The time has come to instate order and the time has come to restore to Israel its power of deterrence. We are a country with enormous power, yet almost every day its weak enemies make a mockery of it without its might coming to the fore in a response, in deterrence and in prevention. We unsuccessfully try to defend ourselves and, in the meantime, terror dictates the tempo of our lives and their contents. A cloud of paralyzing gloom and fear hovers upon us. National morale is at a low, the economy is wavering on the verge of collapse and the streets and places of entertainment are deserted.

Terror has been defeating us for a year and a half. Today we wonder what we could have done a year ago, half a year ago, that perhaps might have prevented so many awful events, but we were wary and now we need to take much firmer steps to help — and again we are wary. What will we do in another year?

There are moments in which a country must place its differences and internal rifts behind it and unite to fight for its life. On the blood-filled Passover eve in Netanya, we reached such a moment. Before we renew the arguments over accepting or rejecting the Saudi initiative, a separating fence, over withdrawal from the territories or holding onto them, we must gather together for a war for the defense for our souls, for our safety, for our lives, which have become truly impossible.

Even humane people, full of good will and with moderate outlooks, must realize that if we don’t now teach the Palestinians a lesson they will not forget, if we don’t teach them that they have something to lose and give them a live example of such a stinging loss, and if we don’t restore our power of deterrence, we will decline into even worse situations.

We must not be deterred by what is said about us. Great praise was heaped on us when we signed the Oslo agreement and brought Arafat and his armed men here, and look what happened. The world praises us when we are restrained, but immediately afterwards, like in the last poll in Newsweek — it poses big question marks on the very chances of our existence. We will not win this war in television broadcasts and newspaper columns all over the world, but based on what we do in practice, on the ground, in the heart of the Palestinian darkness.

Once we had pretensions of being a world spearhead, a guiding light, in the war against terror. Today we are displaying weakness and hesitation in this war. We must not continue this way.

Even we in the media must think seriously about what we do and ask: Do we not, with a cloak of arguments over the public’s right to know and the press’s right to be everywhere and expose everything, in fact in many cases, try to bring, under a guise of the facts, one dominant political view, one that is supported by many of the journalists and editors? Are we not thus causing the knees to shake and the hearts to be filled with trepidation of the political and military echelons and the fighters in the field? Do we indeed have nothing to learn from the glorious democratic press in the United States and the UK, which are able to bring strength in times when they must not weaken, to encourage in times when we must not be idle. True, in times like this we must not be a press of boiling blood and preaching for hatred and for going all the way, but we are allowed to demand comprehensive and firm action to protect our lives and we are allowed to unite to encourage those who must decide this and those who have the task of carrying it out.

This ran as a front page editorial in Ma’ariv on March 29, 2002

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