However, it was caused, the tragedy underlines the major weak point of all the grandiose peace plans and roadmaps and Prisoners documents: they are not related to reality. Reality is the problem that dogged the Oslo peace process as well. As we should have learned from the Oslo process, Peace is not a piece of paper.

Mahmoud Abbas is going to press ahead with the referendum on the Prisoners' Document regardless of the "massacre." The Israeli government likewise will enter into negotiations while the Qassam rockets continue to issue forth from Gaza with increasing regularity.

In the reality of Gaza, the tragedy of the Ralia family, and the bigger tragedies that will happen, were a debacle waiting to happen. It was set up and scripted. The unending rocket fire on Israeli settlements required a response, but the IDF has proven powerless to stop it, short of invading Gaza, a "solution" which would entail more violence. Instead of taking effective action which was impossible, IDF resorted to artillery shelling, which either had no effect, or killed civilians as in this case. The complicity of the Hamas-led PNA government in the rocket fire was brought home when Israel attacked a rocket launching site and killed the Jamal Samahadna chief of the Hamas "security" force who was there, overseeing the launching of the rockets. The Hamas, in turn, can claim that their "resistance" is due to the continuing Israeli blockade of Gaza, which in turn, Israelis blame on the need to prevent arms smuggling. It is beside the point to describe a "vicious cycle of violence." It is not a chance set of acts and reprisals, but rather a carefully orchestrated script.

Against the background of this reality, negotiations and peace processes are an absurdity that cannot gain the support of either the Palestinian or Israeli people. At another level, the proposals bandied about by the Palestinians and the Israelis are unreal as well. They are not peace proposals, but rather part of the adversarial script, just as much as the violence. In large part they are generated in response to internal conflicts and political problems, without even intending to satisfy the requirements of the other side.

On the Palestinian side, President Mahmoud Abbas has been built up to be a hero of peace for his advocacy of the Palestinian Prisoners' Document, which is opposed by the Hamas. The reality is that this document represents a serious regression, rather than a peace proposal. Ehud Olmert has pointed out that the Prisoners' Document calls for right of return of refugees, and asserts the right of "resistance," (continued violence) in violation of the conditions of the road map.

On the other hand, Ehud Olmert's "convergence" proposals, viewed by Israeli hawks as dangerous concessions, are viewed as a land grab by Palestinians. Even in negotiations, Olmert is not going to offer Palestinians what they were offered by Ehud Barak and US President Clinton in 2001. Both sides have therefore retreated from previous positions, and are trying to market unacceptable maximalist positions as "peace proposals." The "peace proposal" of the Palestinians to the Israelis is "Why don't you commit suicide by accepting a few million Palestinian Arab refugees, and why don't you accept our right to continue killing you?" The "peace proposal of the Israelis to the Palestinians is "Why don't you commit suicide by accepting Israeli annexation of large areas of the West Bank?" Not surprisingly, national suicide is not popular on either side.

Ami Isseroff