You've got to be a Harvard professor in order to take a half a page of newsprint to say absolutely nothing, and that's exactly what today's Boston Globe does with this Op-Ed from Professor Herbert C. Kelman, Beyond the Gaza disengagement. Professor Kelman seems to be one of those rosy-sighted people who've been out to lunch for the past few years. Even the Geneva initiative's rotting corpse (good riddance) is exhumed and dusted off for a quick cameo. Bostonians seeking to understand the issues involved in the disengagement are completely ill-served by the Globe's printing of this piece.

In the past few days we've seen Mahmood Abbas giving speeches to the effect of "Today Gaza, tomorrow Jerusalem": (This is too good not to quote)

We've seen Hamas holding open press conferences announcing they have no intention of disarming:

And now Thousands of PLO "Fighters" are scheduled to be moved from Lebanon to Gaza following disengagement. Tell me, will they have a stabilizing or a de-stabilizing effect do you think?

But who is the first person who's motives Professor Kelman mentions we should be skeptical of? Ariel Sharon, of course:

One problem never makes an appearance: Palestinian Terrorism and irredentism. Instead, we get a lot of stuff about coordination -- too late now and an impossibility due to Arab refusal to deal in good faith -- and some airy prescriptions at the end about the keys to peace being something about feeling each others' pain, recognizing each other's ties to the land, rights to live in peace and a little compromise all around.

Gee y'think?

They're still celebrating their own suicides, professor. Ariel Sharon isn't the problem, nor is his willingness or unwillingness to compromise. It's time for the Palestinian Arabs to demonstrate that they deserve a state and want peace. So far there is no evidence to that effect.