The Road Not Yet Taken

Even as the Middle East plunged deeper into the maelstrom of fear, hatred, violence and despair, recent diplomatic developments, ironically, made the conditions for achieving peace tantalizingly real. Most notable, there was the declaration by the Arab nations meeting in Beirut of their willingness to recognize Israel, after fifty years of denial of its right to exist.

Predictably brushing aside the Arab vision, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon revved up his tanks for a military solution, declaring a "state of war" with the Palestinians and invading the West Bank. Their nation, he told Israelis, is "at a crossroads." So it is. The road down which Sharon is taking them, with a green light from the Bush Administration, leads to more deaths, more brutalizing of civilians, more violations of human rights--and answering violence and anger by the Palestinians, with more suicide bombers making barbarous war on Israeli civilians.

The other road, the road to peace, leads toward the goal, articulated anew in Beirut, of a complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza, making way for a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem, in return for normalization of relations with the Arab states.