(David Newman chairs the department of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and edits the International Journal of Geopolitics.)

It has taken time, but the Israeli population is slowly beginning to wake up to the significance of the latest military escapades of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

Ever since the collapse of the peace talks at Camp David and the subsequent return of violence to the streets of Israel and the West Bank in September 2000, the Israeli peace movement has all but collapsed. Many of the activists simply became frustrated that, having got so near to a resolution of the conflict, they were returning to a pre-Oslo level of violence.

It was hard for many Israeli citizens to continue to demonstrate against the continuation of the occupation when friends and families were being killed by terror in the cafés, shopping malls and bus stations of Israel.

Many moved from the left of the political map to the centre, or from the centre to the right, while others simply chose to keep silent, feeling unable to continue the struggle in which they had been so active during the previous two decades. Their leaders, too, were tired. Unlike the right-wing leaders of the settlement movement, the Israeli peace camp has not been successful in grooming a new, younger, second generation of activists. They were the same people who had led the peace movement through its anti-Lebanon, pro-Oslo, pro-Palestinian-state campaigns and who, with the perceived failure of the peace talks, had all but given up.

Recently, there had been signs that a new campaign by soldiers refusing to serve in the West Bank and Gaza might light the flame of a new peace movement. But despite the publicity given to their statements, very few reservist soldiers followed through during the massive reserve call-up of the past few weeks. Even leaders of the left-wing opposition in the Knesset had initial difficulty in assembling sufficient signatures to recall the legislature for an emergency debate on the latest military events.

But those events are clearly forcing the peace camp to stir from its self-enforced slumber. Israelis are beginning to wake up to the fact that Ariel Sharon, 2002, is essentially the same as the Sharon of 1982 in Lebanon.

Not only has the leopard not changed his spots but, thanks to the brutality of the Palestinian suicide-bombers, he has now taken the opportunity completely to destroy the infrastructure of the Palestinian Authority, and push Palestinian statehood even further away. If he had half the chance, he’d no doubt finally settle the score with his long time foe, Yasir Arafat.

Sharon should have been stopped after Lebanon. But he came back to haunt us, first as head of the Likud, now as warrior Prime Minister. He is bringing upon Israel eternal shame.

All those who voted for him must by now understand that neither age nor experience has mellowed him. And the man who was barred by the Kahan Commission, in the wake of the Lebanon War, from ever serving as Defence Minister is now in the position of giving orders for a full-scale military invasion of major towns on the West Bank.

The Palestinians have their work cut out, too. They should have denounced the suicide-bombers. They did not. They have never succeeded in creating their own grassroots peace movements. Still, that does not absolve us, Israelis, from our responsibilities. And we must do everything possible to bring this current bout of violence and retaliation to an end and find a way, however remote it appears, to get back to talking instead of killing.

We must not allow the suicide-bombers to deceive us into believing that the only solution is a military one. The solution remains what it always has been — two states for two peoples, an end to violence, terror and occupation. Nothing that Sharon, or Arafat, can do will change this reality.

We should be withdrawing our forces from the West Bank not just because the US is pressuring us to do so, but because, despite the brutality of the suicide-bombings, we recognise that the only realistic, long-term solution to this conflict is political.

If Oslo didn’t work out, then we have to find an alternative formula, with territorial compactness instead of bisected Areas “A,” “B” and “C,” with stronger guarantees than in the past, and, perhaps with third-party monitors and peace-keeping forces.

But a return to the negotiating table requires Israelis — not Europeans or Americans — to press for it. Without a renewed desire for, and ultimate belief in, peace within Israel itself, we will remain at the mercy of warrior leaders such as Sharon and Arafat.