Ban's Wreath

The photograph tells the story — the new secretary-general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, bowing while laying a wreath of flowers on the grave of Yasser Arafat, a corrupt terrorist. Mr. Ban's predecessor, Kofi Annan, made the same error. It was Arafat's default that led President Bush to call on the Palestinian Arabs to elect new leaders "untainted by terror." In the event, the Palestinians elected a government led by Hamas, a terrorist organization.

Our State Department seems convinced that the alternative to Hamas is Yasser Arafat's own party, Fatah, which is led by a longtime Arafat aide, Mahmoud Abbas. This is the framework in which to interpret the latest round of negotiations in which Mr. Ban and Secretary of State Rice are involved. It is the continuation of the Arafat legacy — the effort by the Palestinian Arabs and their allies among the neighboring tyrants to wrest concessions from Israel, by means of a terrorist onslaught. If Mr. Ban did a service in laying the wreath at Arafat's tomb, it was to dispel any illusions that this is some sort of new peaceful course.

This is something to keep in mind as Secretary Rice careers around the Middle East. It would be too much to say it's a fool's errand; the secretary is no fool. No doubt she's trying to see how scared of the Iranians the Saudis really are. But if Ms. Rice or other diplomats are talking of dividing Jerusalem, they are flouting American law and need not only to study the Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act but also to watch the film of Congress being addressed on this matter by Prime Ministers Netanyahu, who was greeted with wild cheering when he said Jerusalem would never again be divided. If a peace is to be durable, it needs to be made not in the middle of a war but at its end.