the Kassam to 15-17 kilometers. Over the past few weeks, several rockets with extended ranges have been test-fired into the Mediterranean. This would bring Ashkelon within rocket range.

According to former IAF commander Maj.-Gen. (res.) Eitan Ben-Eliyahu, "Increasing the range of the Kassam from 6-8 kilometers to 15-20 does not present a great technical challenge. The problem is that the longer the range is extended, the less precise the rocket becomes."

For Israeli leaders as well as for military planners and commanders, the advent of a Kassam threat in Judea and Samaria can easily change the calculus of the war. Ben-Eliyahu explains, "When the Palestinians are limited to fielding Kassams in Gaza only, the question of precision is important. Sderot is the only relatively large target they can reach. In Judea and Samaria on the other hand, if you make a 20-kilometer circle around a Kassam, you see that Kfar Saba, Ra'anana, Netanya, Petah Tikva and Jerusalem, as well as Ben-Gurion Airport, are all in range. The concentration of populated areas is much, much higher and so the probability that an imprecise weapon like a Kassam rocket will hit something is much greater."

Former head of Military Intelligence and commander of the War Colleges, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Ya'acov Amidror views the extension of the Kassam range and its development in Judea and Samaria as symbolic of the trap that Israel has fallen into by accepting the hudna.

"Today, by accepting the hudna, the government has enabled three processes to take place in the PA that could not have taken place beforehand," he says.

"First, it has enabled the Palestinians to acquire and develop new and more sophisticated weapons systems. Before the hudna and the IDF's curtailment of counter-terrorist operations, we would destroy the weapons smuggling tunnels and the weapons workshops. Today, we are not doing this, and of course the PA under Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is doing nothing against these activities.

"Second, they are rebuilding their terrorist cadres. Because of the limitations we have placed on our operations - like the cessation of targeted killings - we have no ability to thwart their mobilization. The recruitment and training of new cadres is taking place intensively everywhere that the IDF is not deployed. Again, the PA is doing nothing to stop this.

"Third, both Islamic Jihad and Hamas are using the respite from IDF operations to revamp and strengthen their political leadership and influence over the PA areas and Palestinian society. The fact that both the EU and the Egyptians met officially with Hamas leaders in the talks that preceded the hudna has transformed Hamas into a partner of equal weight with the PLO in the Palestinian leadership."

In sum, Amidror notes, "in accepting the hudna, Israel has not only taken away its ability to act against the terrorist infrastructure, it has transferred the initiative of when the fighting will restart to the Palestinian terror organizations. And all the new weaponry they will be able to field will be a direct consequence of the hudna."

AS FOR the Kassam, both Amidror and MK Dr. Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, define the threat of Kassam rockets in Judea and Samaria as a "strategic threat" to the state.

Steinitz explains, "With the Kassam rockets in Judea and Samaria, the Palestinians will be able to attack strategic targets at will. Everything from the Knesset to major highways to Ben-Gurion Airport will be within range."

Amidror adds, "Can you see British Airways continuing its flights to Israel after the first Kassam falls on a runway at the airport?" Then too, "Because the Kassam is a weapon of terror, the Palestinians don't even need to fire off that many to completely change the fabric of life in the country. It will be enough for them to fire one rocket every two weeks into Ra'anana or Kfar Saba and one rocket every few weeks into Jerusalem to make life unbearable for all Israelis."

Amidror points out that in using the hudna to rebuild and improve their terror capabilities, the Palestinians are simply following the same strategy they have used since the PA was formed in 1994.

"Consider the fact that in the Palestinian uprising in 1987-1993, the most deadly weapon Israel deployed against the Palestinians was a jeep. We never used tanks or aircraft to fight them. Our resort to those weapons in the current war is simply an indication of how much deadlier their abilities have become over the last decade.

"Since the PA's establishment, they have worked steadily to build a deterrent against Israel to force Israel to erase any red lines it has in negotiations. In this they are following the exact strategy used by Hizbullah to such great effect in Lebanon. They believe that through terror they will be able to get Israel to leave without an agreement. With the Kassam they are telling us that they can commit terror attacks against us without actually having to deploy terrorists to our cities to carry them out."

From Israel's perspective Steinitz says, "The next two or three weeks will be critical for the country. If over the next few weeks Abbas continues to take no action against the Kassam rockets and the rest of the weapons build-up in the PA, we will have to end the cease-fire. No country can accept a rocket or artillery threat that can target 70 percent of its population. That is what the Kassam involves. Non-action is not an option."

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.