Hope Amid the Wreckage

The twisted wreckage of an Israeli bus demonstrated anew Wednesday the fragility of hopes for peace in the Middle East. Continued talks demonstrated the persistence of those hopes.

After weeks of ever-harsher violence, diplomacy seemed finally to be gaining some traction this week, helped in great measure by the Bush administration’s belated reengagement in the shattered peace process. Then a suicide bomber killed himself and seven other passengers on a bus in northern Israel. Despite the murders, Palestinian and Israeli security officials continued discussing a formal cease-fire, evidence of a new sense of urgency. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made a welcome tactical change earlier this month when he dropped his impossible condition that there be seven days free of violence by any Palestinian group before he would discuss a cease-fire. He also ended the virtual house arrest of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and said he would let Arafat attend next week’s Beirut meeting of Arab leaders to discuss a Saudi Arabian proposal for Middle East peace. Also helpful was Israeli soldiers’ withdrawal from the towns they stormed in the occupied territories this month in the largest military campaign in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since the 1967 Middle East war.

Sharon’s flexibility came amid Bush administration criticism of Israel’s military campaign, ample proof of the worth of continued U.S. engagement no matter how bleak the immediate prospect. Now, again, the burden is on Arafat. The man who has fumbled so many opportunities to improve the lives of Palestinians should seize this one.

CIA Director George J. Tenet mapped out a security plan last year requiring Israel to stop assassinating Palestinians it considered terrorists. In turn, Palestinians would have to arrest militants and disarm their militias. Arafat retains the power to crack down on militias allied with his Fatah organization; he also needs to visibly pressure the more radical groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s suicide bombing.

Vice President Dick Cheney made a generous offer to meet with Arafat if the Palestinians implemented the Tenet plan. That’s a key shift away from the Bush administration’s hands-off attitude toward the Palestinian leader. Cheney’s three meetings with Sharon in fewer than 18 hours and the arrival in Israel last week of U.S. envoy Anthony C. Zinni point up the Bush administration’s renewed understanding of Washington’s role, after a period on the sidelines as violence escalated.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II spoke movingly during his Los Angeles visit this week about how both Israelis and Palestinians fear to eat in restaurants and even send their children to school. The king spoke of “these basic human problems that we as leaders tend to ignore.”

Israelis are exhausted. Palestinians are exhausted. Given a vision of hope by their leaders, both populations may be ready to grasp it.