New York Times
Israel has done itself more harm than good by keeping Yasser Arafat besieged in his Ramallah compound for the past month. Mr. Arafat exploited his captivity to raise his flagging prestige across the Arab world, while more constructive Palestinian voices fell silent in loyalty to the trapped leader.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was wise to accept an American-sponsored compromise over the weekend that will free Mr. Arafat to travel within Palestinian-controlled areas while American and British wardens monitor the continued custody of six men who had been inside the Arafat compound. Israel has long been reluctant to internationalize security issues in the West Bank and Gaza. By accepting outside help, it has found a way around this damaging impasse.
Mr. Sharon needs to show similar wisdom in resolving the protracted quarrel over the terms of the U.N. fact-finding team being sent to the West Bank city of Jenin to look into the bloody clashes there earlier this month. ...
Mr. Sharon needs to recognize that far more damage is being done by acting as if Israel has something to hide. While Israeli soldiers appear to have been unnecessarily destructive in Jenin, existing evidence does not point to a deliberate massacre. A credible fact-finding mission is in Israel's interest.
Washington should capitalize on Mr. Arafat's impending release to push for renewed political and security negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Daunting obstacles still stand in the way of any new American peace initiative, including Saturday's terrorist attack on an Israeli settlement and Israel's fresh military incursion into Hebron. But with the siege of Mr. Arafat about to be lifted and Israeli troops pulled back from most West Bank cities, there is movement in the right direction. Cabinet approval of the Jenin fact-finding issue could add to this positive trend.
Washington Post
While western European politics drifts to the right, a contrary trend is underway in the former Communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. Leftists, including a number of former Communists, are back in power in several countries where the right ruled during the 1990s. In Hungary, the socialist party triumphed in this month's elections, ousting a rightist coalition that had pushed a nationalist agenda. Neighboring Romania's last presidential election was won by Ion Iliescu, who was a leading official in the neo-Stalinist dictatorship that once terrorized the country. And the victory of the former Communist party in Poland's parliamentary elections last fall joined a prime minister and a president who served together on the ruling Communist Central Committee when Poland was a Soviet satellite. The remarkable aspect of this trend is that it is far less alarming, or threatening to democracy, than the surge in support for such right-wing extremists as France's Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Still, the legacy of Communist rule has not died out completely -- a reality that has been clumsily demonstrated recently by Prime Minister Leszek Miller's Polish government. During six months in office, Mr. Miller's administration has earned an early reputation as unfriendly to foreign investment. Now it has taken action to curb the independence and influence of the country's two most prestigious newspapers, Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita, both of which are renowned for their efforts to hold governments accountable. ...
A committed member of NATO and a candidate for early admission to the European Union, Poland is widely regarded as one of the most stable and successful post-Communist states. Yet Mr. Miller's efforts to limit independent journalism are beginning to resemble those of Russian President Vladimir Putin, another former Communist who finds robust democracy distasteful. Luckily for Poland, there is more than one strain to its resurgent left; President Aleksander Kwasniewski has a clear commitment to political freedom and has threatened to veto the communications bill. A potential brawl between the former Communist colleagues now looms; for the sake of both Poland and Europe's post-Communist left, it's one that Mr. Kwasniewski must win.
Washington Times
While Israel continues its siege against fugitive Palestinian terrorists who have barricaded themselves at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the two sides have reached agreement on ending the standoff at Yasser Arafat's Ramallah compound. Israel, acting under intense pressure from the United States, has agreed to a compromise plan hammered out by President Bush and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah last week in which British and American jailers would take custody of six terrorist suspects who have been holed up with Mr. Arafat in Ramallah since Israel launched its anti-terror offensive March 29. To say that this is a flawed compromise is a massive understatement. ...
