Powell is not alone, of course, in demanding an Israeli pullback. ''The whole world is demanding that Israel withdraw,'' lectures Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general. ''I don't think the whole world, including the friends of the Israeli people and government, can be wrong.''
But the whole world can be wrong. It was wrong in 1981, when Israel bombed Saddam Hussein's nuclear-weapons reactor in Osirak. The death toll Israel prevented with that daring mission is incalculable, yet the unanimous reaction was one of outrage and scorn.
This is another Osirak moment. Far from being an impediment to the war against international terrorism, the battle in the West Bank is a frontline in that war. Unless Israel demolishes Arafat's mass-murder machine, unless his hellish ''martyrdom'' cult is shut down, it will only be a matter of time before suicide bombers are detonating themselves in the markets and cafes of the West.
