Another Dagger Points Toward Mideast Talks : International outcry on Israel’s mass deportation of Arabs

Stung by stepped-up attacks on its soldiers and border police, Israel has lashed out at the Muslim fundamentalist groups in the disputed territories that claim responsibility for at least five killings. About 1,600 Palestinian Arabs have been arrested this week, with one-fourth of them transported to Lebanon for an exile that could last as long as two years.

The mass expulsions have provoked the expected international outcry, invited condemnation by the U.N. Security Council and brought prompt objections from both the Bush Administration and President-elect Bill Clinton. The chief concern of the United States--though not necessarily that of other foreign critics of the action by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s government--is that the deportations threaten the survival of the Middle East peace talks. Bringing about the collapse of those negotiations is precisely what Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the two extremist Muslim groups, hope to accomplish.

The deportations were carried out immediately after the Israeli supreme court refused to forbid them, but the story is far from over. For one thing, Lebanon, remembering its own bitter experiences with Palestinian radicals on its soil and not wanting to appear to be cooperating in any way with Israel, refuses to offer the deportees haven. Their status for now is highly uncertain, and the Red Cross has intervened to provide them minimal shelter and sustenance in that part of southern Lebanon where the Beirut government’s writ does not extend. For another, Israeli civil rights groups plan to continue legal appeals on behalf of the deportees.

The expulsions, despite the Israeli high court’s view, seem clearly to contravene international law, namely the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits “individual or mass forcible transfers . . . regardless of their motive.” The deportations plainly constitute an act of collective punishment, directed at an entire group rather than at specific individuals suspected of committing specific crimes. If Israel knew the identities of the killers it seeks, it certainly would arrest and prosecute them. Instead it is trying to cripple two radical groups by moving indiscriminately against their leading members and sympathizers. This is not a considered legal action but a desperate political one. Its most important result could well be to bolster the prestige of the factions that most bitterly oppose the peace talks.

The rising anger and frustration in Israel over the increased and murderous militancy of the fundamentalist groups are both understandable and consequential. The mounting political pressures on the Rabin government are such that even its most left-wing members felt compelled to approve of the deportations. The after-the-fact hope of some government officials is that Rabin’s show of toughness will give him the chance now to be more flexible in talks with Palestinian negotiators about limited autonomy on the West Bank. Maybe. But first a way must be found to restart the talks. Here, in its final weeks, is a major foreign policy challenge for the Bush Administration. For it seems clear at this point that the stalled and now threatened peace process can be revived only if Washington is able to intervene persuasively.