A new Mideast start?

No one expected the botched Israeli assassination attempt against a Hamas leader in Jordan to help revitalize peace talks with the Palestinians, but that seems to have happened. On Wednesday, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, held their first face-to-face meeting in eight months.

To appease King Hussein's anger over the assassination attempt, Israel had already released Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and religious leader of Hamas, from prison. Sheikh Yassin has now returned to Gaza, where he may well start putting new pressures on Arafat to toughen his negotiating demands on Israel.

This combination of events -- Israel's embarrassment over the attempted assassination and Sheikh Yassin's reemergence on the scene -- seems to have jolted Netanyahu and Arafat into starker appreciation of the dangers that lie before them.

While Sheikh Yassin's public remarks have so far been mild, he envisions no more than a temporary truce with Israel -- and that only if Israel agrees to meet his maximalist demands for full Palestinian rule in the West Bank and Gaza and the uprooting of all Jewish settlements.

It is therefore encouraging to see Netanyahu and Arafat talking again. When Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited the Middle East last month, she tried unsuccessfully to get Arafat to commit to unconditional cooperation with Israel on security issues and Netanyahu to agree to a "time-out" on expanding Jewish housing in Jerusalem and the occupied territories. Now, in the aftermath of the assassination fiasco and its attendant political damage to both sides, there is every reason to face the larger issues of peace and address Albright's original requests.

It is just possible that this week's visible strengthening of Hamas Israeli leaders that Arafat, flawed though he is, still represents their only available negotiating partner. The same events may also have focused Arafat's attention on the need to stop posturing and deliver tangible results to his constituents. It has been a roller-coaster week, but it is ending with hopes of a new beginning toward Israeli-Palestinian peace.

-- The New York Times