Have the Palestinians finally begun to reject the terrorism that they have championed for more than four decades? The London Times reports that they have started sending a message that they have had enough of bloody violence -- by refusing to replenish what's been spilled:

As gunmen spilt it and warring politicians hailed its sanctity, ordinary Palestinians showed their disgust for feuding Hamas and Fatah gunmen by refusing to donate blood.

Doctors at Gaza City’s main hospital are used to a plentiful supply of volunteers queuing up to donate blood for victims of Israeli attacks. But faced with the selfinflicted wounds of the nascent Palestinian civil war, that supply has all but dried up. “We are all frustrated and depressed,” said Dr Jumaa al-Saqqa, director of publicity at the Shifa hospital. ...

“We have a shortage of blood in the bank now. During Israeli incursions hundreds of people come to donate blood but now nobody. Why give your blood? For whom? For one to kill the other? I want to just take my white coat off and go home.”

Outside, Ismail Haniya, the Islamist Prime Minister, protested that the “smallest drop of Palestinian blood is dear to us”. Yet even as he spoke, his Hamas fighters were kidnapping, killing and wounding security personnel loyal to President Abbas.

The Palestinians seem to have lost their thirst for blood, at least their own. So far, that hasn't been the case with the terrorists around them. One cease fire has been called for this morning, after Monday's fell apart on its inception. Gangs of armed and masked men prowl streets, looking for someone to kill; eleven have already died since Abbas called for new elections. The hospital that has run short on blood has an abundance of wounded terrorists from both sides, and their focus has shifted from healing to refereeing the two sides into a truce within the wards.

Some seem rather taken aback by having their own tactics turned onto them. Fatah has used ambulances to convoy its fighters and even to attack Hamas outside the hospital, which surprised one Hamas terrorist interviewed by the Times. Of course, all sides have used that particular trick against the Israelis, but it somehow shocks their sensibilities when Palestinians use the same tactic against other Palestinians.

Perhaps the Palestinians not hauling weapons to kill their fellows have finally realized how empty this path has become. Terrorism once used becomes seductive; a group that can intimidate another through low-risk attacks on civilians will use the tactic again and again, with rationalizations gradually disappearing until the violence is both the end and the means. When two such groups collide, the bystanders take the worst of it, and it looks like they've finally decided to stop fueling their own demise.

No blood for blood, the Palestinians have started to insist. If they remain consistent in that message, it will be the smartest action they have taken in decades, perhaps ever.

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