The ‘Strength of Habit’ Is a Roadblock to Peace : Ceremony is but the first step in a long and difficult process

True peace in the Middle East is still a long way off and it would be at least premature to rule out further armed conflict. Even if the signing ceremony scheduled in Washington today leads to all that is hoped for--a true end to belligerency between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as between Israel and its Arab neighbors Lebanon, Jordan and Syria--the region will still be threatened by explosive tensions. The ideologies and political programs of Iran and Iraq are testimony to that.

Over the weekend, a flurry of terrorist acts reinforced the precariousness of progress in that region. Even as the Israeli and Palestinian delegations were preparing for their long flight to Washington to sign the interim limited autonomy accord in front of an impressive array of former American presidents and secretaries of state, opponents of peace at home were doing all they could to wreck the party. Those opponents, including the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas, took credit for three weekend incidents of violence, including one attack that left three Israeli soldiers dead.

Israelis already nervous about their security under an agreement with the Palestinians were made more so, which is precisely what Hamas and others intended.

LONG ROAD: Even without die-hard extremists on both sides, the diplomatic road from today’s extraordinary signing ceremony is certain to be long and difficult. What has been achieved--and of course it must not be underestimated--is still only the beginning of a long process. Indeed, both sides have accepted as the negotiating template a multiyear, gradualist process like the one spelled out in the 1978 Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel. The formula calls for the achievement of increasing autonomy over an extended period. It’s possible to imagine these five years filled with relative rationality, maturity and mutual respect among the negotiating parties; it might be more realistic to imagine five years of bickering, of backing and filling.

Even after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat stunned the world with his courageous visit to Jerusalem in 1977, it took 18 months to cut the deal between Egypt and Israel. There is no one of Sadat’s stature on the anti-Israeli side, and the Palestinian autonomy talks are far more complicated than the relatively straightforward Egyptian-Israeli security situation.

GREAT STAKES: It is to the great credit of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat that the five-year process has begun. Continuing the process will require all sides to adopt new ways of thinking, and as Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres put it in the Los Angeles Times Interview in Sunday’s Opinion section, “People are worried because they don’t like to depart from a known situation. People prefer to remember than to think. That’s why habits are so strong.” All of us know, in our own lives and struggles, how true this is. In the Middle East, enmity between Israel and the Palestinians had seemed to be an iron law.

But this iron law, like the Iron Curtain before it, is giving way before the forces of history. That is what Rabin and Arafat are saying: It is time for a change; it is time for peace. In both camps are obstructionists who will fight change. They can delay; they must not prevail.

Blessed are the peacemakers.