Now, attention turns to the siege at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where roughly 150 Palestinians remain barricaded. The Israeli government announced earlier this month that terrorists who took control of the church include two members of Mr. Arafat's Fatah group who are wanted in connection with the Jan. 15 murder of an American citizen, Avi Boaz, who was kidnapped at a Palestinian police checkpoint and subsequently murdered. Palestinians who have escaped from the church have told Israeli officials that sanitary conditions inside are worsening, that food and water are in short supply, and that the Palestinian gunmen in charge there have threatened to kill anyone who wants to leave. Maybe Mr. Arafat, who just recently ordered the thugs barricaded inside the church not to surrender, could use his good offices to persuade them to give themselves up.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The meeting between the prince and the president at the ranch last week bore fruit over the weekend when President George W. Bush brokered a deal to free Yasser Arafat from his de facto prison. Peace isn't exactly busting out all over, but the deal gives Saudi Prince Abdullah a departure present and Mr. Bush a concrete, if modest, achievement.
Viewed optimistically, Mr. Bush's efforts could lead to a resolution of the standoff at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and pave the way for an international peace conference. More realistically, Mr. Arafat is likely to sabotage Mr. Bush's hopes as he did those of President Bill Clinton before him. Mr. Bush challenged Mr. Arafat to "seize the opportunity to act decisively in word and in deed against terror." In his long career as a terrorist/president, Mr. Arafat has seldom managed to act decisively for peace.
But even as Ariel Sharon relented on Mr. Arafat, the Israeli prime minister seemed determined to lose the battle for public opinion by continuing to stall the United Nations inquiry into the battle of Jenin. Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw bluntly told the Israelis on Monday, "if you have nothing to hide, for Pete's sake get this fact-finding mission in as soon as possible." ...
The more time that passes, the more difficult it will be for the U.N. team to collect reliable evidence. There are risks for Israel in allowing the U.N. investigation to go forward, but the risk of blocking the investigation is far greater. Without a credible investigation, much of the world will conclude that Israel is covering up a massacre, as the Palestinians contend. That would give Mr. Arafat plenty of propaganda points, but wouldn't help the peace process.
Boston Globe
The deal to end the Israeli siege of Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah - accomplished by having Saudi officials talk to the Palestinian side while U.S. authorities dealt with Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon - can be called a step forward only if it is followed by tangible progress on several fronts. Israel must end its military incursions into Palestinian towns; negotiations will have to resume; and President Bush will need to rescue the administration's Mideast policy from its incoherence of the past few weeks.
The reasons to release Arafat have nothing to do with the quality of his leadership. He has been a disaster for his people, and that disaster is recognized not only by Israelis and Americans but also by Arab governments and Palestinian democrats, intellectuals, and human rights campaigners.
For the time being, however, there is no good alternative to Arafat. Indeed, Sharon's attempt to destroy the Palestinian Authority and sideline Arafat have boomeranged. As a result of Sharon's obtuseness, Arafat has once again become for Palestinians the incarnation of their national independence struggle. ...
Bush now has a chance to overcome his embarrassing zigzags on the Mideast. Toward this end, he should warn both Sharon and Arafat to avoid provocations in the weeks to come and prepare the way for a multilateral peace conference that would legitimize the land-for-peace bargain that all reasonable parties know Israelis and Palestinian must eventually strike.
A negotiated peaceful coexistence must be the answer to occupation and terrorism.
Boston Herald
President Bush's deal to lift the Israeli siege of Yasser Arafat's headquarters makes sense only as a setup to helping exile Arafat when the deal breaks down.
Break down it will. All of Arafat's history points that way. He can no more stop his followers from deliberately killing Israeli civilians than he can stop breathing. After the 1993 peace accords he continued to use terrorism whenever it suited him.
Bush said the arrangement by which U.S. and British security experts will take custody (in a Palestinian prison) of six men in the headquarters who are wanted by Israel makes Arafat ``free to lead, and we expect him to do so'' in cracking down on terrorists. Bush has said similar things for many months, with no effect. ...
Once again, Israel is being prevented from defeating its enemies, just as happened in the wars of 1956, 1967, 1973 and the expulsion of Arafat from Lebanon in 1982. Not just Arafat, but the entire Palestinian leadership will never live up to agreements if it knows somebody will always pull its chestnuts out of the fire.
