Bombs, Bullets and PR

Each new day of violence between Israelis and Palestinians deepens the melancholy conclusion that the two antagonists continue to confront and kill each other mainly because they can think of nothing better to do.

Surely Yasser Arafat and other Palestinian leaders with any grip on reality know that terror bombings and random murders of Israeli civilians and soldiers will not force Israel to accept the conditions set by the Palestinian Authority for making peace. And surely Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other responsible Israelis understand that the Palestinians’ determination to achieve a sovereign and geographically coherent state won’t be deterred no matter how many “new facts are created on the ground,” as Israeli hard-liners like to say. Nearly 35 years of Israeli control over the West Bank and Gaza Strip have created many new facts, none more potent than an intensified Palestinian nationalism. Israelis need only look to their own Zionist past to be reminded of the power of that ideal.

These are the basic truths of the conflict, and they are the reason why political compromise--a mutual readiness to abandon maximalist demands--has always been the only way to resolve the conflict. Resolution won’t come through force, and certainly not through the religious fanaticism that sends young Palestinians out to blow themselves up along with any Israelis unfortunate enough to be nearby. Neither will it come so long as a significant minority of Israelis goes on believing that indefinite occupation backed by overwhelming force must eventually compel Palestinians to bow to Israeli’s will.

The argument over who began the newest cycle of violence and, more important, who must take the first step to halt it is on one level a sterile exercise in public relations, aimed at loading blame on the other side. On another level it reflects a weakness of leadership.

Arafat could do much to rein in the violence by rearresting the Islamic militants who have effectively seized the political initiative from him, but he fears that such a crackdown would trigger a popular backlash that would severely shake his already enfeebled leadership. Sharon could offer to take practical measures to immediately improve the quality of life for Palestinians and to respond harshly to acts of Israeli vigilantism. To do that, however, could invite the wrath of settlers and other ultranationalists while boosting the political comeback hopes of Sharon’s main Likud Party challenger, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Sharon has authorized his foreign minister, the decidedly less hard-line Shimon Peres, to reopen talks with Arafat. That should at least permit exploring whether a cease-fire can be agreed to and, crucially, enforced. No one has gained from the suffering that has fallen on both sides since the intifada erupted last September. Only the willfully self-deluding can refuse to acknowledge the pointle ssness of continuing the conflict.