Horror is being heaped upon horror in Israel as suicide-bombers spray murder about them and Israel lashes back. David Grossman, who says thatthe Israeli government is playing into the hands of Hamas, yearns for the simplicity underpinning the Belfast Agreement
Another victory for madness: a moment before President Bush was to make a speech declaring his support for a Palestinian state, a Palestinian suicide-murderer of the Hamas faction blew himself up in a bus in Jerusalem.
He killed 19 civilians and wounded 70, including children on their way to school. Black plastic bodybags were laid out in a row on the footpath, one after the other, breaking the hearts of all Israelis.
The deed drastically reduced the Palestinians' chances of gaining their own state. Despite this, according to a survey published yesterday, 80 per cent of the Palestinian public supports more terrorist attacks against Israelis.
If that's the case, we must reach the conclusion that the Palestinians are now doing everything necessary to ensure that they will never have their own country.
On the other side, the Israeli government is being pushed into a corner. Chained to its aggressive, mechanical, one-dimensional way of thinking, it immediately declares an escalated response. From now on, the government declares, after every attack the Israeli army will reoccupy areas of the Palestinian Authority. And this time the army will not clear out quickly - it "will instead remain in them until terrorism ceases".
Since terror won't stop, certainly not as long as there is no political settlement granting the Palestinians an independent state, this means that the Israeli government has decided to reconquer the entire area of the Palestinian Authority, in order to ensure that terror will continue.
Why is Hamas so eager to harm the interests of the Palestinians as a whole? Because it fears the reforms which Yasser Arafat will soon be compelled to institute, reforms which will restrict Hamas's terrorist activity. Hamas is also worried because the positions of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia on the need to fight terrorism are drawing closer to those of the United States and Israel.
Hamas's immediate goal is to induce Israel to attack the Palestinian Authority, perhaps even reoccupy its territories, in a way which will force these relatively moderate Arab states to retreat into their previous extremist positions.
So why is the Israeli government - under Ariel Sharon's leadership - playing into Hamas's hands?
Because it doesn't believe that it has anyone to negotiate with on the Palestinian side and because it contains people who oppose any real compromise, but mostly because the Israeli government is at a loss, confused and in despair.
Israel is so much at a loss that this week a senior cabinet minister proposed that instead of surrounding itself with a protective wall and fence, it should surround every Palestinian village and city with fences to isolate them one from the other.
Israel is in such despair today that the idea of expelling the Palestinians from the areas of the Palestinian Authority and expelling Israel's million Palestinian citizens is gaining support and legitimacy in public opinion and at the cabinet table.
On Tuesday, at the entrance to Jerusalem, there was a demonstration by supporters of "transfer" (a nice name for expulsion and deportation). I saw a sign there: "Transfer: the only way to peace!"
In other words, dialogue and compromise and mutual recognition and a consensual border and a cessation of terrorism are not the way to peace. No, the way to peace and tranquility is to expel a few million more Palestinians!
You get dizzy listening to such unfounded claims, from seeing the horrors that come, one hard on the heels of the last, creating a kind of surrealistic continuum in which a madman's logic rules. If we follow each side's line of thinking a little further, we will quickly get a view of the reality in which we will soon be living - an endless jumble of murders and expulsions and reoccupations and strategic terrorist attacks, perhaps even nuclear ones; the destabilisation of the moderate Arab states, perhaps even an all-out war, the outcome of which no one can predict.
It all looks like a nightmare, and maybe only a historian gazing back from the future will be able to explain the hypnotic affect of the nightmare we are striding into with open eyes. Both sides are doing everything in their power, each in turn, to ensure that it comes to be.
Three weeks ago I went to London to participate in a unique encounter organised by the Guardian. Israeli and Palestinian supporters of peace spent three days conferring with the leaders of the formerly warring factions of Northern Ireland.
The Irish, Catholics and Protestants, who had been murdering each other just four years ago, sat next to each other and spoke the language of peace and expressed their grave concern that the conflict might break out again. We, the Israelis and Palestinians, listened to them with much yearning and envy.
At one point, one of the Israelis asked: How did you do it? How did you mange to pluck yourselves out of hundreds of years of violence and hatred and put yourselves on the track of dialogue? What was the moment at which you understood that there was no other way?
David Ervine, a leader of the Protestant forces, who had been caught with a live bomb in his hands, looked at Martin McGuinness, a leader of the Catholic forces, a man whom he had fought, who had been his utter enemy. He said: "There was a moment when I simply understood that this war cannot be won." McGuinness nodded to himself.
A sigh of relief passed among us, Israelis and Palestinians, relief at having made contact with a conclusion that was so simple, at having heard such a clear, longed-for formulation. But then we grew sombre again. We made a quick computation: in Northern Ireland, it took them 800 years to reach this obvious conclusion. Does that mean we have another 650 years like this one to wait?
(I meant to end the article here, but they're saying on the radio that a terrorist with an explosive charge on him is now somewhere on the streets of Jerusalem.
Again the stomach knots up, the thoughts race. You do a quick mental map of those close to you - where each of them is right now - and there's an image of a huge roulette wheel slowly, slowly, coming to a halt).
David Grossman is a leading Israeli author. Three hours after he wrote this commentary, translated by Haim Watzman, the suicide-bomber mentioned at the end blew himself up, murdering six people standing at a bus stop and wounding 35 others.