cease-fire between Palestinians and Israel

The hoped-for breakthrough I wrote about earlier today (here and here) has been announced, and the way I’m reading it, Israel accepted it because in addition to a cease-fire, there’s an implicit recognition of Israel by Hamas (at least that’s why I would have accepted it if I were the Israelis: it’s good enough as the basis for a negotiation, and it may be all they’ll ever get as far as recognition from Hamas is concerned).
Here’s the bottom line:

we [all the Palestinian factions, in a signed document] agreed on the national accord to establish a Palestinian state, with the June 4, 1967 borders,”

The story is all over the wires. Here’s how the Jerusalem Post leads:

Israel accepted a Palestinian cease-fire to go in effect Sunday morning, and will stop military operations in Gaza in return for an end to all Palestinian violence, including rocket fire, tunneling, and suicide bombers, the Prime Minister’s Office announced Saturday night.

The dramatic announcement followed a telephone conversation between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

I am deeply suspicious of Meshaal, who is beholden to both Syria and Iran, so this isn’t exactly a building block to peace—which fanatic Islamists don’t want anyway, because then they won’t have Israel to kick around anymore.

Let’s hope that this very fragile agreement holds, and that it doesn’t inspire certain players (Iran, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda, for starters) to derail it.

I will be very, very curious to read the stories behind this very dramatic turn of events, which follows on the heels of the Gemayel assassination in Lebanon.

And I will be curious to see the reaction of the diehard politicos, talking heads, pundits, and bloggers on both sides of this conflict—all of whom tend to lag behind events when they comment, because too many of them lead with their ideology.