On August 31, the night before President Obama’s dinner inaugurating
direct talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Hamas gunmen shot
and killed four Jewish settlers in Hebron, the West Bank’s largest and
most populous governorate. The attack—the deadliest against Israeli
citizens in more than two years—was condemned by Palestinian and Israeli
officials, who said that it was meant to thwart the upcoming
negotiations. According to a Hamas spokesman, however, the shooting had a
more specific purpose: to demonstrate the futility of the recent
cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian security forces. This
cooperation has reached unprecedented levels under the quiet direction
of a three-star US Army general, Keith Dayton,
who has been commanding a little-publicized American mission to build
up Palestinian security forces in the West Bank.1
In January 2009, Mustafa Barghouti, who placed second in the 2005
presidential elections, stated, “It’s shameful. The people cannot live
with two occupations at once.” Andrew Lee Butters, “Casualties of War: Palestinian Moderates,” Time, January 10, 2009
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