JERUSALEM - Israel's military operation on the West Bank has had a surprising impact on the home front.

The invasion deepened Israel's occupation of the West Bank and virtually destroyed the Palestinian government set up by the Oslo peace process. But the military strike has also intensified the desire of a majority of Israelis to separate themselves from the Palestinians.

The question is how.

The Oslo peace process is dead, and most Israelis despise and distrust Yasir Arafat, their former negotiating partner. The government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is committed to continued occupation. Some Israeli doves, including former foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, hope that the Bush administration unilaterally will impose a political solution to the Palestinian problem, or even back deployment of an international force to the West Bank. Such hopes are pipe dreams.

More likely is the growth of a grassroots movement that calls for Israel to pull out of much of the West Bank unilaterally. This week, a group of 300 former top Israeli military and intelligence officers - called the Council for Peace and Security - launched a campaign for unilateral Israeli separation from Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Their idea: Israel would pull back to a defensible line in the West Bank and remove any Jewish settlements beyond that line, along with all Jewish settlements in Gaza.

"We would tell the Palestinians that at the end of the day we'll negotiate a final status agreement when you are ready," says reserve Gen. Danny Rothschild, Israeli coordinator of the occupied territories in the early 1990s. In the meantime, Israel could better defend against terrorism by consolidating its troops, and shrinking the numbers of Jewish settlements it has to defend.

The retired general hopes his group can collect a million signatures to force Sharon and other pols to pay attention before the 2003 elections. The polls now show a slim majority supporting unilateral separation.

There are strong security reasons why Rothschild and other top Israeli military men are promoting this option. Few Israeli officers believe this month's Israeli military operation will stop terrorism for more than a brief interval. An acquaintance who just returned from reserve duty in Ramallah summed up the thinking of his commanders: "The pessimists say the terror will restart in two weeks, and the optimists say it will take a month."

Now that Sharon has destroyed the Palestinian Authority and its security forces, these Israeli commanders believe it's only a matter of time before full-fledged guerrilla war begins. This war will incorporate thousands of armed Palestinian police who haven't acted against Israel before now. These commanders believe that Israel can't fight such a war simply by destroying terrorist infrastructure but "must work at changing Palestinian motivation."

Changing motivation requires political talks, however, and neither side has political leaders who are ready for serious negotiations. Therefore, says Rothschild, it's best to pull back to defensible lines and defend them aggressively, even building fences.

Rothschild's arguments are bolstered by leaks to the Israeli press from Israeli military officers who say the army can't afford to keep defending Jewish settlements all over the West Bank. To those who argue that unilateral withdrawal would be rewarding terrorism, Rothschild answers sharply that he is doing what is best for Israel - full stop.

Would Sharon be swayed by a grassroots campaign for unilateral withdrawal? Perhaps, but I doubt it. He just told his cabinet he would not consider dismantling any Israeli settlement in the West Bank or Gaza before the 2003 elections. So the fate of unilateral withdrawal may depend on whether the Labor Party ends its awkward participation in Sharon's coalition government and takes up this cause.

If not, that restless Israeli majority who want to get out of the West Bank may be drawn further into occupation and guerrilla war.

There is a better option, however, than unilateral separation. The growing pressure for separation reflects the dim prospects for restarting Israel-Palestinian peace talks. There is only one way such talks could be renewed: if the United States put forward a new peace plan fleshing out a Saudi initiative that calls for full Arab recognition of Israel in return for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza.

This is the hope of Gilead Sher, the former chief Israeli negotiator under Ehud Barak. He is angry that Arafat botched a stellar chance for peace in 2000 and instead opted for violence. Yet he believes that Israel has no choice but to negotiate a long-term solution.

"The mistrust, hatred and retaliatory emotions are so deep," says Sher, "that we need someone from the outside to impose on us a process. We need to be brought by others, the United States or moderate Arabs, to reestablish a direct dialogue."

The Israeli public is willing. Now if only someone would galvanize George W. Bush.