where does it end?

here is an article by Uri Avnery, an Israeli journalist, writer and peace activist on the solution to the decades of mid-east conflict.

(i am posting the summary here for those short of time!)

"Stop that shit!"

Lebanese children, covered with wounds, in Beirut hospitals. The funeral of the victims of a missile in Haifa. The ruins of a whole devastated quarter in Beirut. Inhabitants of the north of Israel fleeing south from the Katyushas. Inhabitants of the south of Lebanon fleeing north from the Israeli air force. Death, destruction and unimaginable human sufferings everywhere.

What was Hassan Nasrallah thinking of, when he decided to cross the border and carry out the guerrilla action that started the current Witches' Sabbath? And why at this time? Knwoing that the Israeli government was waiting for a pretext to attack Lebanon with full force. Why?

The reason that strongly convinced him to enter upon such an adventure at precisely this time was infact Palestine. Two weeks before, the Israeli government used the captured soldier as pretext to shatter the Palestinians' will to resist and to destroy the newly-elected Palestinian government, dominated by Hamas. And, of course, to stop the Qassams.

One thing is clear: Nasrallah would not have started this vicious circle of violence, if the Palestinians had not called for help. Either from cool calculation, or from true moral outrage, or from both - Nasrallah rushed to the rescue of beleaguered Palestine.

But where does all this lead to?

At most, another delicate armistice, with the Israeli government claiming victory and Nasrallah (or his successors) taking pride in satanding up to one of the mightiest military machines in the world.

No real solution will be achieved, because there is no treatment of the root of the matter: the Palestinian problem. Whoever longs for a solution must know: there is no solution without settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And there is no solution to the Palestinian problem without negotiations with their elected leadership, the government headed by Hamas.

If one wants to finish, once and for all, with this shit - as Bush so delicately put it - that is the only way.