It was September 13, 1993 — 10 years ago — that Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat met on the White House lawn and, with President Clinton beaming on, signed the declaration of principles that became known as the Oslo agreement. It was a meeting that gave rise to countless additional agreements and summits, nearly all of which clung to Oslo’s two main underlying ideas, both now known to be flawed. The first was that Israel could reach a peace with Yasser Arafat and the gang of terrorists that surround him. The second was that such a peace could best be negotiated in secret talks between elites. Israel actually went on to arm the PLO in the belief that it would use the weapons against terrorists.

The cost in lives of the Oslo decade has been large. Exact counts vary, but the Israeli foreign ministry reckons at least 1,217 Israelis have been murdered in Arab terrorism since that September 13, 1993, handshake. The Zionist Organization of America counts 48 Americans slain by Arab terrorism in Israel since the Oslo pact was signed. For ordinary Palestinian Arabs, the Oslo years have left them prey to the PLO thugs from Tunis and to fanatic religious leaders who send them off to commit suicide bombings and hide in their civilian population during Israeli defense raids. The Arafat gang has threatened journalists and failed to establish a rule of law. The decade has seen exactly one presidential election in the Palestinian territories.

Americans looking back on these tragic accords, now so clearly understood to have been an appeasement, will be understanding in their view of the Israelis. The Jewish people have been seeking and offering compromise since the vote at Lake Success in 1947, when partition opened the way for the establishment of a Jewish State and an Arab one. But for many of us it will be harder to take an understanding view of the errors of our own leaders.

There was, after all, an exceptionally wise prime minister in Israel, Yitzhak Shamir, who understood all along that it made no sense to be treating with Arafat and his henchmen. He’d said no repeatedly, when the American administration announced its diplomats would be permitted to deal the PLO. Mr. Shamir held to his principles when a peace conference was convened at Madrid. But President George Bush the Elder made it his business to undermine Mr. Shamir’s government, and Mr. Shamir’s successor, Prime Minister Rabin, then embraced the secret negotiations that left-wingers had been conducting, behind the backs of voters, with the PLO at Oslo.

Yesterday’s decision by the Israeli security cabinet to expel Mr. Arafat is a fitting end to the decade. The current President Bush no doubt understands the errors of his father. Speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House, he laid out in June last year a set of principles that could guide him well. He called for the establishment of a democratic government by the Palestinians, one composed of leaders untainted by terror. There is no reason now for him to oppose the expulsion of Mr. Arafat, nor to do anything but lend support to the military operations underway to attack Hamas and other terrorists in their lairs. Both steps will make it easier for the Palestinian democrats to move to the fore so that the hopes for peace we all share can be redeemed.