Bold Change a Must in Mideast

President Clinton has denounced the suicide bombings that killed 15 people in a Jerusalem marketplace. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has condemned the atrocity. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has threatened to send troops into Palestinian-ruled areas to seize militants unless Arafat acts to stop such attacks. The responses to the outrage have thus been predictable. So was the event itself, even if its time and place could not be pinpointed. The peace process was showing faint signs of stirring after four months of dormancy. That was enough to propel the anti-peace forces in the Palestinian camp into action.

Their barbarous act was successful. The bodies of the dead and maimed had hardly been removed before Israel scrapped plans to resume low-level talks with Palestinian officials, and the United States announced that special mediator Dennis Ross will not be returning to Israel as scheduled to try to nudge the process along. Ross was supposed to be carrying some new proposals to try to break the impasse that has existed virtually since Netanyahu’s election 14 months ago. But fresh ideas are useful only if both sides are ready to change their thinking and accept the imperative to compromise. There are no signs that they are.

Whatever Netanyahu’s own inclinations, his freedom of action is circumscribed by his dependence on right-wingers in his coalition whose core demand is that Israel must yield no more land or political control to the Palestinians. On the other side, Arafat is under attack from the Palestinian legislative council for tolerating rampant corruption in his Cabinet; an official report says close to half of the government’s annual budget is swallowed up by thievery and incompetence. Both leaders largely invited the internal problems they now face. Both will have to act with unwonted boldness to shake free of those problems.

Arafat can hope to regain credibility with Palestinians by cracking down on corruption and requiring that his security forces respect human rights. And he can build credibility with Israel and the United States by moving vigorously to neutralize the anti-peace fanatics who are within his reach in Gaza and the West Bank. Netanyahu, if he’s serious about reaching a viable peace, has to think in terms of a new government as well, one that will not insist on provocations like needless housing projects in Arab areas that only work to sabotage peace hopes. Pending such changes, it’s hard to see how U.S. mediation can be much help.