Dallas Morning News
Stability will not likely come to the Mideast in one fell swoop. It instead will require many incremental steps, such as Israel's commendable decision to release Yasser Arafat from the Ramallah compound where Israeli troops have quarantined him for a month.
More momentum should come from the creative proposal floated by George W. Bush and Tony Blair. All the back and forth in recent weeks between the ranch house, the White House and world capitals resulted in a U.S.-British plan to provide international monitors who would serve as wardens for five Palestinians that a Palestinian court has convicted of assassinating Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi in October.
Israel had demanded the release of the five into its own courts before freeing Mr. Arafat. The Palestinian Authority had resisted. In stepped the Bush and Blair governments to end the impasse. After weeks of hopelessness, the breakthrough provides a chance to cheer.
Now, comes Mr. Arafat's moment. He must produce constructive results. Suicide bombings must end. And he must push hard for a plan that calls for security for Israel and a Palestinian state. That is the only hope. ...
Mr. Arafat has one more chance, perhaps his last before the world community moves beyond him. He must act.
And just as Mr. Arafat must make a major step toward peace, so must Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon make a move. His government's decision to bar a United Nations investigation of Jenin, where atrocities are alleged, stymies the potential for security for Israel. He may not like the U.N., given the occasional Israel-bashing that occurs there. But Mr. Sharon must let a team investigate the scene. It is not only right but necessary. ...
The Bush administration has worked the phones hard over the last several days. That effort must continue, even though some GOP conservatives are disgruntled. The only sensible goal is security for Israel in return for a Palestinian state. And that will come through patient diplomacy and small steps, many of them.
Los Angeles Times
The Bush administration's sharpened focus on the Middle East has produced its first breakthrough, an artful compromise that frees Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in exchange for letting U.S. and British monitors keep guard over six men wanted by Israel and holed up with Arafat.
The release of Arafat will reduce pressure on Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia from their pro-Palestinian residents, and it is up to them to encourage and pressure Arafat and his allies to end their terror attacks. The White House must also keep up pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to continue withdrawing troops and resolve a church standoff in Bethlehem. ...
Outsiders need to pull Israelis and Palestinians apart and keep applying pressure to end the violence. The United States, helped by Britain and Saudi Arabia, has made a good start. All parties need to press forward without hesitation.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The U.S.-brokered agreement breaking the cordon that trapped Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in his headquarters since late March does more than extinguish a burning fuse in the Middle East. It establishes an important precedent by giving two foreign countries -- the United States and Britain -- an on-scene presence in Israeli-occupied Arab territory. ...
The precedent established by the agreement over the weekend is even more important than the role to be played by the American and British wardens. The presence of a few foreign monitors in Jericho will make it easier to authorize new or expanded missions in the West Bank by other nations and international organizations.
The agreement would not have been reached without the direct intervention of President Bush. Indeed, it has become a sad but undeniable fact that, if left to themselves, the current Palestinian and Israeli leaders will not make the painful decisions that peace requires. Peace will come, if at all, only with the help of outside - that is, foreign - intervention.
New York Newsday
President George W. Bush won a major concession from Israel in the deal to lift the siege in Ramallah on Yasser Arafat's compound. It is a fair compromise to overcome a thorny obstacle.
For Bush, it fulfills the goal of boosting U.S. credibility with Arab leaders, for whom ending the siege had become a key issue. But it carries the risk of deepening U.S. involvement on the ground in the Mideast. For Israel, where a divided cabinet voted for the deal, it was a matter of giving in to mounting pressure from its most valuable ally and protector. After his demands for immediate pullouts from Palestinian territories were ignored by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Bush had to have something concrete from Israel to show the world. ...
Although the prison supervision agreement does not involve U.S. military personnel - and it won't require more than a couple of dozen people, at that - it nevertheless raises the question of whether it opens the door to U.S. military involvement in maintaining peace in the region. That would put the United States in the uneasy position of preventing Palestinian terrorism if Arafat won't do it. And that could get very sticky for America.
(Compiled by United Press International.)
