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Bush's Middle East policy has yet to be articulated, but officials around him say he will be more flexible than his predecessor, without diminishing U.S. support for Israel. Yet the danger in a dramatic reversal of policy is that it creates expectations that cannot be fulfilled. The gap between what the Palestinians want and what the Israelis may give is as wide as ever. Perhaps most tragically, the P.L.O. may have evolved toward negotiating a settlement at a time when Israel is moving away. Despite what the Palestinians may believe, no recent U.S. President has been willing to muscle Israel to the bargaining table.
But the U.S.-P.L.O. dialogue has stripped away an excuse Israel has long hidden behind. The policy of not dealing with the P.L.O. has allowed Israel to avoid entering a negotiation certain to result in its losing pieces of Eretz Yisrael. Branding the P.L.O. as terrorist has been the most convenient and effective way of keeping the occupied territories in Israeli hands. As long as the U.S. did not talk with the P.L.O. either, Israel felt no need to address the fundamental trade-off of territory for peace. Now Israel may find it harder to avoid the issue. In the meantime, some prominent Israeli politicians are contemplating unilateral action, such as limited autonomy for the territories, as a way to deflect the growing pressure to negotiate a territorial trade.
Vernon Walters, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., spoke for the world last week when he said, "We are tired of this conflict and tired of their unwillingness to make fair compromises." He was talking about both Israelis and Arabs.
There is no guarantee that a "substantive dialogue" between the U.S. and the P.L.O. can work a miracle where all past efforts have failed. And there is still reason to doubt Arafat's Christmas conversion from gunslinger to peacemaker. No one knows if he can deliver. No one knows what the U.S. and, more important, Israel can deliver. But diplomacy, even the hard-nosed kind, is an act of faith. "Come, let us make peace," Yasser Arafat said. Yes, let us.