A Palestinian Senses an Opening for Peace
Last week, Mr. Dahlan sat with Nahum Barnea, one of Israel's premier columnists. They acted like old friends, poking fun at each other, leaning back in their chairs, sipping mint tea. On the previous night, Israeli naval ships attacked barrels bobbing in the sea, suspecting that they were full of arms. They turned out to be filled with refrigerators. That gave Mr. Dahlan his opening.

"Actually, we expect everything from Israel — they spent all night looking for fridges in the sea," he said. "It's not a joke!"

[The night after their interview on Aug. 28 the joke abruptly collapsed when an Israeli tank fired a shell at a group of Palestinians in Gaza, killing a family of four. The next morning, Mr. Dahlan called Mr. Barnea. "Tomorrow you will say that there were terrorists here," he said. "How can I convince people to reach an agreement, when you are shooting all the time?"]

Mr. Barnea demanded to know how Mr. Dahlan could justify sending 17-year-olds as suicide bombers. "You cannot deal with the phenomenon of suicide bombers if you don't deal with the roots of the phenomenon," the Palestinian declared, reciting the mantra of humiliations, house demolitions, assassinations, loss of hope.

But Tanzim is the armed wing of Fatah, Mr. Dahlan's movement, Mr. Barnea argued. "The Tanzim are your people, somebody told them to do that," he said.

Mr. Dahlan responded. "You cannot remove Tanzim from the Palestinian people," he said. "Tanzim is making mistakes. But why don't you remember that for seven years Tanzim supported the peace process? That in 1993 they planted an olive branch in your machine gun? These are the same people. Something's wrong here."

Why put the responsibility on us? Mr. Barnea demanded. The same people who offered the olive branch are now making guns. "You are just making slogans," he said. "You are a prisoner of your theories."

"Why don't you want to accept the truth?" Mr. Dahlan fired back. "That's your problem."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/05/international/middleeast/05GAZA.html