The outlook now seems bleak for Mr Shimon Peres's chances of re election and for the Middle East peace process he has championed after the latest appalling bombing atrocity in Jerusalem. It is deeply depressing to observe the difference both atrocities have made to the political calculations made by Mr Peres as he brought forward the general election dated to May 29th. Announcing a series of drastic security measures yesterday, that reverses so much of what he stands for, the Prime Minister obviously sees no alternative but to fight Hamas to the finish; that organisation is likely to welcome such a war because it is thereby given an opportunity to fight on precisely town terrain - against both its Israeli and Palestinian opponents.
Mr Peres's indispensable negotiating partner, Mr Yasser Arafat, is equally endangered by these events. He has failed to take decisive action against Hamas for fear of alienating its followers and provoking a civil war within his own community. He now faces Israeli ultimatums to outlaw, arrest and disarm Hamas or see Israeli troops move against those they suspect of being responsible. In vain does Mr Arafat protest that he can hardly assume responsibility for an area he does not control - in this case the West Bank town of Hebron, still under Israeli rule, from which both of the suicide bombers have come.
Nor can the fact that these atrocities are in retaliation for the Israeli assassination of a leading Hamas bomber cut much ice with Israeli opinion. It is small comfort to Mr Arafat that Hamas's deadly repetition of a bus bomb in virtually the same spot cruelly exposes the shortcomings of Israeli security policy, already in tatters for its failure to protect Yitzhak Rabin from assassination last November. Mr Peres will have to take the blame for yesterday's bomb, with inevitable loss of support from a public and an electorate in the throes of a security panic. Understandably, but regrettably, the Israeli cabinet decided yesterday to respond with a panoply of measures, including indefinite closure of the borders, building an expensive wall to separate the two peoples and much more extensive policing in Jerusalem.
This response, if sustained, effectively reverses the main lines on which the peace process has so far been constructed by Messrs Peres and Arafat. Where there was trust and mutually sustaining and deepening confidence between them, which radiated out towards their supporters, the climate of fear and suspicion engendered by these events will strain it to the utmost. The clear beneficiaries will be the Israeli right wing parties, led by Likud, which have argued all along that the peace process is incapable of delivering peace and security to the Israeli people.
If the peace process is to be rescued from this malign and all too real scenario, it will take statesmanship of a very high order from Mr Peres and Mr Arafat in coming days and weeks. They have every motive to work together, but where will they find the will? Mr Arafat will have to demonstrate that he can move decisively against the lethal opponents who have brought such destruction only six short weeks since his triumph in the Palestinian elections. And Mr Peres will have to find the courage to return to the promise of peace and to the mutual trust on which it must be constructed.