Sharon rides high in polls as Israeli public supports 'war on terror'

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Most Israelis support the "wide-scale war" on the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, in what is now the biggest military offensive in the territories since 1967, according to opinion polls released yesterday.

The seven-day-old war has also boosted support for the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to record levels. Almost a quarter of Israelis say they want the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, "eliminated", a euphemism for killing him, according to one poll.

Israelis are used to the demands of security. Yesterday's poll in The Jerusalem Post found that 72 per cent of them supported the week-long invasion, not because they lusted for revenge but because they'd had enough of terrorist attacks. They hoped that by taking the battle to the enemy, the army would win at least a respite.

Mr Sharon's popularity rating has risen since the invasion. He now leads his right-wing Likud predecessor, Binyamin Netanyahu, by 32 to 26 per cent, with Labour alternatives in single figures. Yet the pollster, Hanoch Smith, argued that there had been little fundamental shift in attitudes. Only 15 per cent wanted the reoccupation to be permanent. "People are not moving very much in their deep feelings," he said, "but they're being moved by Yasser Arafat and the suicide bombers."

On the streets of Jerusalem yesterday even the weather seemed symbolic. After a week of unremitting rain, thunder, lightning and hail, the sun came out – and with it, tentatively at first, the people. In the city's German Colony, with its boutique bakeries, wine bars, goat's cheese stalls and cafés, Israelis strolled as if forgetting for a moment that a suicide bombing had been aborted there last month. By mid-morning, swimmers, emboldened by three bomb-free days on this side of the West Bank border, were doing lengths in the Olympic-sized pool.

Outside, Shlomo Ginossar, a veteran journalist, and his wife were taking the sun on a bench. "Perhaps it's the change of weather that has brought people out," he suggested. "Perhaps it's a feeling that it's shameful to be stuck at home fearing for the next bombing. Perhaps they recognise that the army has made it harder for terrorists to strike." In any case, he cautioned, it's all temporary and provisional. "We are relaxed, but we know everything is still open, nothing is sealed."

If the war, still raging in Bethlehem four miles to the south, was out of sight, it was hardly out of mind. Armed police were stopping traffic every hundred yards. The trendy Caffit café, the target of the failed bombing, now has a wrought-iron gate and a guard with a metal detector frisking visitors. The guard at the pool toted an Uzi sub-machinegun.

In Zion Square, in the centre of Jewish west Jerusalem, policewomen with old-fashioned carbines were checking identity cards. I asked one of them if anyone objected. "No," she smiled, "not unless they've got something to worry about." Had she met any? "Not yet."

Herzl Behari, 45, whose family has been selling nuts and dried fruit in an alley off Jaffa Road for half a century, said he was strongly in favour of the offensive. "I'm past call-up age, but if the army sent for me I'd go willingly," he said.

What, he asked, would the British do if terrorists were blowing themselves up in restaurants and banquet halls every day. "Would they just sit and fold their arms?" His own shop has felt the blast of two bombings and a shooting since the beginning of 2002 and trade has fallen. "I think," he said, "if they let the army finish the job, it will open the way to peace. Only terror prevented peace, not the Palestinian people."

Hai Malkan, 27, who owns a store for cheap clothes next door, chimed in: "We had to go in. It was either them or us. The Palestinians think they can hit us as they please and nothing will happen to them. If they want to fight, let them fight soldiers, not women and children."

Business was picking up at Ticho House, a garden café outside an art gallery. Uriel Adiv, a single parent, was lunching with friends. "It had become unbearable," he said. "A bomb exploded the other night 200 yards from my house. I'm afraid to walk my little boy to school in the morning. I started walking close to the walls of buildings for protection. He asked why, and I said it was to keep out of the sun. He isn't fooled that easily – 'but there is no sun,' he replied."

The café's owner, Nava Bibi, said that her 25-year-old son, Ran, was serving with a reserve infantry brigade in Bethlehem. "He said it has been a long time since motivation was so high," she recounted. "Usually, people with jobs and families are not so happy to go, but this time he and his friends were looking forward to it. They felt they were defending their homes."