Roadblock to peace / A new cycle of Israeli-Palestinian violence

Thursday, June 12, 2003

When Israel tried earlier this week to assassinate a leader of the group Hamas, no less a friend of the Jewish state than President Bush protested. The point was that such an attack threatened a new cycle of violence just as a comatose peace process was coming groggily to life. Mr. Bush said he didn't think the attack "helped Israeli security."

No one -- certainly not Mr. Bush -- will take any satisfaction in the fact that his fears were borne out yesterday when a suicide bomber detonated an explosion on a Jerusalem bus, killing 16 people and wounding nearly 70. But some such outrage was all too predictable.

Of course, to explain yesterday's act of terror is not to justify it. But it was precisely the possibility of this sort of revenge that worried American officials who pressed Mr. Bush to issue his rare public criticism of Israel on Tuesday after the attempted assassination of Hamas official Abdel Aziz Rantisi.

Predictably, yesterday's suicide bombing provoked Israel to counter-retaliate with another helicopter attack, this one deadly to two Hamas figures and several others. Israel's impulse to avenge its dead is understandable but could backfire. Now it will be even more difficult for Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to try to induce Hamas and other militants to agree to a cease-fire.

As the familiar chain reaction of violence continues, the Bush administration and U.S. allies can only hope that the much-derailed "peace train" can be put back on the track toward Israeli-Palestinian coexistence before it disintegrates. A so-called two-state solution remains the only long-term alternative to a continued state of siege.

It is a cliche to say that all sides must exercise restraint if there is to be any progress toward that solution, but yesterday's carnage is proof of what happens when settling scores takes precedence over seeking peace.