Editorial
Here's an editorial I wrote last night for today's edition. It seems so tepid compared to what I can say here:
Who even reads newspaper editorials anymore? I used to devour them, 20 years ago; I could tell who wrote them, even if they were unsigned. Nowadays?
As usual in the Palestinian territories, peace does a shuffle dance: step forward, step back. Lately, forward steps have outnumbered backslidings.
*Tuesday, Islamic Hamas said it would suspend attacks against “the Zionist enemy” — that’s Israel — if Israel stopped assassinating Hamas leaders and agreed to release thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Israel refused, but it said it will respond to calm with calm.
*Palestinian Authority workers protected by police tore down illegal buildings in Gaza City to try to rein in the lawless enclave.
*Palestinian and Israeli generals met and talked about deploying Palestinian police in southern Gaza to stop militants from attacking Israelis.
*Some 3,000 Palestinian police deployed in northern Gaza to try to stop militants from launching rockets into Israeli communities.
*No rockets or mortars have hit Israeli communities since last week.
OK, it’s not exactly the Berlin Wall tumbling down. But in the Middle East you take what you can get. If nobody gets killed between the time we write this and the time you read it, chalk up another one for peace.
It’s likely that credit for the recent baby steps toward peace goes to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. He may well be able to walk the tightrope between opposing Israeli policies and slowly tightening the grip on his own militant thuggery.
Managing this will involve a lot of contradictory rhetoric, and it might be wise to pay more attention to what gets accomplished rather than hanging on Abbas’ every word.
The bid to stop rocket attacks is particularly encouraging. It’s the sort of thing Abbas’ predecessor, Yasir Arafat, wouldn’t have done.
The next big goal is a formal cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian militant groups. That would pave the way for a new round of peace talks.
Every step is a potential failure. Palestinians, famously, never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
More hopeful than the words of Hamas are the voices of countless average Palestinians, among whom desire for peace seems to be surging. The latest opinion polls show that more Palestinians and Israelis than ever say they want the violence to end.
According to a joint Palestinian-Israeli poll, 54 percent of Palestinians and 64 percent of Israelis said they now support the package of compromises proposed in 2000 by President Clinton at Camp David. Arafat walked away from that deal, and the violence flared again.
It was the first poll to show majorities on both sides favoring major compromises and a permanent solution.
One recent news report quoted a Palestinian farmer whose land lies in the northern Gaza. “If there is a rocket, the Israelis respond. Maybe if there is no rocket they will not respond.” We hope Abbas is thinking that way, too.
Who even reads newspaper editorials anymore? I used to devour them, 20 years ago; I could tell who wrote them, even if they were unsigned. Nowadays?
