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Yet another view on the entire Mid-East mess:



The Method of This Madness



Suicide bombers share the sense that nothing — no authority, no agreement, no concession — can right the wrongs inflicted on them and their people. There is only the necessity, the duty of hounding and, eventually, destroying the enemy.



To the Israelis, the endless slaughter of innocents becomes confirmation that the goal of the Arabs is to drive them into the sea. To the Palestinians, the anguished Israeli response becomes a confirmation that they will never willingly fulfill the Palestinians' longings, creating a spiral that only inspires more youths to embrace a murderous death and more Israelis to demand military action.



Why Mr. Arafat has adopted a weapon that has done such damage to his cause is a matter of speculation. Initially, suicide bombings were the province of Hamas, the militant Islamic movement, whose goal was to preclude Mr. Arafat and his secular Palestine Liberation Organization from striking a deal with Israel. The objective of the Islamic zealots was, and is, an Islamic state in all of Palestine, and neither infidel Jews, nor an ungodly Arab administration, had a place there.



Yet during the current wave of violence, militants of Mr. Arafat's Fatah organization — who once dismissed suicide bombings as a weapon unworthy of their struggle — also adopted them. In the past two months, many more such attacks have been perpetrated by the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades of Fatah than by Hamas.

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