The kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers has brought the Palestinian national movement to a crossroads. As the rescue mission for the students enters its 11th day, one part of the Palestinian “unity government” is now working hand-in-glove with Israel to find Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach, who have apparently been captured by another part of that same government.

Of the 350 arrests made in the West Bank, perhaps 200 are Hamas members – including dozens released in the 2011 prisoner swap for the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. “Everything coloured green [the Hamas colour] is being rounded up,” said an Israeli spokesman, “from a computer hard drive to [Hamas MP] Hassan Yousef. We want (people) to understand the meaning of having a Hamas foothold in the West Bank.”

Two very different roads now lie before the Palestinian people. One is favoured by President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces are working with the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) to find the boys. This road leads to the eventual resumption of the negotiations led by US Secretary of State John Kerry, a historic compromise, painful mutual recognition, Palestinian statehood and peace. In other words two states for two peoples.

The other road, signposted “resistance”, is that being taken by the kidnappers, the unreconstructed radical Islamists of Hamas. And it goes nowhere.

The choice – for a compromise peace or a glorious but never-ending resistance, the dull prose of the two-state compromise or the uplifting poetry of the one-state illusion – will decisively shape the fate not just of the peace process but of the two peoples.

Read the article in full at the Daily Telegraph.