On March 19 in Part 2 of a series predicting Arik Sharon's Strategy, I promised a Part 4. This is Part 4. It is based upon the observation made on March 13 in that same series as follows: "aid and terror, side by side, cancel out any policy of serious deterrence of terrorist strategy." Serious deterrence means ending the "cycle of violence" by forcing the Arabs into surrender, drawing borders, ending the conflict. No outside party can do any of this. Since the Jews will not themselves do it, what is to be expected now? "Best case" is a war to back the Arabs off and an alliance thereafter (or better before) this with Turkey.

An Arab suicide attack in the center of Jerusalem answered Mr. Sharon's strategy of killing selected leaders of the PA and its allies. The Arabs can pursue a strategy of attrition or "the cycle of violence" strategy which has served them well over more than 50 years including Israel's war "victories." It has been clear to them, and is now becoming clear to objective commentators such as William F. Buckley Jr., that this strategy, grueling and painful and long as it has been for them, will bring the Jewish state down at last. They are close now.

The Arabs are patient and long suffering --they have no where else to go and nothing else to do. Fifty years ago, even fifty-two weeks ago, the rest of the world regarded suicide bombs and terror as uncivilized and odious. This is no longer the case. Success is successful. If anything, terrorism today is all on the side of the Jews. The Arabs, strapping nail-bombs to 23 year old boys ready to die, are heroic. The Wall Street Journal editorialized about "The Jerusalem Massacre" (8/10/01)

First, the Journal's comments could not have been more heartfelt or more decent. What is even finer is the Journal's advice to the accusers of Israel and the demands for restraint. "Israel should not be asked to stand down any further." This advice is offered in the face of decades of US official policy and with respect to the grotesque posturings of such as Martin Indyk and Thomas Friedman and the New York Times. What the Journal fails to understand, however, is that Israel has not won a war yet.

The Jews, waiting for the terrible warrior Sharon to respond in fury, are coming to see him as the relentless Arab bombers do. This greatest of Israel's strategists and generals --preceded by a string of others, well advertised military men of valor and prowess --he will do nothing much. The most he will do --Israeli style war or winning a battle-- will only repeat the process that brought Israel to what it is today.

And so the Journal's advice lacks but one thing: the essence of the truth in this matter of standing down.

Mr. Sharon, Israel's true great man, does not act and this tells us everything we need to know. He put a flag on Orient House. This is because Sharon knows, as it were in his flesh from 1967 and again in 1981-1982, that Israel has only stood down. He knows today that Israel can do the first thing --reduce the Arabs of the West Bank to ruins; but he knows better that it has never done the second thing; set borders, demand surrender, take nothing in trade for an armistice --certainly nothing from America, more certainly still, not money; go about other business.

Israel has won no wars, only battles. Israel is not standing down because Mr. Boucher of the State Department or even Mr. Powell asks it. Standing down is not a response to world opinion; it is an internal refusal to see military success through to its conclusion to insure national existence. Rather, to do such things national existence must be established. Sharon may do the first thing, and those who love Israel should encourage him in the present circumstances to do the first thing. But this is the extent of Israel's "strategic doctrine." Wars are fought only for existence; and armistices and what comes with them.

The Arabs understand this of the Jews, as any enemy would and as others have over two millenniums when Jews went without a state at all. And now, with the pattern institutionalized in the Peace Process, it's too late. A flag on top of Orient House, a real war with the Arabs; for the Jews this is not standing down. But since the aim of such things, peace in the way of the nations, cannot be expected, Israel will only return, again to a lower point of power and sovereignty, to "the cycle of violence."

And the vultures of peace, mostly Jews, will return. The reasons for the Jews' behavior, actually unique in the world, are probably impenetrable. In any case they are not the main thing at this moment.

It was no hard prediction in March to say Israel under Sharon would not deter the Arabs. Israel can deter them (although this, too, is becoming problematic and not solely because the Arabs are getting stronger). Jewish victory in war without defeating the Arabs was the Jews' loss. They lost inch by inch with respect to sovereignty, will and pride until, giving over land as if it were a "symbol" and not the dominating reality among peoples, the Peace Process attempted to transform all of the Jews' reviling of national life into a newfangled kind of bravery. Making peace with enemies by not defeating them first but instead giving them guns, water, money. The gambit was preening, self-infatuating gestures including sacrifices of Jews for peace; very important talks in secluded places; Shlomo Ben Ami holding off the Jewish police to permit Arab rioters to maim Jews and burn buildings.

The 17th century atheist philosopher Spinoza predicted the Jews "would return to Israel if their religion did not effeminize them." He was wrong about other things, too.

There is not the slightest chance that Israel, especially under Mr. Sharon, will do what can stop "the cycle of violence." In fact only a single option remains.

Supposing there is enough "provocation" Mr. Sharon will make an Israeli style war on the Arabs. If he does so with enough authority to make the "second thing," the setting of borders and the rest at least a threat, the remaining option is an alliance of a kind with Turkey.

Mr. Sharon returned from Turkey just before the Massacre. In all of the pessimism that plainly guides him to turn now toward the region's superpower and the only nation that ever stabilized the region, there is room for hope and a future. Israel even today has much to offer a senior partner while for Israel, standing down on its own, it's the only light shining.

Anyone who cherishes Israel as does the Wall Street Journal --read its stout hearted defense --must turn his energies to the remaining option. If Israel will at least make the war and battle against the Arabs now, long enough to give the Jews time to catch their breath and give them dignity, a better result may in truth still be hoped.