Pay attention, Israel

FOR ISRAEL, THE OUTCOME OF the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon seems like the worst of both worlds. By responding with overwhelming force to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert earned international opprobrium for the resulting civilian casualties. Yet the operation failed to achieve his ultimate objective: the humiliation and disarmament of Hezbollah. But the failure of the mission is exaggerated.

One result of the war is that residents of northern Israel are now safe. Although Hezbollah has not been disarmed, it is no longer firing rockets into Israel, and a U.N. cease-fire and the deployment of the Lebanese army and international peacekeepers foster stability.

Still, Israel is in the midst of an orgy of recrimination (as Henry Kissinger might say), and Olmert’s longevity as leader is in doubt. He has placated hard-liners by shelving his plan for withdrawal from the West Bank, approving the construction of nearly 700 new homes for Jewish settlers there and maintaining pressure on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The danger is that Olmert is so shellshocked that he will be unable to respond creatively to a potentially significant development: the creation of a unity government in the Palestinian territories that would recognize Israel’s right to exist and include Hamas, the rejectionist movement that now controls the Palestinian parliament. That could pave the way to the two-state solution supported by the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.

It’s understandable, given recent events, that Israel and its leaders might want to turn inward. Bowing to international pressure, Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon and Gaza and made clear that it would withdraw from most if not all of the West Bank, forsaking the romantic 1980s vision of a Greater Israel encompassing biblical Judea and Samaria in favor of a policy of maximum separation between Israelis and Palestinians. For its pains, Israel was rewarded with a Hamas takeover of the Palestinian Authority and attacks on northern Israel from across the Lebanese border. Adding insult to injury, the U.N. seemed to side with Israel’s enemies. When an Israeli airstrike killed four U.N. observers in Lebanon, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was “shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting” of the post.

But Israel cannot turn its back on the U.N., which played a role in the creation of modern Israel, remains a pervasive presence in both Israel and the Palestinian territories and is now policing the Israeli-Lebanon border. The U.N. -- along with the U.S., the EU and Russia -- does not have the luxury of ignoring the Israeli-Palestinian question.

Unfinished business between Arabs and Jews is not the only cause of instability or radicalism in the Middle East. But it continues to inflame the region almost 60 years after the establishment of the Jewish state. No one would ask Israel to deal with people who demand its destruction. But if the Palestinian side is willing to talk and willing to compromise, Israel owes it to itself to be alert to that possibility.