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Progress in the Mideast: Peace Without Treaties

(Washington Post) Charles Krauthammer - The more than four-year-long intifada, which left more than 1,000 Israelis and 3,000 Palestinians dead, is over. And better than that, defeated. There's no great Palestinian constituency for starting another one. In Israel, tourism is back, the economy has recovered to pre-intifada levels, and the coffee shops and malls are full again. Without any fanfare whatsoever, the Palestinians' first-ever state has just been born. They have political independence for 1.3 million of their people, sovereignty over all of Gaza and, for the first time, a border to the outside world (the Rafah crossing to Egypt) that they control. The Gaza Palestinians have just received exactly what they wished for: self-government and an absence of any Jews. As a result, however, they are now faced with the distinctly unromantic task of creating their new state. It's not that many Gazans would not like to continue the romance of revolutionary terrorism and jihad. But they no longer have the means. Rockets launched into Israeli towns are met by retaliatory Israeli artillery barrages that make the rocketeers rather unpopular at home.
2005-12-02 00:00:00
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