Uzi Benziman

Israelis are divided as to whether the wave of terror which engulfs them expresses Palestinian opposition to conquest, or the Palestinians' refusal to come to terms with their opportunity to create their own state.

One can, of course, also congratulate oneself for the allies Israel found in the GA vote - the U.S. alongside Micronesia and the Marshall Islands. One can also ignore the regrettable fact that all the European Union states were among the huge majority supporting the resolution, intended to prohibit Israel from harming Arafat.

Whether the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is rooted in religious hostility, or whether it is based on a national feeling of injustice, or whether it is a direct consequence of the conquest of the territories, there can be no solution to it without Israel's withdrawal to the Green Line border of pre-1967.

Those who claim that they are being victimized by a political conspiracy hatched by the state comptroller, the police and the state attorney's office are trying to cultivate in the public mind the belief that these public servants can never be trusted to be objective and non-partisan. The strategy could lead to the collapse of the rule of law.

As we await tomorrow's release of conclusions reached by the Or Commission regarding the causes of violence in the Arab sector in October 2000 and the behavior of police and authorities, it's enlightening to consider decisions announced last week by the ministerial panel that deals with Israel's non-Jewish sector.

The reaction of fury and frustration to the bombing, as understandable as it may be, must not damage our ability to see the future. Today every Israeli, almost, feels right and determined. Today everyone, almost, is bombarded with the government's version of the development and its reasons. Today almost everyone is convinced by the defense establishment's future outline of the future.

The amendment to the Citizenship Law infringes on the basic right of all people to fall in love and marry without paying the price of being uprooted. It is not only a rabble-rousing response to the distress of the security situation, but also an attempt to distance as many Palestinians as possible from Israel.

In a meeting last week of the ministerial committee on the release of Palestinian prisoners, Minister without Portfolio Gideon Ezra (Likud) took an unexpected position. He supported the release of prisoners with "blood on their hands," as long as they had been serving long jail sentences.

The innocence of the early `50s is long gone; today the Knesset operates as a closed guild, at best, whose purpose is to protect its members. It does not provide them with an umbrella against possible persecution from the regime as a result of political rivalry, but is used as a refuge against the arm of the law.

By capitulating to the existing game rules when it comes to budget discussions, and in meeting the political needs of Netanyahu, the leaders of Shinui have stained the banner of reform and impeccability in politics that they raised when declaring their candidacy for office.

When Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon declared last week that Israel had been victorious in the conflict with the Palestinians, he had in mind the historical lesson that some victories are merely temporary.

The police and prosecution should deal with investigations of public officials with a sense of determination and urgency; the right of silence must be stripped from elected officials when they are interrogated about issues that relate to their performance as public officials.

There is some poetic justice in the fact that Ariel Sharon, the man who provided the match that ignited the Al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000, is the person to bring an end to the armed insurrection that developed from it.

A thousand soldiers were unable to douse the flames of fanaticism of hundreds of settlers who opposed the evacuation this weekend of the illegal outpost known as Mitzpeh Yitzhar. The IDF apparently took its objective, but was then forced to deal with the Yesha youth's new invasion of a nearby hill.

Last week, when Ariel Sharon called Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) "a chick without feathers," he only added fuel to the blaze in which the road map was burning.

The settlers' large demonstration in Jerusalem last week, like the statements made and written by their leaders over the weekend, are evidence of severe ideological distress: They have no argument with which to convince Israeli society to continue to pay the cost stemming from their insistence on living in the heart of the Palestinian population, aside from their faith in divine promise, coupled with the premise that Arab undertakings must not be trusted.

In January 1997, then-minister Benny Begin resigned from the Netanyahu government because he could not accept the decision to sign the Hebron agreement. For those who may have forgotten, the Hebron agreement redefined the span of Israeli and Palestinian control over the Hebron region.

If Sharon honestly wants to implement the road map, he must issue the Israel Defense Forces new guidelines that would enhance the chances of calming the violence in the region.

Focused questions on the Jewish majority's attitude toward the Arab minority indicate that less than a third (31%) support having Arab parties in the cabinet (compared to 56% in 1999), and more than half the public (57%) thinks the government should encourage Arabs to migrate from the country.

Again and again, shady affairs involving the prime minister and his sons, and testifying to nepotism of the crudest kind, are brought to the attention of the public. The consistency and frequency with which the Sharon family appears to mix its private affairs with those of the state does not appear to make an impression on the public.

The Oslo Accords were a big step in helping both sides to overcome inhibitions and start open talks, as both parties acknowledged the other's right to self-determination; but this agreement failed bitterly in breaking the psychological hurdles separating them, because it allowed them to pursue their concomitant goals.

Uzi Landau is not the only government minister to sulk at the quiet revolution in the Palestinian leadership: Limor Livnat and the representatives of the National Religious Party and National Union shared his sentiment.

Is it possible that the man who was found by the Kahan Commission to have presented Menachem Begin with "rosy reports," and who was found by a court to have behaved dishonestly toward the prime minister is not plotting to act in a similar fashion with the president of the United States?

If the leaders of Israel's Arab public were to pick the minds of the cabinet ministers, they would learn that the latter take a very serious view of the blatant increase in the number of cases in which Arab Israelis have been involved in subversive activities.

Three honorable Knesset members banded together last week, as did almost all the members of the Knesset's Constitution Committee, to undermine the election system of judges to the Supreme Court. Each to his/her style...