A year ago, I linked to an interview with Hamas leader Abd al-Aziz Rantisi, by Line Fransson in Dagbladet. Fransson is one of Dagbladet's most pro-Arab reporters, the kind who refers to Hamas leaders as "terrorists", and takes cute pictures of them with their grandchildren. At the time, I made a note to cheer Rantisi's future assasination by the IDF.

And today they tried, with a chopper-aimed rocket at his car on the street in Gaza. They missed - an eight year old girl and another bystander died instead. Damn.

On reporting this, TV2's Fredrik Græsvik, (who's been moving steadily towards the loony fringe of pro-Arabism ever since the Iraq war, talking warmly about the old, crime-free days of Saddam), proclaimed the new peace initiative already dead. This, he pointed out, made it much more short-lived than the Oslo process.

It is worth remembering that Norwegian reporters were caught hugging the rotting carcass of the Oslo process as late as 2001, referring to it only as "dying" up to the point where they stopped referring to it at all. So the Oslo process took eight years to die, but this one is fully dead within a week? There's a bit of national chauvinism involved in that judgement, I think. That's not to say that the new initiative has a good chance of working, but it seems to me it has several advantages: Arafat plays a less important role; there's a better understanding that radical Islamic organizations like Hamas are the worst enemies of peace, and must be dealt with from the start; and it's done with the failure of Oslo in mind, as an example of how not to make peace.

NRK were less pessimistic, reporting only that the attack put the peace process "in danger". It may have put the process in danger, but the peace? Hamas is a terrorist organization. It can't be negotiated with, only fought. Peace will be more likely if the Palestinian Authority begins to fight it as well, but it will be impossible if noone fights it at all.

A more accurate description of todays events would have been: "The new Middle East peace initiative was put in danger today, observers reported, when Israel failed to kill a known terrorist leader. Abd al-Aziz Rantisi is a leader of Hamas, the radical Islamic organization that wants to introduce religious dictatorship in Palestine, and destroy the state of Israel. Hamas has been responsible for countless mass murders of Israeli civilians, and observers point out that it is the largest obstacle to a peaceful solution to the Palestinian conflict." (Anyone taking notes of this?)

The "Roadmap" has been in trouble longer than that -

"All Palestinian security organizations are consolidated into three services reporting to an empowered Interior Minister," who, in turn, responds to the new "interim Prime Minister."
Not a day after Arafat seemingly conceded to Abu Mazen on security than the ever-inventive Rais sprang a new Security Council on the Prime Minister that apparently allows him neither full control through the Interim Ministry nor a reduction to the three services specified by the Roadmap.

So Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) is reduced to shaking his finger at such as Hamas, and then blustering that it is his decision not to resort to force.

I wish more would emulate Italy. Told that a proposed meeting with Mazen would have to include Arafat, they cancelled.

I don't think their will ever be a peace between Israel and Palestinian terrorists.

As soon as the process to peace was declared, Hamas goes on murderous rampages and Ariel Sharon's own supporters turn on him and accuse him of being a traitor.

No doubt there are many good men (and woman) from both of those two groups who wish the conflict to be resolved (without that resolution involving the elimination of one of the groups) but these more moderating forces can't be heard.

On TV about 2 years ago they had a face-to-face debate between some Israelis and some Palestinians. There was this one specific case where a settler spoke up about how distraught he was after the death of a member of his family due to terrorists.

The palestinian group laughed at this and declared that if they hadn't been illgel settlers than they wouldn't have been slaughtered. Who were these evil settler victims you ask? The man's young daughter...

I'm not trying to demonise Arabs here, but does this give you a taste of the apparently insurmountable barier of intolerance (from both sides) that blocks this so-called peace accord?

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