TIME NEEDED FOR PEACE

by RAY FLEMING
FIRSTLY, credit to Israel's interim prime minister Ehud Olmert for deciding against military retaliation in response to the suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on Monday. There is some confusion about whether his decision was against calls for the re-occupation of Gaza or some other major military action, or against the more limited targetted killings of Palestinians that have followed suicide bombings in the past. Let's hope it's both. However, most other reactions have been simplistic and unhelpful, including Mr Olmert's claim that Hamas should take responsibility for the Tel Aviv bombing (after less a month in office) and the Hamas spokesman's claim that it was an inevitable result of Israeli aggression. At the United Nations yesterday the Israeli ambassador, Dan Gillerman, told the Security Council that a new “axis of terror”, Iran, Syria and the Palestinian Hamas government, was “sowing the seeds of the first world war of the 21st century”. The situation in the Middle East may be deteriorating but Mr Gillerman must surely know that the seeds of the present situation were sown long before the new Iranian and new Palestinian governments came to power. Suicide bombings by one side and targetted killings by the other will continue until both sides agree to act more sensibly: Hamas by abandoning its refusal to recognise Israel and Israel by being ready to talk to Hamas. This will take time and it will not be helped by extreme action from either side in the interim.