Washington ? Yasser Arafat’s death opens a narrow window of opportunity for President Bush to engage decisively for the first time in making peace between Israel and the Palestinians, current and former U.S. officials said Thursday.

If history is any guide, the chance will be fleeting, extremists could sabotage any progress with violence and political caution could lead to missed opportunities.

Following the lead of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Bush refused to have any dealings with Arafat for more than two years because of the Palestinian leader’s unwillingness to end terror attacks on Israelis. Bush instead called on Palestinians to choose leaders committed to peace.

In that time, the United States was essentially absent from what diplomats euphemistically call “the peace process.” Sharon went his own way, building a security wall along the West Bank and planning Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip.

With Arafat’s death — which came eight days after Bush’s re-election — diplomats expect Bush and Sharon to come under sharply increased international pressure to work directly with the Palestinians. Bush meets today with his closest foreign ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who backs a new Mideast peacemaking push.

The key question is whether the Bush administration will intervene to promote an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue or hang back to see what kind of Palestinian leaders emerge.

“We need to get in there now … and begin to have a three-way dialogue,” said Dennis Ross, the U.S. Middle East envoy under the first President Bush and President Clinton.

Palestinians are supposed to hold elections for a new president within 60 days.

A soldier from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's 17th Force Presidential Guard weeps Thursday outside his former headquarters in Gaza City after hearing of his death in Paris.

“Israel is a peace-seeking nation, and I hope that the Palestinians will quickly reorganize in order that we may renew negotiations with them,” Sharon said in a speech Thursday.

Bush and his top aides have reacted cautiously since Arafat fell seriously ill late last month.

The president reaffirmed his commitment to a Palestinian state, but he and Secretary of State Colin Powell have put the onus on the Palestinians to take the first steps.

Powell said Wednesday the leaders who replaced Arafat must pledge to fight terrorism and rally the Palestinians behind that course.

“If that kind of leadership emerges that can do that, then we stand ready to work with them,” he said.

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Bush chose to send Assistant Secretary of State William Burns, a midlevel official, to Arafat’s funeral today in Cairo. Most other countries are sending foreign ministers or, in some cases, their leaders.

Flynt Leverett, a former White House and CIA official now at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, said Powell should have been dispatched and called it “a missed opportunity to move this process forward.”

An U.S. official said the choice of Burns “was the balance the government came up with” between showing respect for the Palestinians and the White House’s aversion to Arafat.