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April 12, 2002/Nisan 30, 5762, Vol. 54, No. 30
Sharon remains firm on IDF campaign
NAOMI SEGAL
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - In the Byzantine politics of the Middle East, even a suicide bombing is subject to differing interpretations.
After a suicide bomber detonated his explosives aboard a bus near Haifa April 10, killing eight Israelis, Palestinian officials said the attack proved that Israel's military operation in the West Bank was ineffective in halting terror.
The Bush administration said the attack reinforced the need for Israel to withdraw its forces.
Yet Israeli officials countered that the attack proved the necessity of continuing the operation until the entire network of Palestinian terror is eradicated.
The bomber also wounded 14 Israelis. It was at least the fourth Palestinian suicide attack to take place since Israel launched Operation Protective Wall on March 29 in an attempt to round up terrorists and collect illegal arms in Palestinian-controlled cities.
Hours after the bombing, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed to press ahead with Israel's military operation - a promise he made several times this week despite growing U.S. pressure to withdraw.
For days, President Bush and other U.S. officials have been calling for an end to the operation.
Sharon gave a mixed response to the U.S. pressure the morning of April 9, when he had the Israel Defense Force withdraw from two West Bank cities, Tulkarm and Kalkilya, but at the same time ordered his troops into the town of Dura, near Hebron.
Israeli and American observers had speculated that Sharon would order a full-scale withdrawal before U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived in Israel by the end of the week.
But a deadly suicide bombing April 9 in Jenin - the West Bank city that has witnessed the fiercest fighting since Operation Protective Wall began - may only harden Sharon's resolve to press on.
Since the start of Operation Protective Wall, 22 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Jenin. The refugee camp is a stronghold for Islamic terrorists, and dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad suicide bombers have been dispatched from there.
Speaking after he received word that 13 Israeli reservists had been killed in a Palestinian ambush in Jenin's crowded refugee camp, Sharon sounded a defiant tone.
"It was a difficult day," Sharon said April 9. "This battle is a battle for survival of the Jewish people, for survival of the State of Israel.
"We will continue the operation until the terrorist infrastructure is destroyed," Sharon said. "Then we can begin to address the political process."
On April 10, Sharon spoke at an army command post overlooking the Jenin refugee camp and vowed to stay in the West Bank until the anti-terror campaign is finished.
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