A memorable line from a memorably funny movie called The Hot Rock with Robert Redford and Zero Mostel is delivered by a diplomat from a make-believe African country who has hired a band of bungling crooks to recover an enormous diamond stolen by the unscrupulous Mostel. After tripping over themselves time after time in vain attempts to procure the gem, the gang that couldn't steal straight is admonished by the frustrated African who has sunk too much money in what has become a fruitless enterprise: "I've heard of the habitual criminal, but never the habitual crime."

The Oslo so-called peace process could be the 21st century's leading candidate for the "habitual crime." Now approaching 16 years (takes your breath away, doesn't it?), unlike the proved process that produces American cheese, the Oslo process has produced nothing edible, but rather, it would seem, lots of poison.

One of the chief negotiators for Israel present at the destruction and a veteran legal expert for the Foreign Ministry, Daniel Taub admitted as much during a recent address to the elite of Harvard's Project on Negotiation (PON). He is currently on a North American tour promoting an initiative called "The Culture of Peace," launched by the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information, an initiative that, judging from his laments over a failed peace process, should probably have been the horse which preceded the cart back in 1993...