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Barak and Arafat's actions make talks a distant prospect

By Tony Karon

(TIME.com) -- Peace right now may be more dangerous than war to Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat. At least that's what they're signaling by their actions, as the Middle East braced for new violence Friday following a night of Israeli air strikes on Palestinian targets and calls by Palestinian militants for a "day of rage." World leaders scrambled to get the Israeli and Palestinian leaders around a table this weekend, but both men's actions in recent days make it more difficult than ever for the other to make a quick return to negotiations. Barak had to know that bombing Arafat's headquarters and his police buildings was unlikely to get him talking peace any time soon, and the Israeli leader's move to draw into his government hawkish opposition leader Ariel Sharon -- the man whose provocative visit to the precincts of the Islamic holy sites atop Jerusalem's Temple Mount touched off the current wave of violence -- was a signal to the Palestinians that all bets are off. Similarly, Arafat has to have known that the Israeli leader can't return to talks while Palestinian security forces are failing to keep the peace. And not only have they failed, as in Thursday's lynching of two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah, they've consciously reneged on existing security agreements by opening their prison doors and freeing dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants in recent days.

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Both Barak and Arafat found their leadership imperiled by the final months of the peace process, and both are making common cause with their hard-line opposition in order to avoid being eclipsed. Barak is in danger of being forced to call new elections when Israel's parliament convenes later this month -- elections which analysts believe he is in serious danger of losing -- while Arafat's authority over even his own rank and file has been called into question by the violence over the last three weeks. The momentum of violence makes an early return to negotiations politically dangerous for both, which may be why leaders on both sides have begun accusing the other of killing the peace process. That said, neither man has an interest in a full-blown war, which Israel would win militarily but lose politically, in that its relations with its neighbors would be set back decades and it would face a new Lebanon-type situation of having to rule by occupation over an entirely hostile population. Rather than a bold new peace agreement, the central role played by CIA director George Tenet -- whose agency mediates in security matters between Israel and the Palestinians -- suggests that international efforts may now be focusing on restoring a measure of behind-the-scenes security cooperation that gives both leaders the mechanism to ensure that even if they're going to allow the conflict to simmer, they minimize the risk of it boiling over. But with the Israelis conspicuously attacking Palestinian security targets, even that, right now, won't be easy.

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