Palestinians, Don’t Rush

The Palestinian Authority says its leaders will decide by the end of April whether and when to proclaim an independent state, but it’s a good bet the choice has already been made. Under prodding and with political sweeteners from the United States and the 15-nation European Union, Yasser Arafat is likely to announce he is deferring that decision for a time. The decision is being pushed by the May 4 expiration of the interim peace accords reached with Israel five years ago. The best reason for letting that date pass quietly is the Israeli national election on May 17. Nothing would do more to assure the reelection of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a hard-line government than for the Palestinians unilaterally to declare statehood.

It’s now all but a given that there will be a Palestinian state somewhere down the road. Last month the European Union went beyond its earlier comments with a statement supporting the Palestinians’ unqualified right to self-determination, including the option of statehood. U.S. officials publicly stick to the line that the Palestinians’ political future is something to be negotiated, though privately many see eventual statehood as inevitable. Such opinions do not, of course, impress those Israelis who are determined to hold on to the greater part of the West Bank while agreeing to no more than limited autonomy for the Palestinians. But that attitude is a prescription for endless tension, and for Israel’s increasing isolation.

Responding to the EU declaration, Netanyahu predictably raised the specter of a Palestinian state that would ally itself with the region’s most anti-Israel regimes and become a base for terrorism that would threaten Israel’s “very existence.” This apocalyptic scenario might have some plausibility if Israel were politically powerless to prevent it. Israel is anything but that.

Good-faith negotiations of the kind largely unseen in recent years could fix the terms for a Palestinian entity that was effectively demilitarized and nonaligned. Jordan and probably Egypt, the countries bordering on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, would support that, knowing that a trouble-making Palestine would also mean trouble for them.

Israel’s election could produce a more moderate and conciliatory government that is truly interested in moving the peace process to a conclusion, one that makes full provision for Israel’s security needs. Arafat surely understands that a Palestinian declaration of statehood on May 4 would bury that prospect. The peace that leaders on both sides insist they seek will come only through negotiations, not unilateral statements and radical actions.