Last chance.

Enough is enough." Thus, President George W. Bush summed up his current thinking on the carnage between Israelis and Palestinians. Does his phrase sound a note of weary exasperation or express a sturdy resolve to engage the two sides in negotiations leading to a final settlement? The administration comes late to the game, revealing unexpected disarray among Bush policymakers. The success in Afghanistan is clearly no blueprint for solving more enduring and complicated problems elsewhere. Nonetheless, the president's stern, and sometimes moving, words at a press conference on April 4, along with his decision to send Secretary of State Colin Powell to the Middle East almost certainly represent the last chance for real peace.

Secretary Powell stops on his way to the Mideast to meet with major Arab leaders, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, and King Abdullah of Jordan. This delay has had the unfortunate consequence of seeming to give the Israelis an extension on their incursions into the West Bank despite statements by both Bush and Powell that the Israeli army must withdraw "without delay, right now." Yet, the purpose of the secretary's stopovers is critical in drawing Arab leaders decisively and permanently into the negotiating process. Presumably the secretary will challenge them to condemn the suicide bombings and to pressure the Palestinians to halt them, just as the United States is being asked to pressure the Israelis to end incursions on the West Bank. Finally and most important--the Arabs, the Americans, the Europeans--everyone must induce the protagonists to accept, as Knesset member Shlomo Ben-Ami expressed it, "the peace of the exhausted."

Once underway, if they get underway, the negotiations are potentially long running. Does the Bush administration have the staying power? Do Arab leaders? Furthermore, the longer negotiations continue, the greater the opportunity for extremists to bring about their collapse. For that reason, preexisting plans, for example, Ehud Barak's offer in the summer of 2000 (perhaps as revised in Bill Clinton's last-ditch effort to bring peace before leaving office), ought to be at the ready. And then, are either Ariel Sharon or Yasir Arafat likely to help this process? Powell plans to engage Palestinian leaders, not necessarily Arafat, in discussions; perhaps he should also engage Israeli leaders, members of the Knesset and the cabinet directly in a similar process. Though Arafat and Sharon can be said to be authentic leaders of their people, neither seems capable of curbing his animosities toward the other, or of overcoming the propensity to turn to his own brand of violence when it appears opportune. There have been moments in the last several weeks when each man seemed to have abandoned any political goals and stubbornly stoked the hope that the other side could be beaten down either through fear on the one side or humiliation on the other.

The prospects for peace are not good. At the same time, Powell's trip could not be more momentous. Should he fail, a dangerous juncture looms for Israel. No one doubts that they have the firepower and the resolve to militarily occupy the West Bank and Gaza and by economic strangulation to force the Palestinian population into peonage or exile. That temptation will be strong given the fear induced in ordinary Israelis by the prospect of a chance encounter with a suicide bomber. Some Israelis, and certainly the Sharon government, may be inexorably drawn to occupation of Palestinian territory as a permanent solution. Zbigniew Brzezinski, aide to President Jimmy Carter in the peace settlement between Egypt and Israel, had this to say on PBS's "NewsHour" (April 1): "Israel's international position is very badly damaged. A country which started off as a symbol of recovery of a people who were greatly persecuted now looks like a country that is persecuting people." The United Sates is Israel's chief, and now virtually only, ally. That friendship and political affinity cannot be lost in a failed negotiation. Powell must succeed in his mission of bringing peace and preserving the possibility of a shared future between Israeli and Palestinian neighbors.

April 9, 2002