What's needed is a cease-fire, which the Palestinians do not have the will to implement. The thing that makes the situation so intractable, is that the minute the Israelis move back or make any concession, some Palestinian group immediately punishes the move by blowing up some more Israelis. Naturally to keep negotiating while your citizens are being blown up by the other side is tough for any democratic leader, and requires faith in the goodwill of the leaders of the other side, faith which is entirely missing today, and for good reason.
The acceptance of the roadmap, however little it is likely to mean, is one such step...so we saw seven attempted suicide bombings in the last two weeks, of which one succeeded, not by coincidence right next to the US Embasssy. Both Hamas and Arafat's own Fatah claimed credit.
You know, for all the wails about Palestinian helplessness, they have it easily in their power to really move the Israeli consensus just by making statments of their real commitment to a two state solution, a solution in which Israel is not temporary. By making statements, I don't mean just making them in English in Washington DC for the benefit of the American newspapers, but making them in Arabic as well. They never do it.
Instead PA TV just ran another program urging the killing of Jews in the occupied territories:
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