The Isreali/Palestinian Cease-Fire: Grasping At Straws?

What are we to make of the recent "cease-fire" between Israel and various Palestinian factions operating in the Gaza strip? Is it, as Amos Oz, an Israeli novelist hopes, "the first flicker of light at the edge of the darkness". Or is it, as the Jerusalem Post suggests, "the military and diplomatic triumph of Hamas". If you take the leaders of the Palestinian groups at their word, the cease-fire is simply a "chance to reload" that changes nothing:

"The ceasefire offers a period of calm for our fighters to recover and prepare for our final goal of evacuating Palestine," said Abu Abir, spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, a Hamas-allied terror organization in the Gaza Strip responsible for many of the recent rocket attacks against Israeli communities.
"We will keep fighting (Israel), but for the moment we will postpone certain parts of the military struggle," Abu Abir said.

But, notwithstanding, Olmert sees this as an opportunity of historic proportions:

The past cannot be changed, and the victims of the conflict, from both sides of the border, cannot be returned.

Dictates are futile and mutual accusations are nothing but useless word games. Historic scores cannot be settled and scars cannot be obliterated.

All we can do today is prevent further tragedies and bequeath to the younger generation a bright horizon and hope for a new life. Let us convert animosity and the "honing of our swords" to mutual recognition, respect and direct dialogue.

The cynic in me yells that this is just one more false hope. That, in the end, neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis will make the sacrifices and compromises necessary to end the conflict.

But, for all of that, I can't resist hoping that "maybe this time it will be different."