– The Arafat Legacy

Blow to peace in the Middle East
By The New York Times News Service

The honeymoon didn't last very long. Less than a week after Palestinians elected Mahmoud Abbas as Yasser Arafat's successor and the relatively dovish Labor Party joined Israel's Cabinet, hopes for an early return to diplomatic dialogue have been abruptly crushed by the familiar one-two combination of a deadly Palestinian terrorist attack and a precipitous Israeli overreaction.

Nobody expected Israel to simply ignore Thursday's attack by armed militants in Gaza, who used explosives, grenades and automatic weapons to kill six Israelis and wound five others. Nor can it be expected to negotiate with Palestinian leaders who equivocate in word or deed about terrorism. But that is not the situation Israel faces, as someone as canny and experienced in these matters as Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, must surely recognize. Yet on Friday Sharon ordered all Israeli officials to cut off contacts with the Palestinian Authority until it acts to curb such terrorist violence.

In sharp contrast with Arafat, Abbas has been clear and unwavering in his view that anti-Israeli violence has been and continues to be extremely harmful to the Palestinian cause. For that reason, the Gaza militants behind Thursday's attack struck not only at their Israeli victims, but also at Abbas' new and not yet fully consolidated political leadership. In choosing to respond by cutting off all Israeli contacts with the Palestinian Authority, Sharon has become their unwitting ally.