Is the Intafada over?

Charles Krauthammer has a piece today where he posits that the Palestinian intifada is over and the Palestinians lost. He notes that at the height of the uprising, there were 9 suicide bombings killing 85 people in a single month, yet Israelis have kept their economy running (young Israelis made a point of returning to discoes, pizza parlors, and bus stops hours after the bombings) and their spirits up, despite unrelenting assaults. In the meantime, we have been so preoccupied with the War in Iraq, that we have failed to notice that there have been 0 bombings in the last three months! (How did we miss that?! Remember when it seemed like every morning we woke to new pictures of blood somewhere in Israel?) He proposes two reasons for the change in political tides.

First, Israel targeted terrorist leaders -- attacks so hypocritically denounced by Westerners who, at the same time, cheer the hunt for, and demand the head of, Osama bin Laden. The top echelon of Hamas and other terror groups has been either arrested, killed, or driven underground...Second, the fence. Only about a quarter of the separation fence has been built, but its effect is unmistakable. The northern part is already complete, and attacks into northern Israel have dwindled to almost nothing...This success does not just save innocent lives. It changes the strategic equation of the whole conflict.

I am still skeptical that the Intafada is truly ended. Terrorism is all about seizing upon propitious opportunities to use the media to spread news of spectacular events. Right now, the rest of the world is focussed on Iraq and the uprising there, so any suicide bombings in Israel barely rate a small article on page 2. Arafat wants headlines, not footnotes. The real test will be to see if suicide bombings remain down when the Iraqi situation stabilizes and the Palestinians again have a chance at the world stage.