While no one was looking

While no one was looking, something historic happened in the Middle East. The Palestinian intifada is over, and the Palestinians have lost.

Yes,folks, in spite of the irrelevant Hague decision today, the Palestinians have lost.

The end of the intifada does not mean the end of terrorism. There was terrorism before the intifada and there will be terrorism to come. What has happened, however, is an end to systematic, regular, debilitating, unstoppable terror -- terror as a reliable weapon. At the height of the intifada, there were nine suicide attacks in Israel killing 85 Israelis in just one month (March 2002). In the past three months there have been none.

How did Israel do it? By ignoring its critics and launching a two-pronged campaign of self-defense.

The fence will remain upright, Jews will live, and the Palestinians will have to accept that the only way for the Palestinians to achieve statehood and dignity, and to determine the contours of their own state, will be to negotiate a final peace based on genuine coexistence with a Jewish state.

Israel's Victory