The sickening sight of a bus wrecked by a bomb in Israel in the middle of the tortuous peace process there has once again alerted people in these islands to the dreadful burdens they share with the people of the Middle East. Despite all the differences, the two processes have certain features in common, notably the fact that peace is made between enemies not friends and the importance of not allowing the search for it to be deflected by terrorist atrocities.
The Israeli prime minister, Mr Peres, has seen his substantial lead in the opinion polls sharply reduced in immediate reaction to Sunday's bombings which killed 25 people. Up to this he had been confidently expecting an electoral endorsement in the general elections on May 29th, although he admitted that it could be upset by a resumption of such bombings. He is vulnerable to criticism from a Likud opposition which has learned some lessons from the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin last November.
Their leader, Mr Netanyahu, has moderated his reaction to these events and refrained from immediately attacking the Labour government's security record. But he knows that Mr Peres himself had taken, the initiative to lift the closure of the West Bank and Gaza following the assassination by Israeli agents of a Hamas bomb planner last month, a couple of days before the latest attacks; and he will be hoping to take advantage of the volatile mood among the Israeli public, so tragically demonstrated by the shooting dead yesterday of a Palestinian after his car accidentally crashed into a bus queue in Jerusalem.
Mr Peres should not be deflected from pursuing, his own approach to the peace process, which has emphasised economic and social interaction between Israelis and Palestinians rather than the separation that Mr Rabin was resigned to in the interests of greater security. Already the sharp reduction in the numbers of Palestinians working in Israel occasioned by successive bans has reduced their effectiveness as a collective punishment. Mr Peres needs to pay careful attention to how an extended ban could undermine Mr Yasser Arafat's authority, just as it becomes essential that it be consolidated after the endorsement he received in the recent Palestinian elections. The Israeli prime minister's manifold strengths have been clearly in evidence over recent months and he should have confidence that this will be recognised by the voters. Mr Arafat would also need to be fully aware of his need to deal more effectively both politically and in terms of security with the Hamas opposition.
It was always going to be a gamble for Mr Peres to call an early election pitched so clearly on the peace process, when its most determined opponents are capable of damaging it severely with suicide bombings. Correspondents detect a greater maturity among the Israeli public since the Rabin assassination, with less readiness to rush immediately to judgment against the peace process after such atrocities. They have been mercifully rare in the last six months; the hope must be that in the ranks of Hamas there will be sufficient political intelligence to see that an election victory for the Israeli opponents of the peace process would be a disaster even for their own more radical cause.
The same point applies to the Syrian government, which is in a position to prevent Islamic groups in southern Lebanon from actions that would provoke Israeli voters into a right wing stampede on May 29th.