http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010712/wl/israel_winds_of_war.html

Thursday July 12 8:14 PM ET

Israelis Debate West Bank Invasion

By DAN PERRY, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM (AP) - After months of violence, Israelis are now openly debating the possibility of a military invasion of the West Bank and Gaza aimed at crushing the Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) and ending the rule of Yasser Arafat (news - web sites).

Military and political officials confirm the army has readied plans for stepping up the use of force - but the cost in lives and the possibility of a wider regional conflict clearly are giving the government pause in going all-out.

``The army has plans to cover all the possibilities, but what counts is the Cabinet decisions,'' said Raanan Gissin, spokesman of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites).

``There are three options: surrender to Arafat, to go ahead with this plan - to occupy - or to continue the current course of restraint and self-defense. The government has said it's committed to peace but this situation can't last forever.''

One military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a large-scale attack was about to be launched June 2 - the day after a suicide bomber killed 21 young people outside a Tel Aviv disco - but it was put off by Arafat's announcement, under intense European pressure, of a cease-fire.

Talk of a massive assault has since intensified as Israelis have grown increasingly exasperated with the failure of a cease-fire to take hold. Mortar attacks and even bombings inside Israel continue, and Jewish settlers are targeted in near-daily shootings.

The Israeli media has taken to treating the possibility of a serious escalation - even a reoccupation of the West Bank and perhaps Gaza - as something of an inevitability, set to be triggered by the next major terrorist attack.

``An unusual consensus has taken hold (and) all roads are leading to a catastrophe,'' wrote Chemi Shalev in the Maariv daily. ``A few days after the war breaks out, suddenly everyone will remember how horrible war is ... when it will be too late.''

Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Shaath said Sharon - currently visiting Italy - presented far-reaching plans to American and European leaders.

``I know that both President Bush (news - web sites) and (French President Jacques) Chirac spoke very clearly to Sharon about this issue and warned him against the great dangers of such a policy,'' he told The Associated Press. ``One has to take this seriously because other threats have been carried out.''

In Washington Thursday, State Department spokeswoman Susan Pittman said Israel ``has not told us of any such (invasion) plan, and we have stated repeatedly that there is no military solution to this conflict.''

Asked if the United States had given Israel its approval of a military operation, she said: ``The U.S. has not given a green light for any Israeli military action.''

Commentator Haim Hanegbi warned Israel's leaders that if they ordered an invasion they could eventually face the same fate as Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites), the former Yugoslav president now facing a war crimes trial in The Hague (news - web sites).

But Communications Minister Reuven Rivlin told AP that continued attacks ``will not leave Israel any alternatives. I have no doubt the prime minister wants to avoid a war as much as possible ... but if Arafat forces us to go to war, we will go to war.''

The Yesha Council representing the 200,000 Jewish settlers, a key source of support for Sharon, issued a statement Thursday calling on the prime minister to wait no longer and ``order the army to ... distance Arafat from the region and dismantle the Palestinian Authority, the largest terrorist organization in the world.''

Industry Minister Dalia Itzik, a member of the moderate Labor Party, warned that such pressure from Sharon's political base might have an effect.

``The scent of war is in the air,'' she said. ``It is as if it is an unimportant matter, as though at the end of this war we won't be burying our dead. Apparently nobody has learned from history. I very much hope that the prime minister will withstand this pressure.''

A top military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AP that one plan proposed by the army was to move into Palestinian areas and arrest the dozens of militants who are behind the violence - then move out and leave Arafat's regime in place.

But Israeli and foreign media have been rife with detailed reports about more far-reaching proposals as well.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres on Thursday denied a report in the British journal Foreign Report, which said the Israeli military submitted a plan to the Cabinet to send 30,000 troops into the Palestinian areas, if another large-scale Palestinian terror attack takes place.

Under the reported plan, the Israeli troops would seek to destroy the installations of the Palestinian Authority, disarm the Palestinians and cause the flight of the entire leadership, including Arafat.

Analysts agree that under such a scenario hundreds of Israelis and probably thousands of Palestinians would be killed.

But Gerald Steinberg, director of the BESA Center for Strategic Studies, said that some rhetoric was intended just for effect.

``One of the reasons that you talk about plans is to send out a warning, not just to Arafat but also to the international community to sit on Arafat not to allow this level of violence,'' he said.

``There are still a lot of lesser steps Sharon could take. I would be very surprised if (the invasion plan) was adopted.''

-- (in@the.news), July 13, 2001