WHEN Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres told a rally of supporters 'We have two things to do: to strike Hamas and to bring about peace,' he made it sound almost simple. Yet Mr Peres knows, as every Israeli and every Palestinian knows, that these are immensely delicate and difficult tasks. While the restraint of the Islamic militant movement Hamas and the pursuit of peace are not entirely mutually exclusive, progress on either front makes achievement of the other more difficult and dangerous. Yet failure to pursue either peace or a crackdown on terrorism will make achievement of the other still more delicate and elusive.
Peace cannot now be won without a show of force against Hamas, not least because Israeli public opinion will not accept peace without security. But the peace can also be lost if the show of force is too single-minded and alienates the Palestinian support on which it relies at least as much as it relies on Israeli backing.
Hamas is involved in terror itself and shelters still more extreme groups under its powerful wing. It is bitterly opposed to peace with Israel. The vicious suicide bombings in Jerusalem, Ashkelon and Tel Aviv which have cost nearly 60 lives in the past two weeks are testimony enough to the power of that opposition. The political leadership of Hamas may or may not be in a position to control either its armed wing or other fighting cells such as Islamic Jihad. The self-professed head of the Hamas political unit, Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, says it is not. But if Mr Peres cannot hit hard against Hamas targets, and show his determination to stop the terror-bombings, Israelis will vote him out of office and install a leader far more sceptical of the value of the peace process itself.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the leader of the Israeli opposition, is not a man of war. But he does believe the peace process has put the country and its people at risk - the whole country, not only the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza which Mr Netanyahu believes are not only Israel's birthright but its security cordon. He will not try to reverse what has already been achieved, but he will call a halt to further relinquishing of territorial control for a peace which, by his lights, has brought no benefits, only a cost in Jewish lives.
If that happens, not only Palestinian but also Jewish extremism and the enemies of peace on all sides will be dancing in the streets. And they will be dancing on the graves of their own kith and kin. The victims of terror and oppression and the assassinated politicians will all have died in vain. Murder will be back in fashion and the political leaders on either side will be equally unable to keep their militants under control. The slide back into hatred and bloodshed will be hard to halt.
The peace process is in mortal danger and, with it, the political and possibly the physical survival of its two main architects, Mr Peres and the Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat. For the moment, Mr Arafat is pulling out all the stops to track down Hamas militants within the areas under his control. But for how long he can continue to do so, depends as much on Israel's behaviour as on his own success against the terrorists. Sadly, if an already difficult life gets worse for the Palestinians the majority will not blame Hamas. They will blame Israel and treat Mr Arafat as an Israeli puppet.
