ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 30, 1996 TAG: 9604300103
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
A COUPLE of promising developments in the Middle East last week help leaven the horror of the violence recently raging in Israel and Lebanon. Both point to the need for peacemakers to stay the course, and for America to stay diplomatically involved.
First, skillful shuttle diplomacy by Secretary of State Warren Christopher helped produce another cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas. It remains to be seen whether Syria, the military overlord of Lebanon, will force the Iran-sponsored fundamentalist terrorists to live up to the new rules. At least for now, though, there's an end to the latest round of Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel and Israeli counter-attacks on Lebanese villages.
The truce leaves open the possibility that Israel, Lebanon and Syria will return to the bargaining table - and reminds that this is unlikely to happen without sustained U.S. engagement.
The second development, of far greater significance in the long run, was last week's decision by the Palestine National Council to revoke all clauses in its notorious national "covenant" denying the legitimacy of Israel and calling for its destruction. A victory for Yasser Arafat, this move in turn prompted a reciprocal gesture, by Israel's governing Labor Party, to drop from its election platform a standard expression of opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state.
This is momentous not just because of decades of Israeli-Palestinian enmity, but also because Israel is about to hold elections widely regarded as a referendum on the peace process. Labor's opposition, the Likud, remains vehemently opposed to the process, and especially to any suggestion that it will end with a Palestinian state. Peace lovers everywhere should hope that the editing of the Palestinian charter will, as is clearly intended, boost Labor's prospects in the coming elections. The truce with Lebanon won't hurt, either.
That these developments came amid suicide bombings and killings of civilians in Lebanon and Israel underscores, thankfully, an extraordinary commitment to keep searching for peace against the odds, against history, and against those on both sides who would prefer continued bloodshed.
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