Israel strikes back / But the Supreme Court reaffirms its principles

The Israeli government's behavior in the past few days has been comprehensible, but it has also shown a lack of wisdom when it comes to future relations with the Palestinians.

On Sunday, two Palestinians killed 22 and wounded another 100 in suicide bomb attacks in Tel Aviv. The attacks were outrageous and an atrocity. In line with consistent policy, Israeli forces quickly carried out retributive attacks on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

But then the Israeli government went further. It closed three Palestinian universities.

It forbade Palestinians working on a new constitution for the Palestinian Authority to meet. It forbade Palestinians preparing to attend a conference sponsored by the British to discuss reforms of the Palestinian Authority to travel to London.

Israeli fury and horror at the newest attacks is understandable. We share the country's grief at the casualties. What is hard to understand is an Israeli response that also includes acts counter to the interests of those wishing to see reform on the Palestinian side, and counter to the eventual development of new Palestinian leadership disposed to negotiate reasonably with Israelis.

Striking at Palestinian higher education, preventing Palestinians from preparing a new constitution and sabotaging a conference at which the topic will be reform of the Palestinian administration do not seem to us to be in the best interests of Israelis, unless those interests are defined simply as trying to cripple the Palestinians.

To some extent, these harsh measures are intended for domestic political consumption in the run-up to the Jan. 28 elections. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and candidates from his Likud Bloc want to be sure to prevent rivals in other parties from getting to the right of them on national security. Mr. Sharon is also currently trying to fight off charges of fraud and deception in a campaign finance case.

All the same, these reprisals are not in the long-term interest of the Israeli people, not to mention the interests of friends of Israel who want to see peace and a durable settlement in the region.

A more encouraging development is the following episode: The Israeli parliamentary electoral commission banned two Arab citizens of Israel from running for the Knesset; the Israeli parliament, and then the Israeli Supreme Court, overturned the decision. The initial negative decision had risked triggering a boycott of the election by Israeli Arabs, which would have been an augury of more trouble to come among Israelis. The court's reversal of the decision affirmed the continuing multicultural nature of even a beleaguered Israeli state.

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