Broken Hopes and a Grim Future

The Israeli-Palestinian peace process lies shattered today, and it’s unlikely that it can be made whole any time soon. The events of the last two weeks, culminating in Thursday’s killing of three Israeli soldiers by a Palestinian mob in Ramallah and retaliatory Israeli attacks, make it all but impossible for leaders on the two sides even to think about reopening negotiations, let alone make the concessions needed for talks to succeed. The diplomatic stalemate that followed the failed Camp David summit in July all but erased the meager trust that remained between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Now extremists on both sides, who have always denied that any basis for trust exists, are claiming vindication.

Arafat resisted going to Camp David because, he told President Clinton, he wasn’t ready for what the United States hoped would be the endgame, an agreement on the most divisive issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially control over East Jerusalem. Arafat spoke the truth: He wasn’t ready to accept the creative compromises that Washington proposed, and he left U.S. officials doubting that he ever would be. Clinton took the extraordinary step of putting the onus on Arafat for the failure at Camp David. Everything since has been regression.

There’s no question that Israel deserves condemnation for using excessive and unjustified deadly force in responding to Palestinian rioting over the last few weeks. Neither can there be any question about Arafat’s responsibility in condoning, if not actually encouraging, the violence that has left so many dead and injured. At any point he could have ordered his well-armed security forces to halt the rampages. Lacking the political courage to take the last steps necessary to reach a peace agreement, Arafat has reverted to form, maneuvering to boost his sagging prestige among Palestinians and win broader Arab support by again embracing militancy.

Barak is now calling for a broad national-emergency government. That would inescapably give peace-process opponents a key voice in policymaking. Meanwhile, Arafat is again cozying up to Hamas and other radical enemies of peace to try to rebuild his power base. These tactical expedients may serve the political needs of the moment, but what Israeli and Palestinian leaders should instead be thinking about is the grim and destructive future that awaits their peoples if they fail to arrest the violence and move to resume their broken dialogue.