The northern West Bank town of Tulkarem was taken over by Israeli Army forces at 3 a.m. Monday, the most serious incursion since the Oslo Accords. Israel has encircled and seized almost every semi-autonomous Palestinian town in the West Bank but they have never before besieged an entire town.

On Tuesday, Israel pulled out of Tulkarem, but that move, coupled with the assassination of four leading Hamas militants in Nablus, has represented an extremely dangerous escalation of violence in the region.

Revenge for the assassinations was swift. Within hours, a Palestinian man with an automatic weapon opened fire Tuesday in west Jerusalem, wounding 20. Retaliatory strikes and attacks by both sides continue and will continue until the cycle of violence is halted.

From the Israeli perspective, they invaded the town of Tulkarem to seek out and destroy people it believes are behind violent attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers. That language makes it very difficult for the American government to condemn such action.

After all, we are on a similar path ourselves, waging a war on terrorism with the very same language Israel now uses against Palestine. Israel does have a problem with terrorism. There are terrorists, and yes, they may be Palestinian. But Israel is leaving Palestine no way to root out terrorism on its own.

By moving their tanks and armored vehicles into sovereign lands and instilling a curfew, searching civilians’ homes and essentially taking control of a city, Israel will not stop the terrorist attacks. In fact, they will only escalate them.

No one can blame Israel for being upset over the terrorist attacks. The loss of innocent lives due to extremism and radical ideologies is something Americans can now relate with. That being said, the subsequent loss of innocent Palestinian life due to retaliatory strikes by Israel is no better and no more moral.

Israel demands that the Palestinian Authority crack down on militant organizations while simultaneously destroying police offices and facilities of the very force asked to make the arrests. They blame the attacks solely on Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, saying his organization sponsors the attacks and does nothing to stop them. When Arafat wants the attacks to stop, Israel maintains, they will stop.

Unfortunately that doesn’t appear to be true. Even as Arafat attempted to root out terrorist organizations in Palestine, Israel continued the counter-attacks and hostile military movements into Palestinian land.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon needs to put a stop to the vast military campaign being waged against the Palestinian Authority, especially considering that it only seems to lead to more and more violence.

If Israel truly wants to make peace, it first must begin to root out the militant structure by easing the restrictions on Palestinian people.

editorialboard: Andrea Hauser, Tim Paluch, Michelle Kann, Zach Calef, Omar Tesdell