MIDDLE EAST: Israel Loses a Round

"This is anti-Israel festival week," groaned one foreign ministry official in Jerusalem. To a large extent, he was right. At the United Nations last week, Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization won a stunning diplomatic victory that came as a sharp defeat for the increasingly isolated and friendless Israelis. In effect, the Security Council virtually recognized the P.L.O. as the government in exile of a potential state equal in international standing to Israel. Over the violent protestations of U.S. Ambassador Daniel P. Moynihan, the Security Council voted 9 to 3 (with three abstentions) to invite representatives of the P.L.O. to participate...