THE Islamic terrorism now engulfing Israel is not its problem alone. The same radical forces are also bent on undermining regimes across the Arab world in Jordan and Egypt, for example, to name just two of Israel's immediate neighbours.
But that knowledge is of no comfort to Israelis who have now suffered four major suicide bombings in under a fortnight, an unprecedented concentration of violence against civilians who had already endured eight similar bombings during 1994 and 1995.
In the climate of fear, frustration and helplessness now prevailing, the not unnatural response among many Israelis is an angry demand for action any action against virtually any target. Anything, in short, to break the feeling of impotence.
At the demonstrations which have flared intermittently in Jerusalem since the bus bombing on February 25th, and which are now raging in Tel Aviv in the wake of Monday's blast at the Dizengoff Centre shopping arcade, protesters rail at two targets Shimon Peres's moderate Labour government, and the Arabs". The daily cries are for Mr Peres to ago home", and for revenge against the Palestinians from whose midst the Hamas bombers have sprung.
The most vocal of these demonstrators are Israeli hot heads, people with nothing better to do than stir up emotions and incite an already anxious populace people who keep their ears glued to the radio so they can be first on the scene of each new outrage to organise the now routine denunciation of government.
What is worrying is that their unthinking demands for some kind of major, unspecified onslaught are starting to echo in the circles of power, among opposition and even some government politicians who bought to know better. Extraordinarily, serious consideration is being given to the notion of co-opting Mr Ariel Sharon, the general and former defence minister, to help lead the fight against the Hamas militants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Mr Sharon was the man who orchestrated Israel's abortive invasion of Lebanon in 1982, an absurd attempt to install a pro Israeli government in Beirut.
Fortunately, however, there is one man who is turning a deaf ear to the calls for dramatic, large scale military action Prime Minister Peres. He enjoyed a brief period of popularity when he succeeded the assassinated Mr Yitzhak Rabin last November, but now he knows his name is mud with a large proportion of the electorate. To them, the bombings are proof the autonomy process is unworkable, that Mr Arafat cannot be trusted to help guarantee Israeli security, and that Mr Peres was naively optimistic in believing any long term benefit could derive from Israel relinquishing control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Mr Peres didn't want to be prime minister. He had reconciled himself to serving as Mr Rabin's number two, and working beside him toward their goal of securing peace between Israel and all its Middle East neighbours. Yet now, at 72, unpopular, and facing the awesome task of tackling brain washed suicide bombers bent on murdering his people, Mr Peres is behaving calmly and responsibly.
He knows there are no quick fixes, and insists on saying so. He knows he can't guarantee an end to the bombings, and says that too. He feels that Mr Arafat has let him down, and he has made that clear. But he is determined to prevent the handful of savage Hamas bombers from destroying years of patient negotiation. As he put it during a press conference on Monday night, hours after the Tel Aviv blast, it is surely preferable to have Mr Arafat's mainstream Palestinian with is real inconsistently, than to abrogate the accords, send Israeli troops back into Gaza without the necessary intelligence information to thwart the bombing master minds, and trigger a direct confrontation with Mr Arafat in the process.
Speaking on Israel radio yesterday, the Minister of Tourism, Mr Uzi Baram, one of the brighter lights in the Peres cabinet, noted accurately that at least 80 per cent of Palestinians wanted to live peacefully with Israel. What was needed now was a pinpointed offensive against the hard core of the remaining 20 per cent the Hamas recruiters, planners, technicians and their logistical supporters not an ill conceived re invasion of Mr Arafat's territory that would put the 80 per cent back into the enemy camp.
On one central point, however, Mr Peres has had to bow to his critics. This renewed series of attacks has finally shown him the impossibility of his dream of Israeli Palestinian integration at least for a generation or two. Mr Rabin believed the peace process would lead to complete separation between the Israeli and Palestinian people. Mr Peres, though, had a vision of open borders, of a thriving Palestinian economy, bolstered by international investment, lifting the quality of life in the West Bank and Gaza sufficiently to wipe out the bitterness.
What Mr Peres has not abandoned is his confidence in the overall viability of co-operation with Mr Arafat, his certainty that only this route offers any hope for Israel's eventual attainment of comprehensive peace. But that confidence is being tested as never before. And it is Mr Arafat who can do most to bolster it, by eschewing his absurd claims that right wing Israelis are supplying the Hamas bombers with explosives, and instead joining Israel, and regional moderates, in the fight against the militant brand of Islam that ultimately threatens them all.
