After Arafat, a better chance for peace in the Middle East

When advised at his post-election press conference of the possible death of Yasser Arafat, President Bush commendably and generously said, "My first reaction is, God bless his soul."
There was an implicit pause. "And my second reaction is that we will continue to work for a free Palestinian state that's at peace with Israel."
It would have been impolitic of Bush to say so but Arafat, who is comatose in a Paris hospital, has been the single greatest obstacle to a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's heavy-handed tactics, and Bush's wholehearted endorsement of them, haven't help, but at every turn Arafat has walked away from the possibility of a settlement. Most notably in the fall of 2000, he left on the table a two-state solution that gave the Palestinians everything they could realistically expect in terms of territory and a capital in East Jerusalem.
In the four years of violence that have followed, Arafat has made no concrete efforts to halt suicide bombings against Israeli civilians or to rein in the ongoing violence that has made a shambles of the Palestinian economy.
In the meantime, Sharon has been methodically winning a series of votes that will lead to Israel's withdrawal of 8,000 settlers from Gaza, leaving that impoverished and overcrowded strip of Mediterranean coastline to whatever fate has in store for it.
Arafat's great failing was that he was adept at holding on to power but not at leading. He refused to groom an heir apparent and when several possible replacements emerged as part of Bush's road map to peace, Arafat undercut them.
The occasion of the Palestinians' choosing a new leader and a new government, however chaotic, is an opportunity for Bush to reassert himself in the settlement negotiations. A good start would be the selection of a new, high-level peace envoy.
The Israelis are expecting a second Bush term to be more assertive with them than the first, and he should oblige them.
And, further, the world expects it of Bush. Britain's Tony Blair, the world leader closest to Bush, is urging him to have another try at brokering a settlement: "... I have long argued that the need to revitalize the Middle East peace process is the single most pressing political challenge in our world today."
We would quarrel with the description "most pressing," but it is a challenge that Bush should accept. The passing of Arafat will give him that opportunity.