Does Arafat Have the Clout?

It took the massacre of 20 young Israelis by a Palestinian suicide bomber and an international outcry to get Yasser Arafat finally to agree to the cease-fire that Israel accepted two weeks ago.

Now the head of the Palestinian Authority must show he has the political courage to use his dwindling prestige to rein in the increasingly brutal intifada he has allowed to rage over the last eight months.

No one expects Arafat to be able to prevent every instance of anti-Israeli violence.

Islamic fanatics who believe they are sacrificing themselves in a holy cause and who have no use for political give and take won’t be persuaded by any urgings from Arafat to suspend their attacks.

Arafat can, however, order the Palestinian Authority’s 30,000 police officers and the militias and security agents that are part of his Fatah organization to do all in their power to head off new provocations.

The proven way to lower the level of violence is jailing the Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists who are responsible for the most flagrant acts of terrorism.

If Arafat can’t get those who work for the Palestinian Authority to obey his orders to crack down on terrorism, he can no longer credibly claim to be the Palestinian leader.

Palestinian spokesmen have been spreading the word that before the intifada can end Arafat must have some political concession from Israel to justify the Palestinian death toll.

Israel is just as adamant that it will do nothing that could be interpreted as rewarding the violence that exploded last September.

This is the kind of impasse that, if not finessed, assures a continuation of strife.

The Bush administration has put aside its reluctance to get directly involved in the conflict and sent CIA Director George Tenet back to the region for security talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials. That is the appropriate level of involvement for now.

But cooperation among security officials, if it can be achieved, remains only a means to an end.

A period of relative calm could open the way for what Washington hopes will be mutual steps toward confidence-building that, in turn, could make it possible for political talks to resume.

No observer of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to be reminded of the formidable obstacles on the path to that goal.