President Bush has completed his first swim of the summer in the shark-filled pool of Middle East peace negotiations. He has come out of the foray with at least the start of a viable effort to achieve an agreement and eventual peaceful and secure Israeli and Palestinian states.
Mr. Bush started with the Arabs, meeting with the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, known as "Abu Mazen" after the Arab custom of giving a man the name "Abu" ("father"), followed by the name of his oldest son.
Mr. Bush muscled them to cut off funding to Palestinian terrorist organizations and to support Mr. Abbas over Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, persona non grata to the Israelis and Americans as the lead Palestinian negotiator.
Then Mr. Bush met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Mr. Abbas. That seemed to go well, both substantively and visually. Mr. Sharon and Mr. Abbas shook hands. Mr. Sharon agreed to start the process on the Israeli side by taking down "unauthorized outposts" in the West Bank. Mr. Abbas pledged to begin to end violence and terrorism on the Palestinian side, collecting illegal arms and stopping Palestinian institutions from encouraging violence against Israelis.
The United States will put a team on the ground to monitor progress. It will provide assistance to Palestinian security forces, to make them more effective in shutting down violent organizations such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
Unstated but clear is the U.S. ability to exert pressure on Israel through the some $3 billion in U.S. aid it receives annually. Unstated but also clear is the choice open to the United States to pay only lip service to the Palestinians' aspirations and problems and let the better-armed Israelis continue to pound them around.
Armed with the new weight the quick victory in Iraq provides, the offer Mr. Bush put on the table of a regional free-trade agreement if the parties play ball, and the visible, active new role that Mr. Bush has undertaken in seeking the accord that eluded his predecessor, the chances for success are probably better than they have been in decades.
But there are sharks in the pool. Potentially lethal issues include the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has put 200,000 settlers there since it took those lands in the 1967 war. Mr. Sharon himself is a longtime advocate of settlements; he could be fairly described as "Abu Settlements." Some 20,000 settlers demonstrated in Jerusalem the same day against what Mr. Sharon promised and his earlier use of the word "occupation" to describe the Israeli approach to the West Bank and Gaza.
The Palestinians themselves still desire the full return to the territory of all the Palestinians who fled or were driven out. Another problem on the Palestinian side is Mr. Arafat, the man who wasn't at the meetings but still has his hooks into Mr. Abbas back home.
What is needed now is for both the Israeli and Palestinian sides to take visible action to demonstrate the good faith they pledged to Mr. Bush. There is reason to believe that Mr. Bush will show the same persistence toward this issue that he showed toward Iraq and stay right on this difficult case.
That is the right course to take. Peace and security for two stable states, for Israelis and Palestinians, would be a tremendous achievement for Mr. Bush, for the United States and for world peace.
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