Peace Hopes

Charles Krauthammer explains why the Palestinians came back to the negotiating table.

Was not Barak the good guy? And Sharon the tough guy? Surprise. Arabs respect toughness. Sharon launched a massive invasion of the Palestinian territories after the Passover massacre of 2002. Western experts and the media were practically unanimous that this would achieve nothing.

Completely wrong. In fact, it is precisely Israel's aggressive counterattack against Palestinian terrorists, coupled with the defensive fence (which has prevented practically all suicide attacks wherever it has been built), that has brought us to this point of hope.

And in abandoning the intifada and returning to negotiations, the Palestinians came back with different demands.

The second intifada was fought under the old land-for-peace slogan: The terrorism would stop only when Israel agreed to full territorial withdrawal to the 1949 lines, a Palestinian state, Jerusalem as the capital and God knows what else. The Palestinians got none of this. They got death and destruction instead. What do the Palestinians now demand from Israel in return for a cease-fire? That Sharon stop hunting down and killing terrorist leaders. Not land for peace. Peace for peace.

Of course, this does not mean that peace will suddenly break out. Until the Palestinians come to a complete acceptance of Israel, and abandon their oft-repeated goals of its destruction, there will not be peace - not matter how much land is given to them, or how many terrorists are released from jail.