Israelis contemplate life after Yasser Arafat

Peres - who favors continued attempts to negotiate a peace settlement with Arafat - and ministers from his Labor Party declined to support the Cabinet measure. The party convened yesterday to decide whether to remain part of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government of national unity, but delayed a decision.

Mr. Sharon has benefited from Peres's presence in his Cabinet, but the prime minister may feel that rising Israeli frustration with the Palestinians gives him the authority to pursue a harder, more militant line.

Despite the government's insistence that it does not intend to do away with Arafat or the PA, Sharon made no entreaties to the Palestinian leader in a televised address Monday night. There were no appeals to Arafat to prevent attacks on Israel in order to preserve the capacity to talk peace. Sharon identified Arafat as the man responsible for a "war of terror" being waged on Israel.

But the pressure on Arafat does not come only from Israel and its main backer, the US. More than 14 months of open conflict between Israelis and Palestinians have eroded Arafat's popular support. Even members of his own political faction openly defy his orders to arrest militant Palestinians. Arafat's leadership also has come under increasing criticism because of the corruption it has engendered and because its commitment to democracy is faltering.

This pressure from underneath makes conceivable the prospect that Arafat could somehow be sidelined by other Palestinians. But this outcome still begs the question, what next? Professor Steinberg sees three possible outcomes:

• The emergence of a "guns and suits" team of security chiefs and politicians, all Arafat protégés, who "understand the reality of Israel and who have a potential for pragmatism" in dealing with the Jewish state.

• A "worst-case alternative" in which the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, leads the Palestinians and deepens the conflict with Israel.

• A phase in which local commanders take control of their regions. Steinberg says this period would last only briefly until a more cohesive leadership appears.

Tel Aviv University historian Meir Litvak disparages all the talk of the "end of the Arafat era," to quote one headline in yesterday's Jerusalem Post. The most likely scenario: "More of the same." Although Mr. Litvak agrees that a sidelined Arafat is more likely than a toppled Arafat, he says neither prospect is as convincing as a continuation of the status quo.

To be sure, the two sides have spent years in the same tussle, with the Israelis demanding that Arafat do more to guarantee security and Arafat insisting that he cannot do that unless the Israelis do more to meet Palestinian demands for sovereignty and statehood.

Mr. Sandler, who also teaches at Bar Ilan University, says that Israeli proponents of the elimination of Arafat - whether in political or personal terms - have long been stymied by uncertainty. "The question is always: Would that be better than what we have now?"

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