EDITORIAL : THE NEW YORK TIMES, USA

A Fatah-Hamas Deal

Ultimately, a successful Palestinian state will need to have all its people, from both the West Bank and Gaza, working together to build a stable and prosperous future. The recent agreement between the two main factions — Fatah, which leads the Palestinian Authority and has committed to peace with Israel, and Hamas, which has committed to Israel’s destruction — is not the answer.

We have many concerns about the accord, starting with the fact that Hamas has neither renounced its legacy of violence nor agreed to recognize Israel. The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, has said he remains in charge of peace efforts and the unity government will be responsible for rebuilding Gaza and organizing elections. Whether that is Hamas’s vision is unclear.

Also disconcerting are suggestions that Mr. Abbas may have privately agreed to replace his prime minister, Salam Fayyad, who has done so much to build up the West Bank economy and institutions. There are big questions about the future of the two sides’ security forces.

The United States has spent millions of dollars helping the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority create a security force that Israel has come to rely on to keep the peace in the West Bank. Whether Hamas, which has terrorized Israel with rockets from Gaza, can ever be integrated into that force, or even work side by side, is a huge question.

Israel certainly has many reasons to mistrust this deal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suspended tax remittances and is pressing Washington hard to cut off aid to the Abbas government. The Obama administration has reacted warily to the new pact but said its assistance will continue for now. Congress is talking tough.

It’s too early for a cut-off. The money is Washington’s main leverage on the new government. A cut-off would shift the political balance dangerously toward Hamas.

Other reconciliation attempts between Fatah and Hamas have imploded, but Mr. Abbas seems to believe this will advance his push to get the United Nations General Assembly to recognize a Palestinian state. Above all, his sudden willingness to deal with his enemies in Hamas is a sign of his desperation with the stalled peace process.

Hamas’s goals are far harder to game, although there are reports of new frictions with Syria and a desire for better ties with Egypt’s new government. In an interview with The Times last week, Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader, declared himself fully committed to working for a two-state solution. Just a few days earlier Hamas’s (supposedly more moderate) prime minister, Ismail Haniya, was out there celebrating Osama bin Laden as a “Muslim and Arab warrior.” Huge skepticism and vigilance are essential. But more months with no progress on peace talks will only further play into extremists’ hands.

So what happens now? The United States and the other members of the quartet — the European Union, Russia and the United Nations — need to put the new government on notice that all support will be carefully scrutinized and that firing Mr. Fayyad would be a big mistake. They need to tell Hamas that if it is serious about coming in from the cold, it must halt all attacks on Israel and recognize its right to exist.

At the same time Washington needs to press Mr. Netanyahu back to the peace table. A negotiated settlement is the only way to guarantee Israel’s lasting security.

For weeks President Obama and his aides have been debating how to revive the peace process — and how deeply the president should engage. (His peace envoy has not even been in the region for five months.)

The answer, to us, is clear. It is time for Mr. Obama, alone or with the quartet, to put a map and deal on the table. If Bin Laden’s death has given the president capital to spend, all the better. The Israelis and Palestinians are not going to break the stalemate on their own. And more drift will only lead to more desperation and more extremism.

The Debt Limit Negotiations

Republican leaders and White House officials will meet on Tuesday to continue talks on the federal debt limit. They need to tread very carefully here.

The Republicans have long insisted on deep spending cuts — ignoring the fact that a failure to raise the limit by August at the latest would disrupt financial markets and endanger the recovery. The administration understands the danger, but giving in to overly deep spending cuts and making unwise tax concessions would also be damaging.

Both sides have indicated that a probable deal would impose a budget target and enforcement triggers, like automatic spending cuts, if the target was not met. A deal built on such mechanisms could keep markets calm, but they can also be a trap.

Democratic lawmakers and the White House must reject targets and triggers that rule out tax increases, because without higher taxes, the burden of cutting would fall largely on lower- and middle-income Americans. Some Republicans also have said they want the deal to include many of the spending cuts in the House-passed budget. That would be a disaster for vulnerable Americans and for the fragile recovery. Farm subsidies for rich farmers can go but not food stamps and Head Start.

