It is as if Ariel Sharon had set out to stalk Yasser Arafat logarithmically -- first at 1,000 metres, then 100, and now 10.

Last October, Israeli troops invaded Ramallah, the administrative and commercial capital of the West Bank, bringing their tanks to within a kilometre of the Palestinian leader's headquarters. In December, the distance decreased to that of a football field. Now, the Israel Defence Forces have actually invaded Mr. Arafat's compound, shot up his bodyguard force and apprehended his lackeys. As of this writing, Mr. Arafat has reportedly been confined to a single floor of an office building.

The question most people are asking: Will the Israeli Prime Minister shave off another zero? Will he capture or kill the Palestinian leader? The answer, most likely, is no.

The Israeli military has several times targeted the leaders of such terrorist organizations as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. But Yasser Arafat, as the head of the PA quasi-state, is different.

He is protected by a taboo that precludes either Israel or its Arab enemies from targeting each other's political leaders. This taboo has held through five wars and two intifadas. During the PLO's ceremonial evacuation of Beirut two decades ago, an Israeli sniper had Mr. Arafat in his sights. But he was ordered not to shoot by Mr. Sharon, then Israel's defence minister.

Admittedly, that taboo has weakened recently because of violent gestures from both sides. Last October, Rehavam Ze'evi, the Israeli Tourism Minister, was shot dead by Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine gunmen as he stood outside his room in a Jerusalem hotel -- the first Arab assassination of an Israeli Cabinet member in history. Last November, the Israeli daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot reported a high-ranking commander of Mr. Arafat's Fatah movement in Lebanon had assigned a four-man hit squad to assassinate Mr. Sharon with a sniper's rifle. (The team was reportedly apprehended by Israel in September.) For his part, Mr. Sharon recently said he regrets he did not have Mr. Arafat killed when he had the chance.

"In Lebanon, there was an agreement not to liquidate Yasser Arafat," Mr. Sharon said. "In principle, I'm sorry that we didn't liquidate him."

The words have been seized on by Palestinians as proof of murderous intent. But in truth, Israel would gain little from Mr. Arafat's death if it is a Jew's finger that pulls the trigger. Mr. Arafat, who has ruled the Palestinian Authority as Chairman since its creation in 1994 -- and as its unelected dictator since 1999, when required elections were never held -- is corrupt and widely despised. His inner circle is composed of men who fled with him to Tunisia in 1982; they have little connection to the residents of the West Bank and Gaza. What remains of Mr. Arafat's legitimacy rests strictly on his perceived ability to extract concessions from Israel and attract Arab support for a full-scale regional war. But if Mr. Arafat's death comes at Israeli hands, he will become one of the "martyrs" he so often praises, and support for a unified PA might remain strong under a successor plucked from among his ageing cronies.

That is not how Mr. Sharon wants the hit to go down. He would prefer Mr. Arafat be replaced -- through assassination or otherwise -- by Palestinians. This wish has been clear since last December, when Mr. Sharon declared Mr. Arafat "irrelevant" in the wake of a terrorist attack on a West Bank bus.

The attempt to humiliate and isolate Mr. Arafat is meant to advance this plan. Though Palestinians argue their war is fuelled by the humiliations visited upon them by roadblocks, army checkpoints and other anti-terrorist measures, humiliation is a double-edged sword in this part of the world. Given the absence of a democratic political culture in the Arab Middle East, dictators such as Saddam Hussein of Iraq and the late Hafez Assad of Syria have traditionally legitimized their rule through terror, murder and displays of power. To be shamed in the Arab world is often to invite a coup.

Mr. Arafat is impeccably true to this personality type. As the textbooks Palestinian schoolchildren studied through the 1990s attest, he imagines the Palestinians will some day conquer every inch of Israeli territory and that he will lead the conquest. In 1998, one of Mr. Arafat's subordinates submitted to the Al Kuds newspaper an article comparing the PA chairman to Saladin, the 12th-century Muslim conqueror who took Jerusalem from the Christians. When the editor published the article on Page 3 instead of Page 1, Mr. Arafat's thugs kidnapped and beat him.

To take a man presenting himself as a second Saladin who will conquer all of Israel and confine him to one floor of a rubble-strewn Ramallah office building, Mr. Sharon hopes, is to fatally shame him in the eyes of his subjects.

Who would succeed Mr. Arafat if he were deposed? No one knows -- because the PA chairman has discouraged potential challengers from raising their profiles. But in terms of the moribund peace process, it does not greatly matter who takes over. Mr. Sharon likely believes no one in the Palestinian Authority can deliver peace in the short term -- because the ambition of annihilating Israel has been so thoroughly encouraged among ordinary Palestinians that any leader who agrees to a deal falling short of this ideal would likely be shot.

What Mr. Sharon would no doubt prefer is for the Palestinian Authority to separate into warring fiefdoms that attack one another instead of Israel -- much the way Lebanon exploded into a complex civil war involving Syria, Hezbollah, Amal, Druze militiamen, Palestinians and other bit players after Israel's invasion forced the PLO to evacuate. Then, when circumstances are convenient, Israel might play the kingmaker's role and strike a deal with the faction that is the least ridiculous in its demands.