On Tuesday, Hamas gunmen killed four Israeli settlers — including a pregnant woman — at a road junction near the West Bank city of Hebron. It was a vile act, committed by terrorists whose plainly stated goal is to scuttle any hope of peace between Jews and Palestinians. Yet the circumstances surrounding the tragedy also suggest there is hope for progress in this week’s peace talks in Washington between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas.
First of all, it is telling that Hamas chose to strike near Hebron — against a small, isolated Jewish community that is regarded as politically militant even by many Israelis. Moreover, the attack was conducted with guns, not suicide bombers. These details suggest that Hamas is either unable or unwilling to use its one-time weapon of choice: mass-casualty bomb attacks targeting the heart of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other large Israeli population centres. Aggressive anti-terrorist campaigns by both Israeli and Palestinian security personnel have eroded Hamas’ ability to kill Jews en masse. Moreover, even many Arabs now recognize that suicide bombings — which have come to be associated with senseless butchery from Baghdad to Kabul — only delegitimize the Palestinian cause in the eyes of the world, especially when directed at targets within Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
