AL QUDS: How much further is Israel prepared to go in its campaign against Yasser Arafat? Israel has declared the Palestinian leader irrelevant, severed ties with him and confined him at his West Bank headquarters with tanks and other armoured vehicles close at hand.

A fear persists among some Israelis that whoever followed Arafat might be worse for Israel’s interests. “The United States is not ready to write Arafat off as a peace partner and Israel must accept those limits,” said Mark Heller, an Israeli political and security analyst.

Analysts said Arafat would now face stepped-up international pressure to crack down on hardline groups behind recent attacks even as Sharon is given a freer hand to retaliate against him.

Arafat, the longtime embodiment of Palestinian aspirations to statehood, again finds himself walking a political tightrope. If he takes tougher action against fighters defying his month-old ceasefire order, he risks a Palestinian civil war. If he fails to act decisively, he could see erosion of international backing for the Palestinian cause and invite more Israeli strikes against symbols of his power.

“Whatever action Arafat takes, he will have serious problems,” Palestinian political analyst Ali Jarbawi said. Palestinian officials condemned Thursday’s attack but accused Sharon of provoking violence to sabotage peace efforts.

Israel Radio reported that several cabinet ministers supported a proposal to completely isolate Arafat in Ramallah by preventing foreign dignitaries from visiting him there.

Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rdainah accused Israel of a “dangerous escalation” and called for US help to defuse the situation. Palestinian analysts said that even if Israel has no intention of targeting Arafat directly, its military blockade and strikes on security targets cripple the Palestinian Authority’s ability to govern.

A top Israeli general told a military newsletter Israel may have to reoccupy territory turned over to Palestinian rule under the interim peace accords, but analysts dismissed that as an impractical response to the Palestinian uprising.

Thursday’s banquet hall attack may let Sharon seize the moral high ground after international criticism for demolishing dozens of Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip last week.

Sharon severed ties with Arafat and branded him “irrelevant” — essentially declaring him unworthy to share a place at the negotiating table — last month after a wave of suicide attacks.

He has also suggested he might deal with the Palestinian Authority in a way similar to Washington’s treatment of Afghanistan’s former Taliban rulers, ousted in a military campaign after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

But Sharon has not won support for such a position from US and European leaders. European and US officials, along with dovish members of Sharon’s coalition government, say overthrowing Arafat and the Authority would leave a void that would inevitably be filled by radicals violently opposed to peace with Israel.—Reuters