Israelis ponder their security

2 recent attacks prompt questions on viability of occupation

JERUSALEM Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's monthlong military clampdown on Palestinian cities and villages in the West Bank faced growing criticism from across the political spectrum Thursday after two terrorist attacks in as many days left 11 Israeli residents dead and prompted renewed debate about how Israel can best protect itself.

A bus ambush Tuesday outside a Jewish settlement in the West Bank and the coordinated blasts by two suicide bombers on a busy Tel Aviv pedestrian promenade Wednesday came just as the more intrepid Israelis were beginning to return to restaurants and cafés following nearly a month without a suicide bombing or armed attack.

The renewed violence sparked recriminations from politicians and citizens, newspaper headlines and radio talk shows, many declaring Sharon's military occupation of the West Bank a failure, despite repeated claims by his government that the tough military polices were increasing security.

That judgment, which many international observers have long pronounced, could increase the pressure on Sharon to accept new approaches to end the long-simmering conflict at the same time that officials from key countries - including the United States - are debating fresh paths to a peace accord.

"Only a couple of months ago Sharon demanded seven days of quiet" before he would reopen talks with the Palestinians, "and we had 26 days and it was never exploited," said Avraham Burg, the chairman of the Israeli Parliament, known as the Knesset, and a member of the generally left-leaning Labor Party.

"Why? Because of the working assumption of the right wing in the government that reoccupation can solve the Palestinian problem. It was proven wrong."

But criticism of Sharon was just as vitriolic from more hawkish politicians and citizens. "In the Middle East, you have to speak the language that is understood - the language of force," said Michael Kliener, a member of the Knesset from the rightist-Herut Party. "Israel has to do what the British did in Dresden, what the Americans did in Tora Bora, or what NATO did in Sarejevo. Why doesn't the Army drop leaflets" over the Palestinian territories, "saying, 'We're going to start bombing in three hours,' and whoever wants to can escape?"

Government officials defended Sharon's policy, under which thousands of Israeli soldiers have reoccupied the West Bank, enforcing tough curfews in the largest cities and confining as many as 700,000 Palestinians to their homes. Newly erected barricades and check posts have placed hundreds of smaller communities under siege.