Palestinian state in all the territory of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.

If wisdom does not prevail (and in politics, the victory of wisdom would be something new), this ceasefire will end up like many before: just an interval between two rounds of fighting.

We are faced with a road sign pointing in two opposite directions: one end directed towards peace, the other towards the next violent confrontation.

A Queue of Bombers

March 23, 2002

When a whole people is seething with rage, it becomes a dangerous enemy, because the rage does not obey orders.

When rage exists in the hearts of millions of people, it cannot be cut off by pushing a button.

When this rage overflows, it creates suicide bombers-human

bombs fuelled by the power of anger, against whom there is no defense. People who have given up on life, who do not look for escape routes, are free to do whatever their disturbed minds dictate.

Some of the suicide bombers are killed before they reach their goal, but when there are hundreds of them, thousands of them, no military means will restore security.

The actions of General Mofaz during the last month have brought this rage to an unprecedented pitch and instilled it into the hearts of every Palestinian, whether a university professor or a street boy, a housewife or a high-school girl, a leftist or a fundamentalist.

When tanks run amok in the center of a town, crushing cars and destroying walls, tearing up roads, shooting indiscriminately in all directions, causing panic to a whole population-it induces helpless rage.

When soldiers crush through a wall into the living room of a family, causing shock to children and adults, ransacking their belongings, destroying the fruits of a life of hard work, and then break the wall to the next apartment to wreak havoc there-it induces helpless rage.

When soldiers shoot at everything that moves-out of panic, out of lawlessness, or because Sharon told them "to cause losses"-it induces helpless rage.

When officers order their soldiers to shoot at ambulances, killing doctors and paramedics engaged in saving the lives of the wounded who are bleeding to death-it induces helpless rage.

When these and a thousand other acts like them humiliate a whole people, searing their souls-it induces helpless rage.

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