Before Israel negotiates the road map, Palestinians will have to take on the terrorists, writes Ehud Olmert.
Even before the 17 Israelis killed in last week's suicide bombing aboard a Jerusalem bus had been buried, and the scores of other families anxiously standing vigil in our hospitals were fully informed of the fate of their loved ones, the old, reliable canard that Israel had again brought a terror attack upon itself was being dusted off for use.
The current spin is that the new wave of malicious attacks by Palestinian terrorist groups against Israeli civilians is the direct result of the Israeli government's attempt to assassinate a senior Hamas leader.
These malevolent allegations - charges that Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon's efforts to eradicate the terrorist threat from within the Palestinian Authority are in fact meant to weaken the new peace initiative - intentionally ignore the brutal realities of the regional conflict.
The days that followed the Red Sea summit in Aqaba, Jordan, were anything but peaceful. After a token meeting with the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, Mr Mahmoud Abbas, the terrorist organisations announced their rejection of his speech and their plans to carry out more attacks against Israel.
Labelling Mr Abbas a traitor to their cause, Hamas and its financial patrons in Tehran and Damascus swiftly found a justification to break off negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, while ordering Hamas's bomb-makers to zealously resume their efforts to murder our civilians. Mr Abbas's own Fatah faction also vowed to continue its violence against us. Immediately, Israel's security services were faced with a surge of reports of infiltrations and warnings of looming terror attacks.
Hamas's renewed efforts to escalate the level of violence, and statements from senior officials such as Abdel Aziz Rantisi ("In the future we will double the suicide bombings and will carry out attacks that will shock the Jews"), convinced Israeli leaders that a new and severe threat to our national security was confronting us.
It was in response to this development that President Bush declared that Hamas was "an enemy of peace". Plainly, the terrorists wanted to derail the fledgling road map negotiations and engineer a political crisis.
As one of the participants in the Aqaba summit, I can testify that Israel fully expected the Palestinian Authority's newly reorganised and trained security agencies to take harsh action against the rejectionists who sought to wreck the peace process. Accordingly, it was disappointing to hear the Palestinians declare they would not under any circumstances use armed force against those plotting attacks from within their territory. Cynically, I believe, the Palestinian leadership insisted it could persuade Hamas with words.
When four Israeli soldiers and a police officer were killed by the terrorists in the course of three days, we understood that Israel would have to counter the escalating violence on its own.
Unfortunately, the other parties at the Red Sea Summit have yet to fully appreciate that there are no compromises or accommodation with the Palestinian terrorist organisations.
Support and funding for such groups come largely from foreign nations such as Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, which are still actively opposed to the Jewish state's very existence and are determined to undermine the peace negotiations. In these circumstances, Israel cannot afford to let its efforts to confront the terrorists lapse for even one day.
Before its acceptance of the road map and again at the summit, Israel stated that it reserves the right to counter the terrorism being perpetrated from within the Palestinian Authority.
The Israeli government has a duty and obligation to safeguard its citizens at all costs. The targeting of dangerous terrorist leaders such as Rantisi, who carry out attacks on civilians, is necessary and will continue until the Palestinian Authority is motivated to confront boldly the "enemies of peace" on its own.
From Israel's perspective, the dismantling of the terrorist infrastructure and the termination of the suicide attacks are the only tangible benefits we can possibly secure at the negotiating table. Our acceptance of the road map is predicated on this crucial assurance. If the Palestinians are unable or unwilling to deliver on this point, then there can be no final agreement. It's either Hamas or us.
As part of its acceptance of the road map, Israel agreed to initiate a number of "goodwill gestures", including the release of Palestinian security prisoners, allowing Palestinian workers into Israel and dismantling unauthorised outposts. Over strenuous political objections from the Knesset, the government upheld our commitments.
Now is the time for the Palestinian Authority to reciprocate with some goodwill gestures of its own. The terrorist leaders must be arrested and imprisoned and their arms confiscated. Terrorist organisations such as Hamas must be shut down.
Terrorist groups and their extremist state sponsors cannot be fought with kid gloves and flowery words of persuasion. As the US has displayed in Afghanistan and in Iraq, only a vigilant and determined campaign of confrontation can deter and obstruct them. If the Palestinian Authority is sincere in seeking a just settlement to the conflict, then it must finally accept what until now it found unacceptable - the necessity for extensive force against the terrorists and their infrastructure.
Ehud Olmert is Deputy Prime Minister of Israel. - (Washington Post Service)