Saving the road map

THE PEACE PROCESS is a smoldering wreck one week after President George W. Bush went to Aqaba, Jordan, to mark the starting point of the Middle East "road map." Hamas' bombing of a bus on Jerusalem's main street Wednesday, following Israel's attacks on Hamas leaders, leaves peace a distant destination, invisible through the smoke and fire.

Mr. Bush did his best to keep the peace process on track. On Tuesday, he dispatched aides to express disappointment with Israel's helicopter attack on Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a radical Hamas leader. On Wednesday, the president denounced the Jerusalem bombing in the strongest terms, and urged both sides to stay on the "road map."

But all the words in the diplomatic lexicon can't make people forget the carnage of the terrorist bombings or the acts of reprisal.

The most recent cycle of violence began Sunday, when three terrorist Palestinian groups - Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade - joined in an attack that killed five Israeli soldiers. Israel responded with the attack on Mr. Rantisi, a Hamas firebrand who has denounced the road map as a "Zionist conspiracy."

Then, during the afternoon rush hour in Jerusalem on Wednesday, a Hamas terrorist, disguised as an ultra-Orthodox Jew, set off a large explosive on a bus near the city's market. At least 16 people were killed and 100 wounded. A few minutes later, Israeli Apache helicopters fired missiles at a car in Gaza City, killing Tito Massoud, commander of Hamas' military wing.

The fact that there is a cycle of violence does not mean that there is a moral equivalency between Israeli and Palestinian attacks. Hamas' bombing of innocent civilians on the Jerusalem bus is a savage act of terrorism. Israel is justified in attacking Hamas leaders as armed combatants, just as the United States is justified in attacking al-Qaida.

That's one of the reasons it is difficult for Mr. Bush to argue that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon should stop the targeted assassinations of terrorists. Still, Mr. Bush has every reason to be upset by the timing of the Israeli attack on Mr. Rantisi, which some Israeli commentators described an effort to placate right-wingers.

Peace can not, and will not, be achieved as long as either Mr. Sharon or Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas panders to extremists. Nor will peace be achieved if they allow it to be derailed by every act - and counteract - of violence.

At the site of the Jerusalem bus bomb, a crowd quickly gathered, chanting "Revenge against the Arabs!" Esther Lapian, 53, yelled back at the crowd to stop. But her commitment to the peace process was sorely tested. "We actually sat around the Shabbat table (last week) talking about Aqaba," she told ((ITAL))The New York Times((ITAL)). ". . . Now I feel like a fool. Every time there is a little hope we get socked between the teeth. For trying!"

But somehow, the Israelis and the Palestinians of good will and good faith, even as they witness the horrific deaths of their own, must look beyond today's carnage, and tomorrow's. They must keep trying, even if they feel like fools, because that is the only way to reach peace.