What do you bet these good men are dead by next week?

While fanatics fight, ordinary people try to live. In Hebron, a City with a sadly bloody history, a few good men have had the courage to try to achieve stability and some measure of harmony:

Heads of local Palestinian clans in Hebron met on Sunday with representatives from Israeli settlements in the area and discussed the easing of tensions between the two sides.

The settlers reported that sheikhs Abu Khader Jabri and Haj Abu Ahram Abu Sneina representing the city’s Arab Muslim population in the West Bank city met in Jabri’s home with the Kiryat Arba Regional Council head Tzvi Katzover, former Knesset Member Elyakim Haetzni and other settler leaders.

The commander of the IDF’s Hebron Brigade, Colonel Yehuda Fuchs, also took part in the meeting.

The Israelis said Sheikh Jabri told them during the meeting that “I do not regard you as settlers but as residents. This city is yours just as much as it is ours.”

The Jewish participants described the meeting as cordial, adding that the sides agreed to strive to live in peace with one another.

You can already anticipate the response that these Sheikhs’ humane, moral efforts received:

According to the Israelis, shortly after the meeting began, the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades issued a proclamation throughout the city that called for dealing with the meeting’s participants “with an iron fist.”

And just to make it more likely that this threat will be put into action, Israel released more than 30 al-Aqsa Murderers back into the pond.

So, back to my original post title: How likely is it, do you think, that these decent men, men who clearly want their children to live a quality life, and to have their souls freed from the burden of religious and racial fanaticism, will still be alive even a week from now? I’ll try to keep an eye on the Israeli newspapers and see what happens.