More than three years into the second intifada, is it possible to view the uprising as anything other than a disaster for the Palestinian people? Thousands dead, tens of thousands injured and imprisoned, homes and fields destroyed, the PA smashed, rampant unemployment and emigration. Was all this sacrifice in vain? Sadly, it seems that it was. The prospect of a Palestinian state, never bright, seems dimmer than at any time since the Algiers conference of 1988.

This is not to say that the pre-intifada position of the Palestinians was wonderful. Back in 2000 they were led by the same corrupt autocrat, they were under the thumb of the same occupation force and they were ignored by the same pathetic “leaders” of the Arab world.

From the start this intifada was too violent and too elitist. The first intifada was such a success because it was a mass movement encompassing not just stone throwing but also boycotts, strikes and protests. A conscious effort seems to have been made to avoid killing Israelis, realising that this undermined the Palestinian cause. By facing Israeli armour with only stones, the Palestinians demonstrated the gulf in power between the two sides.

This is not true of the second uprising. Very quickly gunmen and suicide bombers replaced stone throwers as the centre of the struggle. This strategy was as politically inept as it was morally indefensible. Instead of focusing on the David and Goliath struggle in the West Bank and Gaza, the international community concentrated on the suffering of Israeli civilians at the hands of suicide bombers

Throughout this intifada the PA has been rudderless, encouraging armed action one day and discouraging it the next. They seem to have neither a strategy for peace nor for war. Arafat has only shown leadership when he himself was in danger of being exiled or killed. Only then did the defiant Yasser of old re-emerge.

Sharon and Bush have exploited this void to foist more and more conditions on the Palestinian leadership. Arafat was forced by his own isolation to accept a puppet prime minister picked purely because he was acceptable to Tel Aviv and Washington.

The uprising is all out of gas but the killing on both sides drags on. Meanwhile, as each day passes, the settlers tighten their grip on the West Bank and Gaza. Slowly but surely Palestine is dying before our eyes, dunam by dunam.