Ehud Olmert: It's Hamas or Us
The Washington Post Monday, June 16, 2003; Page A23
[IMRA: Unfortunately, Olmert's line "releasing Palestinian security
prisoners" seriously understates the magnitude of the "gesture"- Israel
released Ahmed Jbarra (aka Abu al-Sukkar), the Palestinian prisoner who was
released week after serving 28 years of a life sentence in an Israeli prison
for planting a booby-trapped refrigerator at Jerusalem's Kikar Zion in 1975
and murdering 14 people. Since then he has been named a special adviser to
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.]

Even before the 17 Israelis killed in last week's suicide bombing aboard a
Jerusalem bus had been buried and the scores of other families anxiously
standing vigil in our hospitals were fully informed of the fate of their
loved ones, the old, reliable canard that Israel had again brought a terror
attack upon itself was being dusted off for use. The current spin is that
the new wave of malicious attacks by Palestinian terrorist groups against
Israeli civilians is the direct result of the Israeli government's attempt
to assassinate a senior Hamas leader.

These malevolent allegations -- charges that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's
efforts to eradicate the terrorist threat from within the Palestinian
Authority are in fact meant to weaken the new peace initiative --
intentionally ignore the brutal realities of the regional conflict.

The days that followed the Red Sea summit in Aqaba, Jordan, were anything
but peaceful. After a token meeting with Palestinian Authority Prime
Minister Mahmoud Abbas, the terrorist organizations announced their
rejection of his speech and their plans to carry out more attacks against
Israel. Labeling Abbas a traitor to their cause, Hamas and its financial
patrons in Tehran and Damascus swiftly found a justification to break off
negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, while ordering Hamas's bomb
makers to zealously resume their efforts to murder our civilians. Abbas's
own Fatah faction also vowed to continue its violence against us.
Immediately, Israel's security services were faced with a surge of reports
of infiltrations and warnings of looming terror attacks.

Hamas's renewed efforts to escalate the level of violence, and statements
from senior officials such as Abdel Aziz Rantisi ("In the future we will
double the suicide bombings and will carry out attacks that will shock the
Jews"), convinced Israeli leaders that a new and severe threat to our
national security was confronting us. It was in response to this development
that President Bush declared that Hamas was "an enemy of peace." Plainly,
the terrorists wanted to derail the fledgling "road map" negotiations and
engineer a political crisis.

As one of the participants in the Aqaba summit, I can testify that Israel
fully expected the Palestinian Authority's newly reorganized and trained
security agencies to take harsh action against the rejectionists who sought
to wreck the peace process. Accordingly, it was disappointing to hear the
Palestinians declare that they would not under any circumstances use armed
force against those plotting attacks from within their territory. Cynically,
I believe, the Palestinian leadership insisted it could persuade Hamas with
words.

When four Israel soldiers and a police officer were killed by the terrorists
in the course of three days, we understood that Israel would have to counter
the escalating violence on its own.

Unfortunately, the other parties at the Red Sea Summit have yet to fully
appreciate that there are no compromises or accommodation with the
Palestinian terrorist organizations. Support and funding for such groups
come largely from foreign nations such as Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia,
which are still actively opposed to the Jewish state's very existence and
are determined to undermine the peace negotiations. In these circumstances,
Israel cannot afford to let its efforts to confront the terrorists lapse for
even one day. Before its acceptance of the road map and again at the summit,
Israel stated that it reserves the right to counter the terrorism being
perpetrated from within the Palestinian Authority.

The Israeli government has a duty and obligation to safeguard its citizens
at all costs. The targeting of dangerous terrorist leaders such as Rantisi,
who carry out attacks on civilians, is necessary and will continue until the
Palestinian Authority is motivated to boldly confront the "enemies of peace"
on its own.

From Israel's perspective, the dismantling of the terrorist infrastructure
and the termination of the suicide attacks are the only tangible benefits we
can possibly secure at the negotiating table. Our acceptance of the road map
is predicated on this crucial assurance. If the Palestinians are unable or
unwilling to deliver on this point then there can be no final agreement.
It's either Hamas or us.

As part of its acceptance of the road map, Israel agreed to initiate a
number of "goodwill gestures," including releasing Palestinian security
prisoners, allowing Palestinian workers into Israel and dismantling
unauthorized outposts. Over strenuous political objections from the Knesset,
the government upheld our commitments. Now is the time for the Palestinian
Authority to reciprocate with some goodwill gestures of its own. The
terrorist leaders must be arrested and imprisoned and their arms
confiscated. Terrorist organizations such as Hamas must be shut down.

Terrorist groups and their extremist state sponsors cannot be fought with
kid gloves and flowery words of persuasion. As the United States has
displayed in Afghanistan and in Iraq, only a vigilant and determined
campaign of confrontation can deter and obstruct them. If the Palestinian
Authority is sincere in seeking a just settlement to the conflict, then it
must finally accept what until now it found unacceptable -- the necessity of
extensive force against the terrorists and their infrastructure.

The writer is deputy prime minister of Israel.