Road Map To Hell

No one in the blood-soaked corner of the Middle East contested by Israelis and Palestinians really believed the cease-fire declared by Islamic militants two months ago would hold. But that hardly mitigated the shock at the brutality that ripped it apart last week. On Tuesday night a suicide bomber blew himself up aboard Bus No. 2 as it carried many ultra-Orthodox Jewish families home from prayers at Jerusalem's sacred Western Wall. A bomb laced with ball bearings killed 20, wounded 100 and left searing images of tiny corpses on stretchers, screaming toddlers with scorched faces and hysterical parents. Six of the dead were children under 16. MARTYRS! REVENGE! shouted newspaper headlines. On Thursday afternoon on a crowded Gaza City street, five Hellfire missiles launched from Apache helicopter gunships slammed into a white Volkswagen Golf, incinerating Hamas political leader Ismail Abu Shanab and his two bodyguards. Fifteen bystanders were wounded. "Martyrs! Revenge!" shouted thousands of Palestinians as they dipped their hands in Abu Shanab's blood.

That's the punch-counterpunch of violence that has ruined hopes of peace for decades. And this latest round shredded holes in the fragile road map the U.S. put forward four months ago to bring the two sides to a permanent settlement. Israeli tanks immediately reimposed a military cordon around most Palestinian cities and towns, locking them down and hunting out militants. Hamas officials, along with the militant Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, tore up the cease-fire with a fiery call for earthshaking revenge. Bush Administration officials struggled to salvage peace prospects, while Secretary of State Colin Powell warned, "The end of the road map is a cliff that both sides will fall off of."

In fact, the glacially slow progress of the road map was as responsible as anything for the breakdown. Palestinians, perhaps impatiently, had expected to see tangible improvement in their lives by signing on to the road map and the cease-fire. "We didn't agree to all this just to reopen the Gaza road," said a Hamas supporter a few weeks ago. Israelis, just as impatiently, expected the security forces of the Palestinian Authority, under Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, to arrest, disarm and dismantle Hamas and other militant bands. Neither side delivered, and each accused the other of purposefully stalemating progress.