Some logic in what's going on in and around Israel -the Ha-Aretz today editorial.

What was can no longer be
By Haaretz Editorial


The objective of the campaign in Lebanon is to distance Hezbollah so that it will not pose a threat to Israel. The Israel Defense Forces, with very broad public support, are acting to crush that organization's offensive capability and to weaken it so that the Lebanese government can once and for all deploy its army in the south of the country. This objective will eventually be achieved by an agreement with Lebanon brokered by international bodies. It is not too early to begin holding contacts of this kind even if there is no intention at this stage of suspending hostilities, and there is therefore no reason to reject totally the Lebanese prime minister's proposal for a cease-fire nor for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to refuse to meet with the UN delegation to begin discussions on ways to solve the crisis. While there is nothing to discuss with Hezbollah itself and no point in holding discussions with it since its very existence as a military force in south Lebanon is unacceptable, in the Gaza Strip there is no reason not to attempt to resolve the crisis via diplomatic means, directly with the Palestinian Authority government. While in Lebanon the defeat of Hezbollah's armed force through military intervention is an aim in itself, in Gaza it is already possible now to propose a cease-fire at a time when Israel is demonstrating its deterrent capability in another arena. It can be assumed that Hamas is watching developments in the north intently and that it will draw the desired conclusions.

In the Gaza Strip, just as in Lebanon, the aspiration should be to achieve a long-lasting cease-fire with whoever can guarantee that it will be upheld, whether that is Mahmoud Abbas or Hamas, or both of them. If Israel continues to punctiliously choose which Palestinians it is prepared to talk with, it is doubtful whether it will be possible to achieve a dialogue of any kind with the Palestinian Authority in the foreseeable future. The promise given by the head of the Shin Bet security service, Yuval Diskin, to Abbas, pledging that any prisoner swap will be carried out only with him, and putting the Hamas government out of the political range of the Israeli government, will not serve to make Hamas less legitimate in the eyes of the residents of Gaza and the West Bank. It is easy to tie up Lebanon and Gaza in one package and to say that the entire Muslim world has made up its mind to destroy us and that we must take forceful action to foil this. It is simple to join emotionally in George Bush's culture war against the axis of evil but it must be remembered that, at the end of the day, it is the citizens of Israel and not the Americans who have to continue living in the Middle East. Therefore we have to think of ways that will make it possible for us to coexist, even with those we do not enjoy being with. The right in Israel comes to life whenever there is no diplomatic solution in sight, and preaches to the public that it must get used to living by the sword. A wise step would be to try to separate between the crises and to try to deal with each one in ways that are suitable for it. Israel can take encouragement from the fact that Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt do not automatically support every attack against it, and try from this point to start talks with what may turn out to be an anti-evil axis, which is striving to achieve a certain normalcy in the Middle East.