The beginning of hope in the Middle East

Boris Johnson says that the end of Yasser Arafat — the man who brought so much suffering to his own people — could be the opportunity for lasting peace

But why did he do it? I asked the dark and bony young man in the yarmulka, still clearing up the scene of the murders. We were standing at the blackened steel counter of Shimmi’s cheese and olive shop, where three people had yesterday been killed by a suicide bomber and 13 seriously injured. It is a testimony to the vibrancy of the Carmel market, Tel Aviv, that business had resumed at the neighbouring stalls within minutes of the detonation, as though an act of self-destruction and murder by a 16-year-old was as banal as a traffic accident. Shimmi’s cheese shop still had ripped awnings and bust fluorescent lights, but fewer than 24 hours later the shop boy was getting ready to open again, and he didn’t seem disposed to ponder on my question.