Israel has responded to the latest suicide bombing atrocity, in which 23 people died and 100 were injured in Tel Aviv, by striking out at international political attempts to get the peace process with the Palestinians going again.
Security comes before politics, declared the prime minister, Mr Sharon, and the foreign minister, Mr Netanyahu, saying that terrorism must first be defeated. In preventing Palestinian representatives attending a conference in London next week, banning a meeting to adopt a new Palestinian constitution and closing three universities in the West Bank, they are frustrating political moderation and stifling reform. Such a strategy is more likely to encourage terrorism than prevent it.
In deference to United States concerns that a massive military retaliation similar to the Ramallah operation six months ago would reduce Arab support for an attack on Iraq, the Israeli government has decided to prevent a political and diplomatic revival of efforts to tackle the principal source of instability in the region. An official Palestinian delegation was invited to London next week by Mr Tony Blair to revive the Middle East peace process, along with US, EU, Russian, Egyptian and Jordanian representatives. Mr Blair's working assumption is that reform of the Palestinian Authority would make it easier to convince the Israelis to revive political negotiations. The new constitutional document provides for the appointment of a prime minister, intended to reduce Mr Yasser Arafat's control and ease the way for a younger generation of political leaders.
This constructive initiative has been sacrificed by the interim right-wing government ruling Israel ahead of its general elections in three weeks time. In the usual gruesome logic of such bombing atrocities, the campaigning emphasis shifts decisively back to security issues. That suits Mr Sharon, whose Likud party has lost support after revelations of political corruption in assembling its electoral list. The opposition Labour Party, having withdrawn from coalition and elected a leader committed to reviving the peace process, has justifiably attacked these decisions as counter-productive. A political consideration in making them was Mr Sharon's annoyance that Mr Blair had proposed to meet the new leader, Mr Amram Mitzna, before the elections, but had not invited the Israeli government to attend the talks.
It is a dreadful impasse athwart the most dangerous conflict in the Middle East. The US administration has been very reluctant to take such initiatives in the belief that a successful war against Iraq would create the conditions in which to pursue and reach an overall regional peace. That highly debatable assumption adds another layer of instability to the region. A war fought without a constructive engagement on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would bring fresh dangers. Mr Blair should persevere with his initiative in spite of these setbacks and deserves support for his efforts.