This is how Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian poet explains the phenomenon: the suicide bombing. He goes to a great length to convince that the suicide bombers are not "looking for beautiful virgins in heaven as believed in the Western world as motivating factor behind the self-annihilation. On the contrary they are more enamoured with ephemeral life -- its gifts of home and hearth, near and dear ones as well as pains and pleasures. Think of Edward Said who died recently in New York after fearlessly lending his eloquent voice to Palestinian cause. How passionately he felt for his old Jerusalem home, the nostalgia of which accompanied him throughout his life in 'exile'. Leila Khaled, it is now revealed, asked the pilot of the TWA airliner she hijacked to fly low along the Mediterranean so that she could have a glimpse of Haifa, her birth place from where her family was expelled in 1948. Even if Edward Said and Leila Khaled could win their battle with an overwhelming emotions of dispossession that drove them, Hanadi Jaradat, the promising law student of the West Bank town of Jenin succumbed to the meaninglessness of life after close associates fell victim to Israelis' targeted killing. She simply walked to a Haifa cafe with a bomb and blew herself off, killing 19 others along with her. She had absolutely nothing to hold her back.

Given hopes, some of their losses restored to them, their dream of Palestinian state fulfilled politically they will surely stop the ghastly, chilling practice of killing themselves. Yet a people so grossly wronged and yet ready to settle at so little have never been so much rubbed the wrong way like the Palestinians before. Uprooted from their homes they are in diaspora eversince. The international community has done precious little to right the wrong. Even the fellow Arabs used them as paws for their intra-Arab politics and swooped on the Palestinians whenever their interests were hurt. Remember Black September? They were mercilessly driven out of their refugee camps in Lebanon before moving out to their new sanctuary in Tunis. But the worse was yet to come. The subsequent story of the Palestinians is steeped in deceit, betrayals and brazen double speaks of the Western peace brokers.

The Palestinians have often been blamed for their violences, although there is no record of their collective resort to violence for they did not afford it before Israel's overwhelming military superiority. Rather they took beatings virtually lying down for many years. It was only in late eighties that the inaction of PLO's old guard prompted a new generation of Palestinians to initiate what came to be known as Intifada. If the stone throwing by the teenagers at Israeli armoured vehicles are to be called violence -- well, that was the only violence the Palestinians resorted to.

Now after the failures of the US initiated Oslo peace process and road map for peace, both of which aimed at delivering an imposed Middle East settlement on Israelis' terms, the Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians escalated ostensibly to annihilate the last semblances of Palestinians' resistance for their bare survival. As it is done in the decisive phase of the war, the Palestinians perhaps want to use their ultimate and only weapon: the suicide bombing. But this is certainly not their choice.

They have been pushed to a corner both politically and militarily where they are left with no choice. The onus of saving the situation now lies squarely with the peace brokers -- notably the US and EU. Only if they come forward with well intentioned offer of a political settlement the two people -- the Israelis and the Palestinians -- will be spared of the looming tragedy: the scourge of the suicide bombing and Israel's devastating retaliation. Both the times and events have proved that no amount of sophistry or trickery will indeed work. the Palestinians are no doubt weak but matured enough to understand what is what and cannot tricked into a settlement that does not guarantee their minimum interests.

The Palestinians are certainly fond of life which is not disposable so easily. They love a life in the pine trees and in the orchard of olives and oranges. But they have to be guaranteed that life. The suicide bombing will automatically stop. After all, life is a 'many-splendoured thing!" Israel and her allies for years went round and round the mulberry bush addressing the basic passions of human being -- the passion for home, hearth and safety. Once in possession of these basics they will be the last to toy with their lives.

Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS