"Only Game in Town:" Charades?

For a long time, the standard put-down for people who expressed doubts about the wisdom of continuing the Camp David autonomy talks has been to retort, usually impatiently: "But it's the only game in town." This may have made some sense during the days when the final withdrawal from Sinai depended on humoring Prime Minister Begin by pretending his view of "full autonomy" was rational enough to form a hopeful basis for discussion. But now it makes no sense at all. Does it follow that because there is only one game, it is one that ought to be played? Roman gladiators might have raised a question on this point.

While representatives of Egypt, Israel, and The U.S. continue to play this game, fussing over where and when to resume the autonomy talks, Israel is going ahead with plans to "create the facts" that will soon make its hold over the West Bank irrevocable (see p. 3 of this issue). Is it in the U.S. interest to give Israel the opportunity to keep us talking vainly at the conference table, while working simultaneously for its own unilateral solution on the ground? It's true that the U.S. and Egypt have both re-committed themselves to pursuing the autonomy talks—a price extracted by Israel to ensure that it would withdraw from Sinai on schedule. But presumably their commitment was to try for a solution, not to guarantee in advance that they would actually succeed in finding an acceptable one. The autonomy charade should be brought to its conclusion as quickly as possible. Then the U.S. could concentrate on finding ways to stop the Israelis from pursuing a policy in the West Bank which will surely lead to war.