Once again, to our great horror, it has transpired that Palestinian terrorism contains within it a blind and callous cruelty, undeterred by any humane inhibition. No cause, no faith and no national aspiration will ever cleanse the hands of the villain, who in the thick of the night burst through a young woman's door, and while she covered her young children with her own body, shot her at such close range that the bullets ripped through her killing the children as well.

The Palestinian murderer who shot Tirza Damari, Yitzhak Dori, Revital Ohayoun and her two children, Matan and Noam, in Kibbutz Metzer apparently came from the Tul Karm area, from a particularly savage cell for whom even the rules of Fatah's military wing are not sufficiently extreme. To our great horror, this is not the first time that parents and their children have been slaughtered at home, in their beds. And to our great disappointment, there is no one in the Palestinian public to stand up bravely against this contemptable phenomenon and its awful consequences.

In a conversation with Amira Hass (see page 4), members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade bragged of the murders they had committed and claimed that the death of a fighter hurt them more than the death of a child. These violent and ignorant youths, who spread terror all around them, have forced their sickening agenda on the entire Palestinian people. In their bloody race against their rival gangs -- Hamas and Islamic Jihad -- Fatah leaders have apparently followed the most distorted fringes who wreak terrible damages on both the Palestinian public and its leadership.

At times like this, the Israeli public becomes oblivious to the suffering of the Palestinians and the implications of the renewed occupation of the West Bank. At times like this, the Israeli government is pushed to extreme decisions backed by hard-line military thinking. Attacks such as these distance any hope of settling the conflict and strengthen the fringe elements who wish to enflame it.

But, out of the chaos, arises a human phenomenon of sublime solemnity. From the abyss of mourning and grief can be heard the voices of members of Kibbutz Metzer, who wish to guard their relations with their Arab neighbors and continue to kindle friendship and coexistence with their Palestinian neighbors on the other side of the Green Line. The determined struggle of the kibbutz, along with neighbors from the Palestinian village of Kafin, to prevent the separation fence from going through the village's lands is one of the notable paradoxes of the conflict. Metzer members do not oppose the fence. On the contrary. But they insist that it pass along the original route of the Green Line and not along the new route, which would lead to the appropriation of land from Kafin and the uprooting of some its orchards.

Even at the most difficult times, Metzer members received their friends from Kafin and Meisar (whose children attend joint activities with the kibbutz children) and did not alter their opinion that it is possible to have peaceful neighborly relations based on dialogue and agreement. This modest friendship between Metzer and its Arab neighbors in Israel and in the Palestinian areas -- which now stand under a terrible strain -- is a solitary reminder of what the real aim should be. One can only hope that the voice heard in Metzer and Kafin will eventually drown out the cycle of bloodshed.