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Source: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25498037-16741,00.html
Middle East Requires Pragmatic Realism
[The Australian] Editorial - If they are to gain peace, prosperity and eventually their own homeland, the Palestinian people need a more credible, pragmatic leadership than the fanatics of Hamas. Their leadership in Gaza renders any prospect of a Palestinian state a nonsense at present. Nor does the incompetent Fatah regime of Mahmoud Abbas on the West Bank have much to offer a complex, demanding process. A dose of skepticism on Netanyahu's part about a two-state solution is understandable. In 2000, the Clinton administration brokered a deal in which then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was offering a deal that would have set up an independent state in all of Gaza and 95% of the West Bank and territory from Israel proper to compensate for the remaining 5%. But then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat, unwilling to be seen as the Palestinian leader to give up the struggle against Israel, rejected the offer. Palestinians responded with a four-year suicide-bombing campaign against Israeli civilians. In the last analysis, it is doubtful whether the Palestinians are sufficiently mature enough to put their need of a homeland ahead of their unjust armed struggle against Israel's right to exist.