SO FORMALIZE THE DE FACTO:

After losses, Palestinian zeal for intifadah flags:
Many are asking whether revolt has helped them (Mohammed Daraghmeh, September 30, 2007, Associated Press)

[T]he vastly outgunned Palestinians have been exhausted by the armed confrontation. A total of 4,453 Palestinians have been killed, along with 1,114 Israelis.

Israel has built a West Bank barrier, which it says was designed to keep out attacks. But the enclosure dips into the West Bank at various points, putting 8.5 percent of the territory on the Israeli side. In Palestinian eyes, it is a thinly veiled land grab.

Israel has reoccupied West Bank towns and cities, sharply restricted Palestinian movement within the West Bank, and banned traffic between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinian dependence on foreign aid has grown, and most Gazans survive on less than $2 a day.

The number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, meanwhile, has soared, from about 1,650 to 11,000.

"Everything came to a standstill for seven years," said Adnan Attari, a 30-year-old merchant from a village near the West Bank town of Ramallah. "We didn't move forward but backward."

But the lack of commemoration reflects more than the uprising's setbacks. With the Hamas and Fatah factions locked in a battle for power, Palestinians are more concerned about their internal security than their conflict with Israel, polls show.

Which is exactly what treating them like a state and forcing elections was supposed to do. Now Israel and the US just have to allow the internal political process to play out.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 30, 2007 9:49 AM