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For more information about classes and locations, call: (248) 855-5112 "Healthy Kids Are Happy Kids" .„ indignantly around Arafat and offered plans to reform the Palestinian Authority while still taking no action against terrorist groups. Israel, meanwhile, both intensified its military operations in the West Bank and talked of offering the Palestinians a "political horizon." Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told reporters Monday that after the Bush - speech, Israel faced an "opportunity of the first order" to make progress toward peace. Sharon gave no details of the diplo- matic progress he had in mind, but later told members of his Likud Party that dis- cussions were being held in the Foreign Ministry and defense establishment on guidelines for a political horizon. In the meantime, though, Sharon is exploiting the diplomatic hiatus and Bush's delegitimization of Arafat to take the fight to the Palestinian terrorists. By occupying Palestinian cities in the West Bank, Sharon hopes to pre-empt suicide bombings, smash terrorist net- works and seize war material, aides say. The Israel Defense Forces dealt par- ticularly severe blows to Hamas, assas- sinating both leading operatives in the Gaza Strip and Mohaned Taher, the organization's operational leader in the northern West Bank, who was said to be behind a string of suicide bombings that killed more than 120 Israelis. But as long as Israel remains in the Palestinian cities — and Sharon says it could be for months — difficult to imagine the Palestinians making the necessary moves for renewed dialogue. Israeli left-wingers fear the occupa- tion of Palestinian cities could, over time, lead to a full-scale re-occupation of the West Bank. With Bush criticized for demanding steps from the Palestinians before Israel is asked to respond with its own conces- sions, the White House clarified that it considered the processes to be parallel. It was perhaps in this spirit that Sharon made his recent remarks, as he has come under pressure within Israel to add a diplomatic outlook to his security policy. Defense Minister Benjamin Ben- Eliezer criticized Sharon July 1 for turning down Foreign Minister Shimon Peres' request to renew contacts with senior Palestinian Authority officials. "The sense is that we can now go and let loose everything we've got in order to exercise our right to defend ourselves," Ben-Eliezer, who also is head of the Labor Party, told Israel Radio. "But this can happen only at a time when Israel every minute contin- ues to seek and move toward any pos- sibility of a diplomatic breakthrough." Israel Insig'ht THE ISSUE Israel's military operations in the territories have had significant suc- cess in smashing terrorist cells and destroying their bomb-making capabilities, and the new security border fence will provide further safeguards. Yet Israel's proximity to a hostile population will continue to threaten its civilian population. BEHIND THE ISSUE Israel's focus has been on stopping suicide bombers, but Palestinian ter- rorists continue to test the Israeli defenses in new and more danger- ous ways. Just this past week, Israel has had to contend with sabotage on its north-south rail line, sniper attacks on the roads, and forest and brush fires set by arsonists. Along with the attempted sabotage at a major fuel depot several weeks ago, these new methods of terror will tax Israel's military and security services to the maximum. — Allan Gale, Jewish Community Council of Metropolitan Detroit Internal Politics Yet Labor seems to have little real leverage to force Sharon into a bold diplomatic gambit. The bottom line, Israeli pundits say, is that Labor won't pull out of the unity government any time soon, at least not until the leader- ship race between Ben-Eliezer and leg- islator Haim Ramon is decided some- time between October and January. On the Palestinian side, the carrot in the Bush vision is viable statehood backed and funded by the internation- al community, with the United States in the vanguard. Despite his ostensible aspiration for Palestinian statehood, however, Arafat repeatedly has spurned this in practice. Whereas the Zionist movement in the first half of the 20th century was will- ing to compromise to obtain a state, the Palestinians have been obsessed less with statehood than With the notion of absolute "justice." For Arafat, a state that closes the file on refugee claims and ends the conflict with Israel is not a prize but a trap. The question is how his successors will see this, and whether Palestinian society as a whole will be ready to pay the price of statehood: removal of Arafat, recogni- tion of Israel's right to exist and readi- ness to live alongside it in peace. ❑