Arafat laid down the terms: a Palestinian state with borders based on the Green Line, with its capital in East Jerusalem. This is exactly what his assassins aimed to prevent.

The Oslo agreement was signed on September 13, 1993. For me the historic date is September 10, when Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat exchanged letters of mutual recognition.

The vast majority of today’s Israelis, anyone less than 60 years old, cannot even imagine an Israel without the occupied territories.

If Arafat’s widow, Suha, succeeds in getting his body exhumed from the mausoleum in the Mukata’a in Ramallah, where it has become a national symbol, the poison will undoubtedly be found in his body.

Marwan Barghouti expresses the near-unanimous feelings of the Palestinians. Like Nelson Mandela in apartheid South Africa, the man in prison may well be more important than the leaders outside.

Is there no limit to the villainy of Hamas? Seems there isn’t. This week, they did something quite unforgivable. They stole a war.

At times of crisis, the real patriots, those who call for peace and compromise — in short the "lefties" — are considered traitors, whereas the nationalists of all types, the warmongers, the inciters of hatred, are perceived as patriots.

It reinforces the image of Israel as a bully state, a rogue nation that treats world public opinion with contempt, a country that conducts gang warfare, that sends mafia-like death squads abroad, a pariah nation to be avoided by right-minded people.

While dealing a mortal blow to Abbas, with whom he ostensibly wants to conduct negotiations, Netanyahu is delivering a tremendous gift to Hamas, which does not want to negotiate. Odd? Perhaps not.

Israel now resembles the person whose neighbor overhead has dropped one boot on the floor, and who is waiting for the second boot to fall.