Look Who May Not Be Talking

High on the agenda of the new Shamir government will be a stepped-up effort to persuade the Bush Administration to break off its 18-month-old dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization. Israelis insist that an abortive Palestinian attack on Tel Aviv's beaches two weeks ago demonstrated that the P.L.O. has not given up terrorism. The raid was staged by a P.L.O. faction called the Palestine Liberation Front, but so far P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat has refused U.S. pleas to condemn the operation and to sever ties with Muhammad Abbas, the group's chieftain and ringleader of the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro.

Bush branded the attack "sheer terror" last week and revealed that the Administration indeed was considering whether to cut off talks. One possible outcome is that Washington will suspend, but not terminate, the dialogue. That distinction may mean little: the new Israeli government promises to be even less receptive to Secretary of State James Baker's Mideast peace plan than was its predecessor.