Since 1948, Israel has been winning every round of its conflict with the Arabs. This time, it may have won the war and settled the issue for a whole generation.

The Arabs have backed away from three "No's" in 1967, and it has now been a thousand "yes's" that have all been rejected by Israel. Israel has continued to occupy, kill and build new settlements, while the whole world knocks at its door, demanding one "yes" after another from the Palestinians and Arabs.

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel went to the Knesset to kiss hands and feet and apologize one more time. Germany has paid indemnities to the Jews for the Holocaust. It should have paid indemnities to the Palestinians for having their land stolen and given to the Jewish survivors of the Nazi regime.

Germany is the root of the problem. However, the problem today is with the United States, which has become a partner in every crime Israel has committed against the Palestinians, with money, weapons and vetoes. In spite of all this, the US could only send its Secretary of State once again, to fail at having the border crossings reopened, or at having the number of checkpoints decreased, or at moving the peace process even a single inch forward. As for Vice President Dick Cheney, upon arrival he accuses Syria and Iran of hindering the peace process, turning a blind eye to the siege, killings and enforced starvation. How does the leader of a war mob, which has killed a million Iraqis, have the right to lecture people on higher ethics in the first place?

John McCain visited Israel asking for its blessing. When the Democratic Party determines whether Barak Obama or Hilary Clinton will be candidate for presidency, the winner will rush to flatteringly outbid everything the Republican candidate has said in support of Israel.

The United Nations, and the Security Council in particular, are but a tool in the hands of Israel, with pressure from the Bush administration. Thus Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will come to Israel to receive instructions. When no foreign leader comes to Israel, Shimon Perez goes to France where he is welcomed like a victor, although he holds no presidential attribute, being no more than a lying Public Relations man.

Even Russia, making its comeback after the death of Communism, does nothing. Its Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visits Israel demanding a Middle East peace conference to be held in Moscow in May. Israel refuses, because it can refuse. George Bush will meet President Vladimir Putin next week, and perhaps they will agree on what to do with us.

Amid celebrations of Israel's political victory following its military victory, where are the Arabs? You were the best of nations for the people, you have now become the worst. I say this with complete outrage at every Arab state.

All Israeli, American, European and Arab responsibility, in the fall of the cause for a generation or more, does not equal the responsibility of the Palestinians in squandering their own cause.

They would be the weaker side, even if they had been working together, united like a single man, and yet they choose further division amongst themselves.

The "National" Authority has no option but to negotiate according to the terms of the US and Israel, whereas Hamas is not its own master. Instead it is bound by alliances that stretch Iran's influence in the Islamic world to the borders of Egypt and Israel, an influence no one can accept… except Hamas of course.

Will Hamas and Fateh confess to the Palestinians that they have destroyed their cause? Will they step down to allow the formation of an alternative Palestinian leadership? That would be impossible. In the entire history of Palestinian and Arab politics, never once has there been an acknowledgment or a retraction of mistakes. Instead there has always been an insistence on the validity of those mistakes, even when it has meant suicide.

Certainly, Hamas and Fateh must have known, when going to Sanaa and returning from it, that no agreement between them was possible. What do the words "returning to the way things were" mean? Will Abu Mazen force Salam Fayad's government to resign, to allow the return of Ismail Haniya's national unity government? The ink of signatures had not yet dried on the papers of the Sanaa agreement when Dr. Hanya announced that he would assign ministers from Hamas to replace the Fateh ministers. He did this while Hamas seeks to have its offices and institutions reopened in the West Bank, as if expecting the Palestinian president to retract the steps he has taken against it since the separation with Gaza.

Neither of the two Palestinian sides know whether they have signed an agreement to implement it or to begin negotiating with each other. And until we all know what the agreement is, the siege, with its slaughter, starvation and destruction, will go on. Meanwhile, Abu Mazen dreams of negotiating the final situation, although Israel has frankly announced that it will cease all negotiations if the national unity government were to return. And Hamas dreams of having the border crossings reopened and relieving the people of Gaza from the misery, of which it itself was a cause.

The first step in the right direction - a step which no one will take - is for Hamas and Fateh to come clean before the Palestinians, to admit that they have failed, to apologize and withdraw. Every hard worker earns something: they have earned nothing. After losing all the rounds against Israel, we have lost the war.