As its critics say the so-called “road map to peace” is indeed a benighted attempt to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but at least one thing has to be said in its defense: Even a much more thoughtful and credible approach would have led to the same increase in attacks we just witnessed. The terrorists simply don’t want peace and will respond to any proceedings to that effect with violence in order to derail them.
Israel is well advised to continue in its attempts to stamp out Hamas and all the other terrorist organizations. There is no guarantee that it is going to work much better than it used to, but it still is the best hope to at least weaken them to such an extent that they’ll be unable to sabotage the next and with some luck more comprehensive peace-plan. And there is one thing which is different from the past – an American administration that unambigously assigns the responsibility for the violence to the Palestinian side. The road map’s failure has given GWB some first hand insight into who the real culprits are (and that may be another good thing to say about it). If he follows through on that he’ll give Israel carte blanche on dealing with Hamas et al. and that might make the crucial difference.
Now if only the European Commision could finally understand that Hamas’s so-called “political wing” is nothing but terrorist infrastructure some real progress might be made (link via the Shark Blog). Since the EU is no more of a fast learner than another supranational institution I could mention I’m not holding my breath, though.