The West Bank violence

How can the new explosion of violence in the West Bank be explained? Is it again the Israelis' fault, their reluctance to negotiate a peace accord with the Palestinians? No, it's not this. The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, has been working hard for months to reach an accord with both Yasser Arafat and Syria. Together with Itzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, Barak is the only Israeli head-of-state in Israel's existence to do something to end Middle East conflict.

The intentions of Barak in his first year of government are praiseworthy. Is the explosion of violence thus to be attributed to the Palestinians? To their radicalism? To their inability to compromise? No, it's not this. To understand the Palestinians' exasperation and the serious disorder in the West Bank, it is necessary to remember one thing: the shameful delay of any possible accord. Time passes without a glimmer of hope and only one certainty: the continuing increase -- even during the last year of the Barak government -- of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.

-- La Repubblica, Rome