Since Thursday's attack on Jerusalem's Mercaz Herav yeshiva, the ideological home of Israel's religious settlers, there's been enough denials issued by Israel, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to indicate the existence of a commonly-held belief.
In the days following the attack, first Jerusalem's police chief, Aharon Franco, and then Avi Dichter, the head of the Shin Bet, came out denying the likelihood of new Intifada. At the same time, Hamas claimed and then denied responsibility for the Jerusalem shooting, while the PA denied, in response to the killings, that the Annapolis peace process is dead.
Dateline: March 11 2008, the Ramallah Stars and Bucks bureau, 4:35 p.m.
"Never believe anything until it's been officially denied," said famous radical British journalist Francis Claude Cockburn.
Since Thursday's attack on ...