Change Of Signals

For one brief sweet moment, it seemed that the Middle East peace talks scheduled to reconvene this week after a four-month hiatus might be more than another round in an interminable game. Israel agreed to deal directly with a major participant previously excluded from the table -- Faisal Husseini, the mastermind of the Palestinian delegation. Israel had objected to Husseini because he comes from East Jerusalem, an area the country contends is its own. It agreed to include him in hopes of boosting his relatively moderate position. But days before the talks were to begin, the main Arab participants asked for a postponement. The request seemed related to Palestinian displeasure over both Israel's closure of the occupied territories and its refusal to repatriate nearly 400 Palestinians who remain in southern Lebanon since their deportation in December. But responding to U.S. dismay, the Arabs may yet rethink their position.