IT HAS the feeling of a ghastly ending, one pushed along by desperation and eagerness. First, levelling Gaza and turning it to an uninhabitable moonscape, with the promise of a territory free of Palestinians. Then, displacing and destroying the already precarious holdings of Palestinian residents in the West Bank, all the time subjecting them to curfews, arrests and detentions while aiding vigilante Jewish settlers, firming up the system of segregation and snuffing out any prospect of autonomy.
The campaign of rendering the Palestinian cause for sovereignty extinct has become an article of faith for Israel鈥檚 security forces, and spectators stare, glumly, at its crude, unceasing momentum. On February 23, the Israel Defence Forces announced that tanks from the 188th Armoured Brigade were being deployed to