LONDON: US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s mission to the Middle East hangs by a thread. His critics at home are questioning his judgment in exposing himself to what has seemed inevitable failure.

Far from responding to President Bush’s call for withdrawal, Israel is continuing its operations on the West Bank.

But Powell on Saturday exacted an explicit condemnation from Yasser Arafat of Friday’s suicide bombing, and of all terrorism against Israeli and Palestinian civilians. That statement keeps hopes of progress tenuously alive, although it will also attract accusations of hypocrisy .

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon may well have calculated that Bush’s call could safely be ignored.

The President’s initial reluctance to urge restraint was certainly no discouragement. Even though he changed his line 10 days ago, the president has continued to make it clear where his sympathies lie.

In his support for Israel, he is largely supported by American public opinion. Hawks argue that Israel is simply asserting the right, enunciated by the US after September 11, to pursue terrorists across any frontier.

The trouble with this doctrine, forged in the heat of anger and grief, is that it sits uneasily with legality. Last week, the sixtieth ratification of the Rome statute paved the way for the creation of the International Criminal Court, shunned by the US.

Yet Washington’s creeping disengagement from international processes bodes ill for the Middle East, where repeated reports of Palestinian casualties are horrifying, and for the future world order.

For that reason, Powell’s presence in the Middle East is not to be criticized but welcomed as indispensable.—Dawn/The Observer News Service.