For one man it was a giant leap. For the peace process, not quite a small step. Before his election as Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu had sworn he would never deign to meet Yasser Arafat, a man he considered little more than a terrorist. Last week, however, Netanyahu was finally nudged into a handshake with the Palestinian leader. It was an enormous psychological hurdle for the Israeli leader. His Palestinian partners, though, felt as if they were beginning a relationship from scratch.
Denials notwithstanding, Netanyahu had plainly been pressured into the summit. In his first three months in office...