PARIS George W. Bush and his secretary of state, Colin Powell, have discovered that it is not so simple to walk away from the Middle East.

They have wanted to end Washington's intimate involvement in the search for peace there. The two sides were to be left to fend for themselves.

Mr. Bush now sees that the American bond to Israel is not so easily broken. The United States cannot ignore Israel's attacks on Syrian troops, whatever the provocation. It cannot be indifferent to the mounting communal tension in Lebanon, directly linked to Israeli-Syrian confrontation. And whatever Israel does to the Palestinians, the United States is held to be complicit.

Thus the secretary of state felt compelled to reprimand Israel for last week's raid into Gaza, which he described as "excessive and disproportionate." Going into Gaza with tanks and an infantry battalion to destroy orchards and homes, with the announced intention of turning the seized territory into an indefinitely occupied "security belt," broke agreements signed with the Palestinians seven years ago.

Ariel Sharon's forces were abruptly withdrawn, but of course more mortar shells were falling inside Israel the same evening, and the weekend saw another suicide bombing which killed two and injured scores. The inability of Israel's military intimidation to end such acts was long ago demonstrated, as has been the futility of demanding under threat that the Palestinian Authority itself protect Israel's colonies in Gaza and on the West Bank. Like it or not, after years of virtually unqualified U.S. backing for Israel, that country's acts are taken to be an American responsibility. In that respect, the United States is not an independent actor in the Middle East. Its relations with the oil-producing Arab states are to some degree hostage to what Israel does to the Palestinians. Most of the people who rule the Gulf states do little to help the Palestinians and the Palestinian economy, or what remains of it. But they know that they are at risk from the volatile Arab street, where Israel is hated, and from the Islamic fundamentalist movements that want Israel and the United States ejected from the Middle East.

Israel is a hostage, too - to the Palestinians. It can make war on them but it cannot win, since there is no authority able to surrender. They can be punished, confined, intimidated, but they will still be there.

It probably is true that Yasser Arafat should have taken the settlement that Ehud Barak, with Bill Clinton's support, offered during the final days of the Clinton administration, since the Palestinians are unlikely ever to get a better offer from an Israeli prime minister. But he probably could not have convinced his followers to accept it. It is even less likely that Mr. Barak could have delivered what he offered. The Israeli public does not yet fully understand the most important consideration of all: that the Palestinians are, in a terrible way, winning. Their suffering is robbing Israel of its moral substance. The more Israel behaves as an oppressor, the less it is worth living in, and the more distant it becomes from the ideals of its foundation. Yossi Beilin, who was Mr. Barak's justice minister, wrote last week that "without the hope for peace, without the endeavors for peace, it will be impossible to maintain a viable Jewish state for long."

By occupying Palestinian territory to which it has no title in international law, annexing its fertile land and diverting its water, employing measures of repression that would be unacceptable in any other Western democracy - collective and exemplary punishment, destruction of civilian property to intimidate resistance, arrests without charge and imprisonment without trial - Israel turns itself into the kind of state it was founded to repudiate. Israel was supposed to be a just nation. It is, but for Israelis. The Palestinians assault civilians, carry out indiscriminate terrorist bombings and utter extravagant imprecations and threats. Their conduct wins them little sympathy in the West. But that does not change the fact that they are Israel's victims. Naturally they would like to see Israel destroyed. But they might accept simply getting back what was taken from them in the 1967 war and has been illegally occupied ever since. The situation now may be beyond that possibility. But Israel has never offered a full withdrawal, and the United States has never even broached the idea.

In that case, what future is there for the Palestinians? Perpetuated oppression and suffering. For the Israelis, the reciprocal future is perpetuated insecurity, constant tension and the terrible moral burden that the oppressor bears. Israel was never meant to be like that.

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