Ted - Here is an article from Binyamin Netanyahu that should show you how he is more hawkish then Sharon.
End game
Comment By Binyamin Netanyahu
(March 29) - Since Yom Kippur in 1973, Israel
has not experienced a violent Arab attack so
laced with savage contempt for our people and
our heritage as we experienced on Pessah Eve
this year.
The message Palestinian terrorists are sending us
is crystal clear: We will murder you at every
opportunity, in every place, at any time - even on
the holiest of your days.
An unremitting carnage that indiscriminately
slaughters all who come within the murderous
reach of Palestinian terrorists shows the depths
of their hatred. Clearly, the only constraint for
Arab terrorists is their destructive capability.
Given the power, they would destroy all of us,
down to the last infant.
The primary objective of Arafat's terrorist regime
is not to establish the twenty-second Arab state,
but to destroy the only Jewish state. This was
and remains the heart of the conflict.
In 1948, the Arabs rejected an international
resolution that would have established an Arab
state, and instead attempted to destroy an
embryonic Jewish state. Fifty-two years later,
Arafat rejected a similar offer and demanded the
flooding of Israel with millions of Palestinians, a
measure that would effectively bring about the
destruction of Israel as a Jewish state.
With such a regime, whose ultimate objective is
our destruction and which pursues this objective
by the most barbaric means imaginable, there is
no place for negotiations and no hope for
reaching any sustainable peace agreement.
Indeed, the much vaunted political solution to
end the conflict was in fact attempted two years
ago at Camp David, and it utterly failed. Arafat
rejected a scandalously far-reaching Israeli offer
of a sovereign Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria,
and the Gaza Strip, which included half of
Jerusalem, and instead chose to unleash the
present war of terror against Israel.
There is only one option that is now available to
Israel: to decisively win the war that has been
forced upon us. What is required of us today is
not a willingness to clench our teeth and bear this
ongoing violence. We must instead seek a total
military victory against an implacable enemy that
is waging a terrorist war against us.
First, we must immediately dismantle the
Palestinian Authority and expel Arafat. Second
we must encircle the main Palestinian population
centers, purge them of terrorists, and eradicate
the terrorist infrastructure. Third, we must
establish security separation lines that will allow
Israeli armed forces to enter Palestinian territory,
but prevent Palestinian terrorists from entering
our towns and cities.
The choice we face today is not between military
victory and a security separation. Rather, we
must do both together. Only by combining the
two can we stop the terror, restore a deterrence
that has been dangerously eroded in the last two
years, and enable a realistic and moderate
leadership to emerge among the Palestinians with
which we can pursue a political settlement in the
future.
Like a partial dose of antibiotics that is not
sufficient to cure the disease, the partial actions
of the government and the fitful changes between
a policy of restraint and half-hearted military
action has not and will not achieve anything. Our
excessive concern about the international
community has also borne bitter fruit. Israel's
refusal so far to act as would any other
self-respecting nation heightens the doubts in the
minds of our friends of our belief in the justice of
our cause and encourages our enemies to
increase the bloodshed.
The only way to win international understanding
for our position, especially in America, is to
steadfastly assert our basic right to defend
ourselves and achieve a quick and decisive
military victory that will stop the terrible massacre
of our citizens.
Finally, the claim that we have tried all military
means to end the terror is baseless. We have not
even used a fraction of our military power, and
the little we have used has not been directed at
the right target, namely ending Arafat's regime.
Today, after 18 months of terrorism, the
government continues to work under the illusion
that it is possible to stop terrorism without
dismantling this main terrorist engine.
What is absolutely clear is that we cannot
continue, even for one more day, on a path of
indecision, without a goal or a policy. We must
do what any nation in our position would do:
stop bickering among ourselves, fight the war
that has been forced upon us, and vanquish an
enemy who is determined to annihilate us.
jpost.com |
