Arafat, not just bomber, responsible for Sbarro

My wife, two children and I just returned from a monthlong visit with family in Israel. After driving around Israel -- from Dan to Eilat -- I left the country not only feeling much closer to Israel than ever before, but also with some specific observations.

Several weeks ago we walked from our gift shopping on Ben Yehuda to the famous intersection of King George and Jaffa streets, deciding what to do next. We were standing directly in front of a large pizza restaurant filled with diners and I remember thinking, "There's another one those Sbarro pizza joints." I didn't give it another thought, until last week's suicide bomber killed himself, 15 others and wounded scores there. Now I shudder as I wonder how many of those killed or wounded may have been in the restaurant when we stopped in front of it.

There is no doubt in my mind that the blame for this massacre lies with Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. In direct violation of written commitments, Arafat released hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists from jail, and not only gave them a green light to continue their activities, but actually coordinates the "resistance" with them.

After the Sbarro suicide bombing Israel launched a bloodless retaliation by taking over the symbol of Palestinian aspirations in Jerusalem, the Orient House. Arafat then complained to the international media that Israel violated one of the articles of the Oslo accord! This is not only untrue, but the authority's use of the Orient House itself has been a longstanding violation of Oslo.

The absurdity and utter hypocrisy of Arafat's protest is best seen in the light of his signed commitments to Yitzhak Rabin and the Israeli people to renounce violence and terrorism for peaceful negotiations.

(In his Sept. 9, 1993 letter to then-prime minister Rabin, Arafat wrote that "the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators.")

Critics on Israel's move on Orient House are not limited to Palestinians. Israeli critics argue that the action may have been popular to an Israeli public in shock and pain, but it could also have the effect of creating new points of friction between Israelis and Palestinians and it brings back to center stage the international debate on the future of Jerusalem.

Yet, the takeover of Orient House sends a powerful message to Arafat that allowing terrorists free reign has its price in important assets he will lose.

After nearly 11 months of terrorist violence launched last September by the Palestinian Authority, Israelis are reaching a point where they just don't know what can be done to stop the violence. When I was there, a day didn't go by without Palestinian attacks on Israelis. The radio reported hourly about this shooting or that mortar attack or this attempted bombing. Often the daily papers would carry bloody photos of wounded Israelis (and Palestinians). One that got my attention was an Israeli mother, all bloody, carrying her bloodied baby after a Palestinian shooting attack on their car.

The cumulative effect of this never-ending violence is to leave many Israelis with a deep sense of despair.

Last summer, when former Prime Minister Ehud Barak made his historic proposal to Arafat, some 75 percent of Israelis -- according to polls taken at that time -- were willing to accept the serious concessions Barak was offering. Essentially, Arafat had managed to win over the Israeli public to accept most of the Palestinians' demands. It was a remarkable achievement by the Palestinian national movement.

Yet, Arafat rejected all offers and upped the ante by returning to the demand that Palestinian refugees have a "right to return" to their homes in Israel. Most Israelis correctly read this demand to mean the Palestinians will not be satisfied with just a West Bank-Gaza state, but that they want the whole pie.

It is well understood that Barak's proposals did not meet all of Arafat's demands, yet, as the left-leaning Ha'aretz wrote in its Aug. 12 editorial: "Instead of trying anew to exhaust the political channel, Arafat turned to terrorism."

This assertion is borne out by Arafat's own senior lieutenants who have proudly proclaimed that Arafat planned and initiated the current uprising. Imad Faluji, the Palestinian Authority's minister of communications said so openly in a speech in Lebanon this past March: "Whoever thinks that the intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon's visit to the al-Aksa mosque, is wrong...This intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David negotiations." He made a similar statement in December last year, and other senior Palestinian officials have said the same thing.

Thus Arafat and the Palestinians squandered Israeli public support for far-reaching concessions, and set back their own aspirations for years, perhaps even decades.

In the end it is almost impossible to decide exactly how to respond and with how much force to Palestinian terrorism. Israel cannot ignore the wave of violence originating from the areas controlled by Arafat's Palestinian Authority, often with the chairman's permission and blessing. Israel's responses to these deliberate attacks on its citizens have largely been measured, such as the bloodless incursion into Jenin, or the "targeted killings" of terrorists. These actions have succeeded in putting severe pressure on the terrorists and the Palestinian Authority but have not been able to completely avoid civilian casualties. Yet, as the latest suicide attacks demonstrate, such measures are only partially successful in stopping terror outrages against Israeli civilians. But to do nothing is to leave Israeli citizens defenseless.

The most important conclusion I made is this: My month-long visit in Israel, with my children, only gave me a small taste of what the average Israeli is living through all the time. I know now what Israeli parents go through daily, the kinds of fears for their children they feel. I felt those fears, too, right down to my bones.

I could make public judgments about how Israelis should respond to murderous terrorism or how they ought to behave in their dealings with the Palestinians. But it would be presumptuous -- arrogant even -- to think that I, living thousands of miles from Israel, could possibly know better than the Israelis how they should work for peace.

They face the fear and danger everyday. I do not.