Targets and triggers that do not allow for tax increases could make it even harder to reach a comprehensive deficit-reduction deal in the future. They would reinforce the Republicans’ fantasy that the deficit is solely the result of spending. And once automatic spending cuts are locked into the budget process, Republicans would feel no pressure to accept a tax increase.

Any targets must also be realistic. One bipartisan Senate plan would hold spending to 20.6 percent of gross domestic product, the average over the last 40 years. That may sound reasonable, but it would mean destructive cuts because it ignores rising health costs, an aging population and other dynamics that were not issues in the past.

Negotiations on the debt limit are not the time or place to force a deficit deal. As ever, the Republicans’ positions have little to do with economic reality. Really tackling the deficit will require specific, thoughtful changes centered on raising taxes and controlling health care costs, neither of which Republicans support.

It would be better if lawmakers would pass a clean debt limit increase for another year or two, and use the time to work diligently toward a true budget deal. Unfortunately, seriousness of purpose is not on the table.

Boarding? Denied. Lock and Loading? Sure

Here is a chilling and potentially lethal fact of life: A person on the F.B.I.’s terrorist watch list is barred from boarding an airplane yet is quite free to buy high-power firearms and ammunition at any American gun shop.

This bizarre “terror gap” is starkly underlined by the latest federal data showing that 272 individuals on the terrorist watch list attempted to buy firearms last year, 
 and all but 25 were cleared to make purchases. Those rejected had records for criminal felonies, spousal violence and other threats stipulated in federal gun controls that still don’t use the terrorist watch list as a red-flag caution.

The administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama wanted to rectify the situation, proposing that the attorney general be given authority to block gun sales to those on the list, after they were investigated and deemed suspicious under careful guidelines. But successive Congresses rejected reform bills — cowering as usual before the gun lobby, which deemed it an “arbitrary” interference with its never-to-be-trumped right to bear arms.

The watch list is ever a work in progress and innocent citizens have too often complained of being barred from flying. But this shortcoming has nothing to do with the dangerous loophole that Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, and Representative Peter King, Republican of New York, are again trying to close.

The last Congress, in its 11th-hour rush, showed no qualms about approving a ridiculous proposal requiring 9/11 responders and victims to be checked against the terrorist watch list before receiving federal health care benefits. If first-responder heroes must be put to the test, how can Congress continue to guarantee the gun rights of individuals already on the terrorist watch list?

Can You Explain the War Powers Act?

The Department of Education’s latest assessment of what young Americans know about civics shows that the light of democracy burns steadily in schools, if too dimly.

The test was given last year to 27,000 children in the 4th, 8th and 12th grades. “Basic” knowledge for an eighth grader meant being able to identify a right protected by the First Amendment. A “proficient” 12th grader could define “melting pot” and argue whether or not the United States is one. An “advanced” fourth grader could “explain two ways countries can deal with shared problems.”

The results show the needle stuck on mediocre. Most students had basic proficiency. But only about one-fourth in each group were “proficient,” and the tiniest percentages were “advanced.” Charles Quigley, executive director of the Center for Civic Education, says “the results confirm an alarming and continuing trend that civics in America is in decline.”

We see more hope, along with huge room for improvement. Yes, more than half of eighth graders muffed a question on the purpose of the Bill of Rights. But 74 percent could identify a right protected by the First Amendment. An equal percentage knew why a trial by jury was important. Fifty-seven percent of 12th graders understood the reason Congress approved the War Powers Act.

American schools certainly need to focus more on a vital mission: arming young Americans against propagandistic television and fringe activism, legislative crusades and chronic political pandering.

George Carlin used to say that he didn’t joke about bad politicians because it wasn’t their fault: “Ignorant citizens elect ignorant leaders, it’s as simple as that,” he said. Well, not exactly. But he had a point.