Netanyahu's diplomacy

Israel's new prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has come under pressure to take a tougher line with the Palestinians following Friday's drive-by terrorist shooting that left three dead.

Netanyahu won election on a slogan of peace with security and has promised to pursue a far more cautious diplomatic strategy than his Labor predecessors, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin.

But Netanyahu has already shown that his caution does not amount to a freezing of meaningful negotiations with Israel's Arab neighbors, including the Palestinians. Moderate Arab leaders who gambled their own political futures on continued progress toward peace have responded with palpable relief.

In the last two weeks Netanyahu traveled to Cairo to meet President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, sent his foreign minister to meet with Yasser Arafat and approved an exchange of prisoners and remains with Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas. This week he will travel to Amman to meet with King Hussein of Jordan. No one expects megotiating breakthroughs soon. No significant pressure will come from Washington before the U.S. elections. Israel will be preoccupied with domestic issues.

But it is encouraging that Netanyahu seems to be laying the groundwork for a dialogue that would be essential to any renewed movement toward peace.

During his trip to the United States earlier this month, Arab leaders expressed dismay at his apparently unyielding hard-line stands. But Mubarak turned more upbeat after meeting the Israeli leader in Cairo a few days later.

Apparently Netanyahu gave him private reassurances that Israel would honor existing agreements with the Palestinians, particularly in regard to Hebron and resuming talks on the final status of Palestinian-controlled territories.

Then came the exchange of Hezbollah prisoners for the remains of two Israelis captured nearly a decade ago. Labor had effectively frozen negotiations on the Lebanese front pending a hoped-for deal with Syria.

Netanyahu is not ready to grant Syria a veto over peace with Lebanon and has even dropped hints that he might someday reconsider Israel's occupation of its "security zone" in southern Lebanon.

Last week Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy held an apparently amicable meeting with Arafat, the man Netanyahu's Likud Party had so long viewed as the personal embodiment of all Palestinian terrorism. No specific progress was announced beyond a slight easing of Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movements.

But Arafat has a political interest in showing Palestinians that he can still do business with Israel's new government. Netanyahu, for his part, favors, in principle, the reintegration of the Israeli and Palestinian economies, including the early return of Palestinian workers to their jobs in Israel once security questions can be resolved.

Netanyahu's government is also working out its position on the sensitive issue of Jewish settlements, and apparently is leaning toward a compromise that would encourage expansion of existing settlements rather than starting new ones.

Even if Netanyahu maintains his refusal to talk about re- dividing Jerusalem or permitting Palestinian statehood, he will have much to discuss with Arafat in the months ahead.

Having calmed Arab fears that the peace process would be abruptly dropped, Netanyahu will now try to tame an unruly coalition and avoid an economic slump. But by the year's end at the latest, he will need to resume the active search for peace. He does well to prepare the way now.

-- The New York Times