Good terrorists, bad terrorists

Brothers to the Bitter End -Fouad Ajami

[T]he masked men of Fatah have the run of the West Bank while the masked men of Hamas have their dominion in Gaza. Some see this as an improvement, envisioning a secularist Fatah-run state living peacefully alongside Israel...
It’s always tempting to look for salvation, but in this case it’s sheer fantasy.

The Palestinian ruin was a long time in coming. No other national movement has had the indulgence granted the Palestinians...

We must not overdo the distinction between the “secularism” of Fatah and the Islamism of Hamas. [T]his is really a distinction without a difference.

Arab poets used to write reverential verse in praise of the boys of the stones and the suicide bombers. Now the poetry has subsided, replaced by [silence]...

Palestinian society has now gone where no “peace processors” or romantic poets dare tread.

[New York Times]
Graphic credit: Anthony Russo

"West Bank First": It Won't Work - Robert Malley and Aaron David Miller

Having embraced one illusion - that it could help isolate and defeat Hamas - the Bush administration is dangerously close to embracing another: Gaza is dead, long live the West Bank.
(Washington Post)


Time to Postpone the "Political Horizon" - Dennis Ross

Pushing for an objective that is demonstrably not achievable now is not going to enhance our already shaky position in the Middle East.
(Wall Street Journal, 19Jun07)