They Do Not Want Peace, Plain As Day

David Ignatius in the Washington Post actually asked the leader of Hezbollah about having peace with Israel. His reply was as plain as day as it always has been.

Is there any way to stop the horrifying dance of death between Israel and its enemies? Are there terms under which Islamic militants might agree to halt their suicide bombings?

I put these questions last week to Hasan Nasrallah, the head of the Lebanese Shiite militia known as Hezbollah, in an interview at his heavily guarded offices here. It was a few days before the latest hemorrhage of violence, in which a Palestinian woman blew herself up inside a Haifa restaurant Saturday, killing 19 and wounding 55.

"I can't imagine a situation, based on the nature of the Israeli project and the nature of the Israeli leaders, where the Palestinians would agree to lay down arms," Nasrallah answered. A decade ago, at the time of the Madrid conference and the Oslo accords, he continued, "there was a philosophical debate" about the possibility of a peace settlement. But it is over.

"The road of negotiation did not solve the Palestinian problem," Nasrallah said. "If you have today widespread support [among Palestinians] for Hamas and Islamic Jihad, this is due to the failure of the political option."

The solutions to the "situation" become rather extreme then.