A Middle East Commitment

Seven years later, President Bush picks up where Bill Clinton left off.

ON THURSDAY in Jerusalem, President Bush completed a full circle on the Middle East from his starting point as president. In 2001 he disparaged and quickly abandoned President Bill Clinton's personal attempt to broker a final peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians during his final months in office. Seven years later, ending his first visit to Israel as president, Mr. Bush set a goal of finishing that peace treaty during his own final months; said he would personally involve himself in pressuring both sides; and, like Mr. Clinton before him, laid out his own parameters for a deal.

The only significant difference between the two sets of presidential ideas was that Mr. Bush was unwilling, unlike Mr. Clinton, to discuss a solution for Jerusalem, where the largest concessions will have to come from Israel. Instead, he mainly sketched the painful sacrifices required from Palestinians, including the surrender of some West Bank territory and the payment of compensation rather than the "return" of Palestinians who fled Israel in 1948. Still, none of what the president said was novel. Mr. Bush's statement merely confirmed that seven years of bloodshed, unilateral actions and diplomatic stasis, during which both Israelis and Palestinians sought to change the terms suggested by Mr. Clinton, have been a tragic waste of lives and time.

The current president might argue that conditions for a peace settlement are more favorable now than when he took office. Israel and the Palestinians were then led by Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat, bitter enemies who did not want Mr. Clinton's deal. In contrast, current Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas say that they respect each other, and in private conversations have come much closer to embracing the necessary compromises. But Mr. Olmert and Mr. Abbas, unlike their predecessors, are unable to bend their own governments or people to their will; they have allowed the nascent peace process to be stalled and undermined by their own negotiators and political allies.

Concerted pushing by Mr. Bush in the next year might persuade the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to complete and sign off on a detailed formula for peace, if not a treaty. That would certainly be worth the president's investment. But implementation is harder to imagine. So far U.S. prodding has failed to induce Mr. Olmert and Mr. Abbas to take initial confidence-building steps they have repeatedly promised, such as the dismantlement of illegal Israeli outposts in the West Bank or a campaign to stop incitement against Israel by Palestinian media and schools. Even if the two leaders manage to gain control over their own bureaucracies and security forces, there remains the problem of the Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip and has both the means and the motive to violently disrupt any steps toward peace.

Mr. Bush seems to believe that Hamas can be contained until a peace deal is completed, at which point Palestinians can be asked to choose between statehood and Gaza's miserable isolation. More likely, Mr. Abbas and Israel will have to choose between an attempt to crush Hamas by military means, led by Israel, or a deal that would buy Hamas's acceptance of the peace process and end attacks on Israel in exchange for a lift of the current siege. Both alternatives are risky; but if Gaza is left to fester, Mr. Bush's push for peace may well fail in the same way as Mr. Clinton's -- with an explosion of violence.