TIME AND AGAIN, moments of hope and progress in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are greeted by new and shocking acts of violence, meant to stop peacemaking in its tracks. This week it happened again: Just as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat were taking baby steps toward ending a year of warfare, radical Palestinians assassinated Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi. For now, this terrible act has had exactly the intended effect: Mr. Sharon has angrily suspended a promised lifting of Israeli blockades in the West Bank and Gaza, sent the army on new invasions of Palestinian territory and threatened a major offensive against Mr. Arafat's Palestinian Authority. The execution of that offensive would deal another devastating blow to Israeli-Palestinian relations and threaten the U.S. coalition against terrorism. Quick and decisive action must be taken in the coming days to head off the escalation of violence.
The action must begin with Mr. Arafat, who made a start by condemning the assassination, banning the Palestinian organization involved and arresting several of its members. There is little reason to believe Mr. Arafat knew of or condoned the attack. On the contrary, the Palestinian leader had been moving toward responding to U.S. and Israeli demands that he force compliance with a cease-fire and break with radical groups supporting terrorism. But Mr. Arafat must go much farther: He must once and for all move against all the militants who plan and carry out terrorist attacks, and make clear to both Palestinians and Israelis that he has chosen the path of negotiation.
For his part, Mr. Sharon must leave room for a peaceful outcome. In the past two days, he and his spokesman have returned to the tactic of mimicking President Bush's words about Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, as if they applied equally to Mr. Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. Israel has also returned to its own practice of assassinating Palestinian militants, even though one of those killings, of the political leader of a small secular militant group, prompted the group to murder Mr. Zeevi in retaliation. The suggestion is that an Israeli campaign to destroy the Palestinian Authority would be as appropriate and justified as the U.S. offensive in Afghanistan.
But such an Israeli campaign would simply set back, possibly for years, any move toward the real solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which, as Mr. Sharon himself acknowledged last Sunday, is negotiation leading to the creation of a Palestinian state. Mr. Sharon threatens to mix a justified battle against terrorism with an effort to destroy the elected leadership of a legitimate national movement. If Mr. Arafat does not decisively break with Palestinian terrorists, he should be sanctioned and isolated; if Israel is attacked, it has a right to respond against those who attack it. But waging war against the Palestinian Authority because of the actions of a splinter group would be a terrible mistake, one with far-reaching consequences for both Israel and the United States.
2001 The Washington Post Company