Israel's apologists erroneously believe that the Sharm Al-Sheikh cease-fire agreement failed because Palestinian youth refused to stop throwing stones at Israeli soldiers.

In reality, the cease-fire agreement failed because it did not address the primary source of provocation and violence: Israel's thirty-three-year occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.

The list of Israel's well-documented injustices in the Occupied Territories (which is where the overwhelming majority of the clashes have been occurring) is quite chilling: the expropriation of Palestinian land, the demolition of Palestinians homes, the construction/expansion of Jewish-only settlements and bypass roads, control of water and borders, economic strangulation, dispossession, collective punishment, torture, and countless murders.

Until Israel complies with international law (i.e. the Fourth Geneva Convention and U.N. Resolution 242) and ends its thirty-three-year occupation of Palestinian land, there will never be peace in the region.

The United States and Israel can force Arafat to sign a thousand cease-fire agreements, but he will never be able to quell the Palestinian people's desire to resist; they are not mindless zombies, sheep, or puppets whom he can magically control