Well, the talks have been fruitless for decades, but that has nothing to do with any Fatah-Hamas agreement. We negotiated with the Arabs when they had a single government before their rift in Gaza.

Israel is accused of killing 37 Palestinians, with no mention of the fact that almost all of them were terrorists on active duty, some on their way to launch rockets at Israel.  The report likewise accuses Israel of the mass killing of Syrians during two protests in May and June, without clarifying what those Syrians would have done to Jewish villagers had they not been stopped at the border with bullets.

Hamas and Fatah are tellingly accused of unfair trials and torture—in effect, of cracking down on their own terrorists who have veered out of control. The HRW mentioned hundreds of rocket attacks on Israel, which cannot be ignored, but preferred to miss the much more massive and lethal grassroots terrorism, including daily attacks on Jewish cars with rocks and firebombs.

And nothing has happened. The massive international recognition of Palestine has resulted in no pressure on Israel to withdraw from the territories or stop raiding Palestinian towns in search of terrorists. Likewise, UN recognition of Palestinian statehood would change nothing, and indeed could make the whole issue less pressing, as Palestinian demands will be perceived as having been satisfied.

Dweik was very active in the Hebron area, were Fatah enjoys very limited authority, and Israel arrested him as a favor to the Fatah, which in light of its reconciliation efforts with Hamas, cannot arrest Hamas leaders.

In contrast, consider the Jews who hunt ‘racists’ in our own state, sue soldiers who deal appropriately with Arab terrorists, and send tax transfers to Fatah, which advocates killing us.

We remember the outcry of three years ago, when they were fired in the opposite direction. Since then, the Arabs have fired white phosphorus shells at Israel more than a dozen times, but who has heard about that abroad?

That in itself is no big threat to the Palestinians, who rightly see the negotiations as pointless. Besides, Israel won’t be able to withhold tax transfers even from the Hamas government. But the Israeli government has a short memory: we did cooperate with a Palestinian government that included Hamas, before the terrorist group evicted Fatah from Gaza.

Joining the PLO would force Hamas to abide by the recognition of Israel stipulated in the Oslo Accords. If anything, such a commitment would moderate the terrorist group.

In fact, Hamas has maintained that position for about a decade. The problem is that it means uprooting three Jewish towns and dozens of villages in the West Bank… and abandoning Jerusalem. Hamas would still not abandon its demand for the right of return. In line with Islamic teaching, the terrorist group views the 1948 borders as a mere ceasefire line, to be breached when Muslims become sufficiently strong.

Both sides can easily bring this conflict to a political resolution: the Arabs by sending suicide bombers, and Israel by massive bombing of their installations in Gaza. Nevertheless, leaders on both sides are comfortable with a simmering conflict that distracts their populations from real problems.

In the long run, the conflict is bound to flare up. Empirically, countries tend to settle important conflicts with either diplomacy or war, not sporadic violence—which grows unchecked and eventually explodes.