With hawks like Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz occupying key Israeli government positions, a powerful military response to Friday’s Hebron attack seems inevitable. The Israeli Army wasted no time in reoccupying all Palestinian areas of Hebron on Saturday, after having vacated those areas just two weeks earlier. Even as Sharon weighs how to reply to the ambush, Israeli troops have been arresting dozens of Palestinians, searching and demolishing houses and putting the city’s residents under curfew.

All talk, popular and political, is of vengeance. Jewish settlers in the city called for revenge at a rally Saturday night, recalling past rampages through Palestinian neighborhoods. Israeli Public Security Minister Uzi Landau said the Palestinian Authority ought to be dismantled. Minister Eli Yishai said the attack necessitated a strong military response, including the destroying of homes of what he called terrorists and the expulsion of their families. And of course, came the ubiquitous call for the expulsion of Yasser Arafat from the territories, made by Netanyahu for the second time in one week. Netanyahu, who is challenging Sharon for the leadership of Likud, has been calling for Arafat’s expulsion for months. But his remarks have now taken on an added significance after he joined Sharon’s caretaker government last week.

Sharon may yet be cautious with his military response. He has promised America he will not escalate the level of violence in the conflict with the Palestinians while America confronts Iraq. The Bush administration is depending on Sharon that he will not, at least at this time, take any unnecessary measures that would inflame Arab opinion still further and provoke violence across the Middle East.

Sharon must also ask himself whether a strong reprisal is good for his election hopes. Some right-wing Israelis, who supported Sharon’s election as prime minister 20 months ago, say he has failed to use the force necessary to crush the intifada.

Thus, Sharon’s retaliation is likely to be heavy in the run-up to the January elections, where security is one of the main campaign issues. For a man so accused of failure, though, Sharon is doing just fine in terms of his short-term political future. One opinion poll indicated that he had a 16 percentage point lead on his rival, Netanyahu, to win the Likud Party nomination this month. And opinion polls show him in strong position to face Amram Mitzna, the Labor Party’s newcomer, in general elections on Jan. 28.

As Israeli officials jockey for poll position, the Palestinians are locked in a debate over tactics. Both Fatah and Hamas are discussing the possibility of Hamas halting suicide bombings within Israel for a period ranging from a few months to one year. So far it is not clear if an agreement can be reached. After four days of talks in Cairo between Hamas and Fatah, the first such detailed discussions between them since 1995, Hamas was considering the request but demanded that Israel “stop killing its leaders”. The two sides have at least formed what is described as a joint political vision on how to face the next phase.

The immediate future belongs to Israel. The indications are there will be some sort of response, perhaps not a large-scale offensive but a protracted operation in the occupied territories, of similar nature to the military incursions into Palestinian areas which followed a wave of suicide bombings in the summer. That led to periods of reduced violence but failed to stop the attacks.

Now, as ever before, Israel’s goal is to dismantle what it calls the “infrastructure of terror.” The Cabinet, headed by Sharon and now including Netanyahu and Mofaz, is beginning to look like a “dream team” to many right-wing voters. But recent history has shown that the fighting, mass arrests, and curfews involved in such operations provide the fuel for a Palestinian backlash.