Abbas, under huge pressure from Israel, finally made a declaration for militants to halt their attacks against Israel. But Hamas rejected this call just a few hours after it was made, launching rockets into a nearby settlement. According to the articles, Abbas will be spending a few days in Gaza to have talks with the militants, but that is likely to lead nowhere. Terrorist organizations like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah are self-interested and have no desire to bring the Palestinians a free, thriving society. They know that if that ever happens, they’ll be out of business.

Let’s see if Abbas can really assert some authority here. It will be hard, given that Arafat was closely linked to these terrorist groups, whereas he will have to be linked to the Palestinian people instead. He has got to realize that Israel is probably his best friend in being able to work this out.

Speaking of Israel, they just carried out an attack on Hezbollah earlier today. The harder the retaliation on these guys, the better.