THE NEWS stories come with distressing regularity. They go like this: A Palestinian suicide-bomber blew up a bus or a restaurant or a night club in an Israeli town today, killing several persons.
Then there is the response: The Israeli Defence Force raided a Palestinian refugee camp today, killing several people in reprisal for the suicide bombing by a Palestinian yesterday in which several Israelis were killed.
Now the latest news is that at least 19 people were killed and 50 others injured when a female Palestinian suicide bomber set off an explosion on Saturday in a beachfront restaurant in the northern Israeli town of Haifa.
In retaliation Israeli helicopter gunships fired missiles at no fewer than two Palestinian targets in Gaza City.
These latest occurrences will invariably serve to mark a further collapse of the peace efforts between the Israelis and the Palestinians, with the prospect being that tensions in the area will escalate into further flare-ups of hostilities between the two, with devastating consequences.
This appeared even plainer on the cards, with Israel launching an airstrike yesterday deep inside Syria, targeted at what the Israelis said was a training camp used by Palestinian extremists.
Where will the hostilities go from there?
It seems that so much blood has been shed on both sides, that it is time that the Israelis and the Palestinians, their mentors and their sponsors discard the so-called 'Road Map', take a fresh new look at their situation and make a determined effort to arrive at a peaceful settlement, once and for all.
In the absence of this, the war of attrition between Palestinians and Israelis will drag on and on, with both sides continuing to count their losses, and eventually drawing in their allies, with devastating consequences for the world at large.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
