Quotes of the Day

In recent days, the foreign parties seeking to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have invested a great deal of effort to engineer a hudna, or ceasefire, between Israel and Palestinian armed groups. In Washington, senior American officials received top Israeli officials, including Dov Weisglass, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Bureau Chief, and Avi Dichter, Head of the General Security Service, or Shin Bet.

In Gaza, senior Egyptian Intelligence officers, led by Maj. Gen. Mustafa el-Buheiri, met with representatives of the Palestinian militias. There have been other meetings, involving various permutations of Israelis, Palestinians, Americans, Europeans and Arabs; all these parleys have been aimed at arranging a period of calm that would allow the implementation of the road map to peace. Despite these well-intentioned meetings, however, there remain three major obstacles to a hudna.

The first is Ariel Sharon. Despite his declared acceptance of the road map, Sharon has not taken any real positive, major steps that would indicate his sincerity. He spoke of dismantling settler outposts in the Palestinian territories and did remove a handful; but, according to Israeli media reports, five new outposts have recently been established. Sharon also spoke of easing some of the restrictions, but on my journeys through the West Bank I still face long delays, just like everyone else trying to move in and out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip are still severely restricted. And of course, Sharon has not halted Israeli military operations against Palestinian targets including last week's failed assassination attempt on Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi, which killed four people in Gaza. The second major obstacle is the attitude of the Palestinian militias.

These armed groups — especially Hamas and Islamic Jihad — continue to justify attacks on Israeli targets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (which is to say, attacks against settlers and soldiers) on the grounds that these targets represent the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories. And so long as Hamas and Islamic Jihad continue to attack the Israelis, it is inevitable that the Israelis will strike back, destroying any hope of a hudna. The third hurdle to a ceasefire is the inability of the two sides to even agree on the terms of a hudna. Israel continues to justify its military operations against the Palestinians on the grounds that it is seeking to eliminate suicide bombers.

On the other hand, it is far from clear what concessions Hamas and the Islamic Jihad want from Israel in return for a ceasefire. This means there are too many possible interpretations to what would constitute a violation of the hudnaterms. It's clear, then, that in order to have real hudna we must have precisely defined ceasefire terms, to be monitored by a party acceptable to both sides. I believe this is unlikely because the two sides will not agree on who should monitor a ceasefire: Israel would likely want the United States to play that role, but the Palestinian militias see the Americans as biased to the Israeli side.

The militias would like to see a United Nations force in place, but the Israelis won't go for that — they think the U.N. is deeply biased toward the Palestinians. The depressing conclusion is that the only way to achieve a kind of hudna is for the two sides to keep negotiating toward it — it will be a long, slow and possibly even in vain. But we can at least hope that, so long as they remain on the negotiating table, they will restrain themselves from shooting at each other.

The foreign parties would do well to press the two sides to implement the road map even as they talk, and not wait until after the negotiations.

• WADIE ABUNASSAR
• The only way to silence the guns is to keep talking