New York Times
The Arab League took an admirable, if long overdue, step Wednesday when it offered to establish normal relations with Israel in exchange for a Palestinian state's being built on the land captured in the 1967 war. The assertion that Israelis have a right to peace and security -- a first acknowledgment by the Arab world, in effect, of their collective humanity -- rings hollow, however, when juxtaposed with the league's indifference toward one of the most horrific Palestinian suicide bombings to date. Arab leaders must take up the challenge hurled at them by Hamas with its carefully timed attack on a Passover seder at a hotel in Netanya. Unless the leaders find a way to end the intoxication with suicide bombings taking over Palestinian society and force the Palestinian Authority to end these acts, the historic peace offer will mean nothing.
The Arab League meeting in Beirut did not exactly inspire confidence. Some leaders stayed away, others spoke and acted foolishly. Nonetheless, the 22 member countries unanimously offered Israel, for the first time, the prospect of diplomatic recognition and security guarantees. The offer contains terms Israel will find hard to accept, including full withdrawal from the territories occupied after the 1967 war, and some provision for return of Palestinian refugees. Undeniably, however, the proposal could provide a serious basis for negotiations.
Yet talk of peace plans seems disconnected from reality right now. Wednesday's suicide bombing took place in the heartland of pre-1967 Israel, demonstrating again that some Palestinian terrorists are not interested in two states living peacefully side by side but aim to drive Israel and its Jewish inhabitants straight into the sea. ...
For the past 18 months the Palestinians have played a double game of unleashing war while talking peace. Terrorism always eclipses diplomacy. Last night the Palestinian Authority announced that it had started arresting Hamas activists. If Arab leaders do not want to see their peace plan torpedoed, they must demand a lot more such action from the Palestinian Authority.
Houston Chronicle
It's too soon to tell whether the Saudi peace initiative outlined and approved at this week's somewhat stilted and chaotic Arab summit in Beirut will have any traction in the soft sands of Mideast mayhem.
The language of the proposal, which offers to swap normalized relations between the Arab world and Israel for a Palestinian state, is just vague enough to be tantalizing and just specific enough to fuel pessimism about its future.
Both sides are having trouble warming up to it. A next possible step probably should be direct talks between the Saudis and Israelis to flesh out the understandings behind the proposal.
More urgent, however, is the Israeli response to the latest suicide attacks, especially a bombing that targeted people gathered for a Passover feast in the Mediterranean town of Netanya. The Israelis have warned they are prepared to retaliate for the bombing Wednesday that massacred 20 people and wounded many others.
Clearly, many people in the region don't want to see peace in any way, shape or form. Just as clearly, others think violence is the means to an end.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said Thursday he was ready to work for an immediate, unconditional cease-fire, but significantly, he stopped short of declaring a truce in the Mideast conflict.
As unjust as the Israeli occupation is to the Palestinians, the wanton slaughter of innocent civilians, with the goal being to kill as many as possible, is not the way to cast it off.
There simply is no excuse, explanation or apology for it. No political cause, no matter how just, justifies this approach.
Sadly, as is so often the case in the region, a week that began with expectations that some difficult answers might be forthcoming ends with more difficult questions -- and more self-defeating bloodshed.
Los Angeles Times
The despicable attack of a Palestinian suicide bomber on Israeli families about to share the traditional meal that begins Passover may well kill a Mideast peace process that was showing faint signs of life. But a display of restraint now by Israel could be a powerful signal of strength.
The bombing was the work of Hamas, a group that seeks the destruction of Israel and does not recognize the leadership of Yasser Arafat or the Palestinian Authority. The bombing, at a hotel dining room, was calculated to cause the deepest possible anger, grief and religious affront. The government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon launched an attack on Arafat's Ramallah headquarters compound today and announced a call-up of reserves. Branding Arafat an enemy and vowing to ''isolate'' him is a bad portent, and some government ministers used ominous rhetoric after a Cabinet meeting. But Israel must still try to leave the truce door open. ...
A large-scale Israeli retaliation that lasts for weeks would fulfill Hamas' objective of scuttling the peace proposal. It would not make Israelis safer.
The months of violence have increased support for extremists in the West Bank and Gaza--and in Israel. Sharon, once at the extreme right of Israeli politics, now has a big crowd to his own right. More killings will produce more hard-liners, not more security.
Salt Lake Deseret News
One of the world's foremost political figures of the 20th century, Margaret Thatcher, is retiring from public life for health reasons.
Following a series of small strokes, she reluctantly agreed with her doctors that it was time for her to "take things easy" -- which won't be easy for the strong-willed Thatcher, who was known as "the Iron Lady" because of her unshakable views.
Her impressive legacy will live on. Not only Britain but the entire world has benefited from her leadership as Britain's prime minister from 1979 to 1990. She has been serving as a baroness in the House of Lords since 1992.
Thatcher was a contemporary of U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. It was a period of tremendous growth and change, highlighted by the ending of the Cold War.
What the Deseret News said in November of 1990 following her resignation as prime minister is worth repeating:
"Thatcher's achievements are historic. In a sense, she took an economically decaying Britain, mired in socialism and lacking national self-esteem, and turned it into a confident country with a new sense of free enterprise and private property.
"Under her rule, the excesses of trade union power were curtailed, personal wealth grew, income tax rates plunged, more than a million tenants of public housing now own their own homes, individual ownership of corporate stock has soared, some $57 billion worth of state-owned companies have been sold, the nation's electricity industry is about to be privatized and London has been turned once more into a world financial center."
But just as important as her accomplishments was her character. She was truly a force for good in the world. At a time when the world needed great leaders, she admirably took her place on the political stage.
Her presence in various public arenas will be missed by all.
Portland, Maine, Press Herald
Violence in the Middle East can take on a surreal quality when observed from 5,000 miles away. The suicide bomb that ripped through a hotel dining room in Israel Wednesday, killing 20 people during a Passover seder, was quite real, however.
Each victim was at some point somebody's grandparent, parent, child, brother or sister. The deaths of Palestinians in the Israeli retaliation that is sure to follow will be no less tragic.
The pain caused by this violence grows as one gets closer to it. That's why it is perplexing that, among the people for whom the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is most real, there is a tendency to make unrealistic demands. Perhaps the perspective of being far away allows for a broader view, but we believe there are some obvious truths that need to be faced by the Israelis and their allies as well as by the Palestinians and their supporters.
Among these is the fact that no peace process can be successfully undertaken without good faith bargaining over the hardest of the issues in a land-for-peace framework. These include the status of Jerusalem, the right of return for Palestinian refugees and the extent of the Israeli withdrawal from lands occupied following the 1967 war.
Both sides in this dispute want peace talks to be predicated on the other side giving ground on one or more of these issues. ...
Here's a reality as certain as the deaths that are mounting daily in Middle East: Neither side is going to cede ground on these issues as a precondition to talks. If Israel wants peace, if the Palestinians want a homeland, then each will have to discuss these issues without condition.
That won't be easy, as giving ground on these matters would cause internal political problems for leaders from both camps. It is, however, real.
The only way to stop the violence and achieve a permanent peace is for both sides to compromise their positions on the status of Jerusalem, the return of refugees and the withdrawal of Israel from occupied lands.
(Compiled by United Press International)
