Is it possible, asks Mary Holland, to imagine a day when Yasser Arafat is able to host a dinner in an elegant hotel in Jerusalem at which the chairman of the Palestinian Authority pays tribute to the courage and idealism of the suicide bombers who have brought death and a legacy of grief to so many Israeli families?
Almost as important, will Mr Arafat ever feel able to tell the people of Jenin and Ramallah that it is time to recognise that both sides have endured terrible suffering during the long years of conflict in the Middle East and to hold out a hand of reconciliation to old enemies as well as friends?
The idea sounds far-fetched and will certainly be offensive to many people whose hearts go out to those Israeli families who have lost children on the streets of Haifa and Tel Aviv.
The more detached observer, horrified by the toll of death and destruction seen each night on the TV news, knows that such an occasion is something devoutly to be wished.
The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, for example, must surely recognise that the rituals of ending a bitter conflict are a necessary part of the healing process, and infinitely preferable to the continuation of war.
Gerry Adams has been attacked for his speech last weekend at a dinner held in Dublin to honour the IRA's dead. Politicians on both sides of the Border - and of the sectarian divide - have described it as a glorification of violence.
Michael McDowell has pointed to the contradiction between the Sinn Féin leader's readiness to flaunt his party's links with the IRA, while at the same time refusing to give evidence to committees of the Dáil and the US Congress on what he knows about the Colombia episode.
In this newspaper my colleague, Kevin Myers, asks why a blind eye is consistently turned to crimes which police on both sides of the Border believe to have been committed by the Provisional IRA.
One answer, which seems to me to be worthy of serious consideration, is that history takes a very long time to lay to rest.
Like many people, I first dared to hope that peace might be possible in Northern Ireland back in September 1993, when Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with Yasser Arafat on the lawn outside the White House. I remember watching television, with the tears pouring down my cheeks, as the whole world waited for the eternity it seemed to take for Bill Clinton gently to urge the Israeli prime minister forward.
When Rabin spoke, his words were directed to the people living on the West Bank: "We who have come from a land where parents bury their children, who have fought against you, the Palestinians, say to you today, in a loud and clear voice, enough of bloodshed and tears. Enough."
That was a year before the first IRA ceasefire, at a time when parents still wept at funerals in Belfast and Derry.
How fortunate we have been and how much we owe to the vision and determination of political leaders in both parts of this island.
Our own peace process has been rocky and is still considerably fraught with problems. Brutal criminal acts are still committed by paramilitaries on both sides, including the Provisional IRA. As Gerry Adams himself said: "It hasn't gone away, you know."
But at least, and we should be grateful for it, the IRA is on a relatively tight leash.
Those of its members who remain opposed to the Belfast Agreement and see every move in the peace process as a sellout have been, to a large extent, sidelined.
Because the republican movement is obsessively secretive, we only get very rare glimpses of how difficult and dangerous this process has been for Gerry Adams and his colleagues.
The Colombia adventure is the most obvious example of this. Michael McDowell has accused the Sinn Féin leader of having "a yellow streak" (what a deliciously old-fashioned term of abuse!) for his refusal to give evidence about the episode to an Oireachtas committee and to the US Congress.
There are other points to consider. Adams and those close to him appear to have been taken by surprise by the presence of the three men in Colombia and of their relationship with FARC. If this is the case, the events constitute the most serious challenge to Adams's authority, and to his credibility within the republican movement, since the Good Friday agreement was signed in 1998.
The peace is not perfect, far from it. We are still a long way from the hopes expressed by both Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness that the IRA should go into voluntary retirement. Already, I can sense outraged readers writing in to complain that this column is "soft" on murdering gangsters. Before you reach for your pen, consider what might have been.
Look at the video of the grave young Palestinian woman as she explains why she is about to blow herself to bits.
Listen to the Israeli parents who weep for the innocent teenagers who became her victims.
Then give thanks to whatever God you worship for how far we have travelled and beg Her to help Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon to find the same road.