Like the proverbial broken record, some of us have been saying for years that only one thing can bring peace to the Middle East: a Palestinian civil war.

It should now be as obvious as anything can be that this is the case. A significant percentage of Palestinians do not want peace with Israel; they want peace without an Israel. If these individuals and groups are not fought by those Palestinians who want peace with Israel, peace is impossible.

The need for Palestinians to fight one another in order to make a state is hardly unique. Many states, including the United States and, to a lesser extent, Israel, have had to fight civil wars in order to survive.

If the American government had not been prepared to fight a civil war, there would be no United States as we know it, and slavery in America would not have been abolished. Likewise, the first prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, killed fellow Jews who resisted his call to put down their arms and accept the Israeli government.

The questions for the Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen are therefore as stark and as difficult:

Does he have the courage and leadership qualities to be the Palestinians' Lincoln or Ben-Gurion?

Does he have enough support among Palestinians, who in every poll over the last years have supported terror and the destruction of Israel, to engage in political and military battle with fellow Palestinians?

Can he neutralize Yasser Arafat, who encourages the Palestinian terror groups?

And if the Palestinian prime minister does take on Hamas and other terrorist groups, can he avoid being assassinated by fellow Palestinians who want Israel destroyed? Could he survive an almost inevitable assassination plot organized by the Iranian regime, the major supporter of those who seek Israel's destruction? Continued...