ISRAEL: Sliding in the opinion polls less than four weeks before election day and facing a sudden resurgence of shooting and stabbing attacks in the West Bank, acting Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert yesterday vowed to employ "special means" and an "iron fist" in confronting Palestinian militants.
An Israeli was stabbed and moderately wounded yesterday by a Palestinian in an industrial zone in the West Bank, just north of Jerusalem. The day before, on Wednesday, an Israeli was shot dead and another was seriously injured in separate shooting incidents in the West Bank. On Tuesday, two Israelis were hurt in another stabbing incident, this time in an area of the West Bank south of Jerusalem.
"There are no limitations on the security forces in striking at terror," Mr Olmert said. "We will employ an iron fist against any attempt to renew terror activity."
A day earlier, Mr Olmert had vowed to pursue Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip who fire rockets into Israel.
"No one who fires off a Qassam rocket will have a moment's rest, because we shall seek him out everywhere, track him everywhere, reach him and make sure he is not able to do it," he said at a campaign stop.
The tough rhetoric cannot be divorced from the looming election on March 28th and Mr Olmert's concern with his party's slow, but steady decline in the opinion polls. The acting prime minister doesn't need to hit the panic buttons yet, but he will be sleeping less easy than a few weeks ago when the polls predicted his Kadima party would win as many as 44 seats in the 120-seat parliament.
Surveys published in the last two days show Kadima, the party set up by Ariel Sharon, winning 37 to 39 seats. The polls show the centre-left Labour Party stagnant on 19 to 21 seats and the centre-right Likud rising a little to between 15 and 18 seats.
In the six weeks following Mr Sharon's hospitalisation after he suffered a major stroke - he remains in a deep coma - Kadima held firm in the polls, even rising several seats. But senior party officials fear that with the sympathy factor eroding, voters are beginning to realise Mr Olmert lacks Mr Sharon's image as "Mr Security".