Reuven Koret is publisher of Israel Insider and CEO of Koret Communications.
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How can you deter a killer who considers murder-suicide the greatest honor in life? Israelis cannot afford to continue enduring the terrible calculus of suicide attacks. There are too few of us and too many of them. Hundreds of Palestinian men and women wait in line for martyrdom. Overwhelming majorities of Palestinians support their actions. Those who oppose suicide attacks appear impotent to stop them.

One partial step is the elimination of attack planners and operators. They are not foolish enough to blow themselves up. They seek the naïve, the brainwashed, and the desperate to do the dirty work. But here, too, "targeted killings" are only partially effective. The murderous knowledge is easily transmitted, and many are eager to learn how to kill Jews.

Another partial step is to separate from potential terrorists, preventing them from entering Israel or attacking Israelis. But the buffer zones, obstacles, and fences proposed by Sharon's government, or even the more far-reaching plans of the Labor party and those further to the left, are at best a porous band-aid on a gaping wound. The land cannot be so easily divided. Jerusalem cannot be hermetically cut in two.

Nor would separation solve the problem of "Palestinian citizens of Israel," some of whom have demonstrated, along with their representatives in the Knesset, unremitting hostility to the Jewish State and support for anti-Israel actions of their Arab brothers? Dozens of Israeli Arabs have been arrested for carrying out attacks, including suicide bombings.

Even if new partition lines will be drawn, there would remain hostile Arabs who want to kill us. Refugees would still demand return to the homes of their ancestors in Israel proper. One million Arab citizens of Israel would still seek control of "their" country and normal relations with their Palestinian brothers. There would be strong incentives for continued terrorism from advanced bases the terrorists would set up on Palestinian soil. Withdrawal would prove that terrorism pays. They would taste total victory in reach.

So what are we to do? To begin with, any repartition must represent no achievement for the terrorists or their sponsors. Any lines drawn should cause a net loss relative to Palestinian expectations. They must see that terrorism brings defeat, not victory. The repartition lines must take into account Israeli security concerns, including the need to distance rockets from its population centers by the creation of buffer zones. Here, too, the recent firing of Kassam rockets should exact a penalty of additional territorial losses.

Separation would be of little use, clearly, if it leaves Arabs hostile to Israel's existence on the Israeli side of the new border. Those with such hostility are potential suicide bombers. Those who call for uprooting Jewish settlements and relocating Israeli settlers must recognize the reciprocal need to relocate Arabs in a Palestinian entity.

But repartition is not just around the corner, and the risk of suicide terrorists must be reduced immediately. Before new borders are even discussed, future martyrs must be deterred. Right now, their parents and siblings profit from the "martyrdom" of their terrorist kin. They take pride in their sons' and daughters' murderous accomplishments. Arab states and the Palestinian Authority send them cash rewards. They become heroes.

This cannot continue. There must be internal Palestinian pressure to discourage suicide attackers. Families do not want to lose their homes and their land. Crowds that celebrate murder would think twice if they knew that the price of their joy was forced relocation.

Jew-killers must realize that their acts will permanently displace and devastate their kin. Critics will rightly claim that such a policy represents collective punishment, causing innocent individuals -- such as parents of bombers who oppose their child's crime -- to suffer. We could not bear the images of women and children being deported, so any relocation orders should be limited to adult males. Exceptions can always be made, and even a few quiet, off-the-record examples would have a strong deterrent effect. But each potential terrorist must know of a certainty that his attack will be mourned, not celebrated, by those around him. He must know that his name will be cursed, not blessed.

Arab terror, whether the anti-American attacks of 9/11 or the daily assaults against Israelis, is not directed at individuals but at a national group. The terrorist doesn't care whom he kills, as long as it is a Jew or an Israeli or an American, preferably all of the above, preferably in very large quantities. The punishment must fit the crime.

But there is no moral equivalence. The terrorists are killing innocent men, women and children. They are intending to murder our families. We Israelis, who never target innocents, would be protecting ours by deterring their killers. They alone have driven us to this cruel choice.

Yesterday, at the café down the street from our office, the owners posted a guard outside the front door, with his finger on the trigger of an Uzi. The same thing is happening all over Israel. That is the unforgivable effect of the Palestinians' terrorism. We cannot go on like this, terrorized in our own country, every minute and in every place. By targeting innocents, and celebrating their deaths, they have expelled our last vestige of good will. They have destroyed the dream of peace.

Israel is the only nation that the Jewish people have ever had, and we have nowhere left to run. If the Arab terrorists refuse to let our families live in peace in our homes and our streets, our restaurants and our places of worship, without fear of being blown to bits, they forfeit, irrevocably, the freedom of their families to enjoy the same basic human rights.

Relocating the clan of terrorists will not end suicide attacks, but it may deter attackers. Our government is bound to do everything it can to safeguard its citizens, who want nothing more than to live in peace. That includes seeking separation from the Arabs, by agreement if possible, by force if necessary. Their relocation across any separation line is at least as moral as forced evacuation of Jews from their homes when the state of Israel was formed. If we are expected to pay this painful price, so must the Arabs. As we have resettled Jewish refugees from Arab countries, the Arab countries must resettle some of their own instead of continuing to cruelly use them as a club against us.

The imperatives of the hour may not be pretty and pleasant. They do not, and will not, play well in the media. Those who have campaigned for peace and coexistence have tried to resist these necessities. Those who reject the concept of "transfer" must recognize that mutual separation, and reciprocal relocation, may be preferable to mutual extermination. But divorce and division of property may be the only way to resolve irreconcilable differences between our peoples.

The best efforts of Israelis to make peace have been rejected by an enemy that makes no secret of its intentions to displace us, sooner or later. Arafat answered the generous offers of the Barak administration by launching a vicious campaign of violence. The time has come to draw a line and put those who try to kill us on the other side, at a safer distance. Outsiders may condemn us, but they do not live with the threat. We cannot live with it.

That is the most basic human right of all: to live as a free people in our own country. The Palestinians may have that right as well. But the right of self-determination ends when they determine to end our nation. They forfeit their right to a homeland when they try to destroy our own. Israel must politely but firmly disregard the carping complaints and sanctimonious sanctions of those who would just as soon see the Jewish state dissipate.

Israel has the right to do what it takes to ensure its survival, to protect its citizens, to preserve our way of life, and to pursue a just and democratic society. We've waited two thousand years to come home. We will not be taken prisoners of fear in our own land. Our enemies will need to separate from us and relocate. We're here to stay.

Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.

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