More in the Mideast

It has been two months since CIA Director George Tenet, dispatched to the Mideast by President Bush, returned with an accord designed to re-establish the security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority required for peace talks to resume. The horrifying events of the past week claimed many victims – the 14 Israelis killed in a suicide bombing, the 8-year-old Palestinian girl mistakenly shot by Israeli troops, the Tenet accord.

At a press conference Monday, Mr. Bush seemed to recognize that his administration’s first and only Mideast initiative has, like all the Mideast initiatives of his predecessors, come to nothing. For the second time in four days, the vacationing president’s Mideast remarks were offered during a round of golf; this time they included the observation that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ”ought to do a lot more” to quell the violence.

More is what is needed, but not just from Mr. Arafat. The Bush administration’s reserved approach to a situation at the brink of full-blown war at first made some sense, following as it did the deep personal involvement of President Clinton and the opportunity it provided anti-American elements in the region to serve up humiliation. Now, however, the administration is in danger of going from being standoffish to looking powerless.

The president’s criticism of Mr. Arafat is valid: he presents himself to the world as the leader of the Palestinian people, yet he refuses to lead the way to an enforced cease-fire; the Oslo agreements put at his disposal a large and well-equipped police force, yet he will not use it to arrest known terrorists; his condemnation of the latest bombing was equivocal to the point of being meaningless. Criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, had it been offered, also would have rung true had it been pointed out that the military takeover of the Palestinian government center in East Jerusalem and the tank attacks on Palestinian police stations could only have been authorized by someone with no interest in a negotiated peace.

As for himself, Mr. Bush need not engage in self-criticism, but must acknowledge that repeatedly denouncing violence is not a policy, it’s a broken record. He sought the job of leader of the world’s only superpower; like it or not, using the United States’ unmatched influence over both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to halt the accelerating bloodshed comes with the job.

Both already use that influence to their advantage. Israel is able to keep its hostile neighbors at bay largely because of American aid and weapons. The Palestinians count on America to restrain Israeli responses to terrorist attacks and to provide high-level diplomatic contacts when needed. America must make it clear that those advantages will continue only with sincere efforts to sustain a cease-fire and to re-open peace talks. That clarity can only come from a blunt, forceful and engaged American president.

Mr. Bush’s impromptu press conference took place at nearly the same time that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak dispatched a diplomatic delegation to Washington to seek help from U.S. officials on restarting negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. It is unfortunate that Mr. Bush did not interrupt his vacation for this important meeting. It is crucial that his next address on this greatest of threats to world peace come in a venue more serious than between nines on a golf course.