The era of suicide bombing in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be over and the culture of violence is changing in the region, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview aired on Sunday.
Abbas, who was in Washington last week to meet U.S. President George W. Bush, said Palestinian-Israeli violence was down 90 percent in the past four months and he was optimistic for the future.
Asked in an interview with ABC's 'This Week' whether the era of suicide bombing was over, he said: 'I believe it is over.'
'We have started to deal with the culture of violence, we stopped the culture of violence and the Palestinian people have started looking at it as something that should be condemned and it should stop.'
Reading this, one would be surprised that someone on Palestinian television called for genocide of all Jews two weeks ago!
More surprising news from the former culture of violence:
Three members of a Hamas cell were killed and two were wounded seriously Sunday evening when a car exploded in the Sagiyah neighborhood in Gaza City, Palestinians said.
Israeli security officials said that Israel had nothing to do with the explosion and assessed that it had been caused by a device that exploded prematurely, Army Radio reported.
And yet more peaceful news:
A Hamas member was killed in the Gaza Strip on Sunday as he tried to fire a rocket-propelled grenade at nearby Israeli targets, the Israeli Army said.