Middle East Summit: a Valuable Nudge

The two-day Middle East summit meeting, hastily arranged and hosted by President Clinton at the White House this week, seems to have achieved its minimum goal, if only barely. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat have agreed to resume negotiations on how to implement the Oslo accords, the basic framework for peace between two peoples who have paid so dearly for decades of war.

A priority item of business, Clinton announced as the summit ended, would be the issue of Hebron, the West Bank city where Israel still maintains a strong military presence despite a timetable that called for the Palestinian Authority to assume control six months ago. Agreement to talk about Hebron, where 450 religious Israelis live among 100,000 Palestinians, by no means assures there will be agreement to resolve the deep differences that exist. To the Palestinians, the failure of the Netanyahu government to withdraw Israel’s army from Hebron is proof of its lack of interest in moving ahead with the peace process begun by the previous government. To Netanyahu and his supporters, last week’s violence, which saw Palestinian police forces firing on Israeli troops, is evidence that the army must continue to protect Israelis living in Hebron. Bridging these differences will require an enormous commitment. It’s by no means sure that such a commitment will in fact be forthcoming.

Yet most Israelis, and probably most Palestinians as well, continue to support the peace process. The latest poll in Israel, taken after the latest violence, finds that an overwhelming 79.5% of Israelis still favor putting the Oslo accords into effect. Netanyahu can, if he chooses, ignore such significant demonstrations of public longing and claim that the real test of Israeli opinion came in last spring’s election results, which saw him chosen prime minister by a slim 29,000 votes. But whatever else the vote for Netanyahu represented, it was not a mandate for regression. There is still time to show vision and move ahead.

The Washington meeting appears to have nudged two determined antagonists back onto the negotiating track. Now they must show that they have the courage to move ahead.