Well, that didn't take long

Mahmoud Abbas hasn't even been elected yet and already Israeli officials are

cast[ing] doubt on the ability of Mr. Abbas to reach a peace deal with Israel. ...

[Israeli Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert] said that without a crackdown [on radical groups], "we don't see much chance for progress with the Palestinian Authority."

Olmert said this in an interview with the Jerusalem Post published on Thursday. The interview was reported by the Toronto Globe & Mail.

The question that needs to be posed to Israel (and the US, which backs demands for a "crackdown") is: What is it you actually want? Do you want a "crackdown" on terrorism or do you want an end to terrorism? They are not the same and to a fair extent they are mutually exclusive.

The simple truth is, the PA has neither the people nor the arms to overcome radical groups and prevent violence against Israel and Israelis by force. The only possible results of any serious attempt would be failure or - quite possibly, and - the initiation of what would amount to a civil war among Palestinians. I can't imagine that the Sharon government is unaware of the first part, which leads me of necessity to ask of the second: Is that what they actually want? Do they actually want failure and/or civil war? If not, why demand what you know can't be achieved?

As the Globe & Mail noted,

Mr. Abbas, a pragmatist, has spoken out against violence but has indicated that he will seek to co-opt rather than confront extremists as demanded by Israel and the United States.

As part of that effort, Abbas has been campaigning among some of those same radical groups, such as his stop Thursday

in a Jenin refugee camp, where he was lifted on the shoulders of gunmen and made welcome by a militant leader of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, Zakariya Zubeidi, one of Israel's most wanted men,

said the International Herald Tribune. In addition, Abbas told AP in an interview on Saturday that

he wants to protect militants from Israel.... It was his latest campaign gesture to court gunmen seen by many Palestinians as resistance heroes and by Israel as terrorists. ...

"When we see them, when we meet them, and when they welcome us, we owe them," Abbas said. "This debt always is to protect them from assassination, to protect them from killing, and all these things they are subject to by the Israelis."

Abbas knows full well - and Israel and the US should know full well and if they don't, they'd damned well better learn fast - that the only effective way to stop terrorism is to convince the violent factions that they have another way of struggle, an effective way to advance the cause of an end to the occupation but without bloodshed: that negotiation does not mean surrender.

We know the idea, or at least we know the words: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." And the reverse: If you want to avoid violence, you have to make peaceful change possible.

Abbas is out to convince the violent factions such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad that such change is possible. He will need their support to push an agenda of negotiation after the election, which he is expected to win. For its own sake if nothing else, Israel should be supporting that effort. Instead, it is undermining it, not only by suggesting that in the absence of an impossible and self-defeating "crackdown" there can be no peace, but by trying to drive a wedge between the moderates (such as Abbas) and the violent radicals (such as Zubeidi):

Israel is very concerned that Abbas may be killed before the election by militants who see his candidacy as "an existential challenge to their political existence," [an Israeli] official said.

He expressed relief that Abbas had not been harmed in Jenin, which he called "a dangerous place," and said: "We have information on people who want to kill him."

If this is not part of some intent to head off a chance for peace, then it is simply foolish. Can Abbas succeed in "co-opting" the violence? I have no clue. But it is clear that Palestinians are increasingly frustrated with violence and looking for another path. Abbas is trying to offer one. If the true goal of the Sharon government is a just peace within recognized borders rather than the establishment of a "greater Israel" facilitated by provoking Palestinians to turn on each other, it would be wise to encourage such thinking rather than to dismiss it before it even has a chance to take root.

Footnote: Olmert also gave what analysts said was the first hints of the Sharon government's long-term plans.

Mr. Olmert told The Jerusalem Post that additional Jewish settlements in the West Bank will be removed, even if Israel is not involved in peace talks with the Palestinians. ....

According to the newspaper, Mr. Olmert declined to define the extent of the second pullback but said such a withdrawal was necessary to prevent Israel from being forced to give up all the lands captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

That is, Israel intends to hold on to the settlement blocs in the West Bank no matter what, a determination demonstrated by the fact that the revised route for the separation fence

will penetrate more deeply into occupied territory. It will encompass 10 Israeli settlements around Gush Etzion with 50,000 residents, four Palestinian villages with 18,000 residents and a large amount of Palestinian land in the Bethlehem area, Haaretz reported.

The route will reduce the hardship to Palestinian villagers in the Gush Etzion area, however, and includes more checkpoints in the fence with longer opening hours.

I'm just sure that will completely satisfy all and sundry.