And Now Begins the Steep Climb : Israel and PLO: The true victory is still far away

The words hope and chance were spoken often during Monday’s ceremony on the White House lawn, appropriate words for the occasion, certainly, but words that also soberly de-fine and starkly underscore the limits and the inconclusiveness of what was taking place.

The coming together of the leaders of Israel and of the Palestine Liberation Organization was of course momentous, its drama assured and deepened by the decades of hatred and bloodshed that preceded it. But the document the two old enemies signed--welcome as it is for breaching the psychological barrier of non-recognition and ending an era of mutual demonization--only begins a process for trying to resolve by civil means the antagonistic claims of two people to the same land. The true celebration will be due when--if--that process reaches happy fulfillment.

What makes the road ahead so hard is the historical baggage each side will be staggering under as they journey together. The Palestinians, with the support of most other Arabs, have until now rejected the idea of coexisting alongside a Jewish state. Now, with the PLO explicitly recognizing Israel’s legitimacy, this rejectionism and all that preceded and accompanied it--the profound sense of injustice and offended honor and betrayal, the humiliations and casualties of military defeat and occupation--must somehow be put aside.

The Israelis on their part remember the wars they have fought and the losses they have suffered in their search for what President Clinton so aptly called the “quiet miracle of a normal life.” Much more, they remember the Holocaust and the promise they have made to themselves --a national article of faith--that never again would they let their security be so jeopardized. Israel is determined that the security of its land and people will remain the foundation on which any political agreement it makes with the Palestinians or the Arab states must rest.

“It’s not so easy” to meet with old foes against this background of pain and enmity, said Prime Minister Yitz- hak Rabin. Not easy, and not pleasant--the Israeli leader and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat plainly were not elated at being in each other’s company--but certainly necessary and fitting. “We are destined,” said Rabin to the Palestinians, “to live together on the same soil in the same land.” That is an immutable fact of history. Now both sides must summon up the vision and the courage to make their fated need to live side by side a peaceful and mutually beneficial reality.