Minister of Transportation Avigdor Lieberman (National Union) said today (Wednesday) that Israel must bomb the Mukata, PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah, with everybody in it. He referred to the American hunt for Saddam Hussein in Iraq as a model for the line Israel should take with Arafat.



Minister of Housing Effie Eitam (National Religious Party) said last night that Israel must immediately expel Arafat, "even if getting him out of the Mukata would involve his being injured... Afterwards, perhaps, Sheikh Yassin [leader of the Hamas - ed.] should be expelled."



Asked for his reaction to the suicide bombing in Jerusalem yesterday, Knesset Member Uri Ariel (National Union) said that "those who supported an agreement with the Palestinian Authority are the ones who should be reacting."



Justice Minister Yosef (Tommy) Lapid of Shinui, one such supporter of agreements with the PA, had strong words this morning, saying that the Arab leadership in Judea, Samaria and Gaza has reached a critical point: "Abu Mazen and Mohammed Dahlan will have to either fight the terrorists - or fight us."



In an Israel radio interview today, former Defense Minister MK Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (of the opposition Labor Party) testified of himself: "I have been among those who said, ‘wait, wait’, but now, for the first time, I am believe that enough is enough... This time we cannot turn a blind eye." He called for the total destruction of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.



As for Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, an aide to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) announced that in response to the attack in Jerusalem last night, the Abbas is "cutting ties with Hamas and the Islamic Jihad." Abu Mazen himself said that he is "immediately" ordering an "investigation" into the attack and that those responsible will be arrested. Neither PA representative made mention of disarming or dismantling the terrorist organizations. Arab inmates of Israel’s Hadarim prison in the Sharon region reacted to the Jerusalem massacre with joyful shouts of victory, applause and the distribution of sweets.



In reactions from abroad, the White House sharply condemned the Jerusalem attack, and called on the Palestinian Authority to dismantle the terrorist infrastructures in its midst. In a phone conversation between US President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the former said that there can be no compromise with terrorism and that the killers of women and children must be hunted down. Sharon told Bush that attacks such as that executed yesterday in Jerusalem are the direct result of the PA’s failure to act against terrorist organizations.



Amnesty International issued a statement from its London headquarters condemning terrorist attacks such as the bombing in Jerusalem as "crimes against humanity". Amnesty called on the "armed Palestinian groups" to cease such attacks, which, the organization noted, are directed as a matter of policy against civilians.