"We have agreed on halting all violent actions against Palestinians and Israelis wherever they are," Abbas declared in a statement made after the meetings, as he, Sharon, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II sat at a round table.
Sharon made a similar pledge.
"Today, in my meeting with chairman Abbas, we agreed that all Palestinians will stop all acts of violence against all Israelis everywhere, and, at the same time, Israel will cease all its military activity against all Palestinians everywhere," he said.
Of course, not all is happiness and light...
But the Palestinian militant group Hamas immediately called the deal into question. The group's representative in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, told The Associated Press it would not be bound by the Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire declarations.
So, when the next Hamas bomb goes off somewhere in Israel, and Israel responds with military action against Hamas terrorists, guess who is going to be the target of all the international recrimination, resolutions in the UN condemning their actions, and all the usual censure that they have endured for so long? Hint: their flag has a six-pointed star on it.
I know that many, if not most Palestinians really want peace. Perhaps Abbas is among them. But those that don't won't care about this cease fire. They want only the destruction of Israel and the murder of all of its citizens. It remains to be seen whether or not the Palestinian leadership can exercise control over these people. Frankly, I'm not holding my breath. Only when all Palestinians realize that continued struggle is not in their best interest, when they understand it at a fundamental level, will the violence stop. Either that or when they're all dead. I hope the former happens. I fear the second will.
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