When the chips are down, it’s better to start off with the half-full glass, even if it’s much less than half full. “Look at this amazing thing,” a high-ranking Israeli military official told me on Aug. 14.

The official told me, “In the last couple of days, Egypt has seen hundreds of fatalities and thousands of casualties, and the numbers just keep rising. For a long time, Iraq has been seeing about a hundred fatalities daily. In Syria, the number of weekly fatalities ranges between 900 and 1,000. The Gaza Strip and Sinai are seething. Everybody’s killing everybody. Now Lebanon is also starting to rip apart and count bodies. And where’s the quietest place in the Middle East right now?” He answered instantly: “In our territories, in Judea and Samaria. Not long ago we saw a rise in the number of stone-throwing and Molotov-cocktail incidents, but that’s all water under the bridge. There’s total quiet. The Palestinian Authority and the Shin Bet are able to generate a perfectly calm atmosphere and reality. Terror is practically nonexistent. This quiet is almost exemplary.”

I asked him to what or to whom the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attributes this bubble of quiet.

“It’s a combination of things,” the official told me. “First of all, there is the diplomatic negotiation. It’s much more important than what might be suggested. Secondly, a resolute, professional and thorough campaign to nip terrorism in the bud is being carried out. It’s not just us — it’s the Palestinians, too. Israel and the Palestinian Authority share a common vested interest in maintaining quiet, so they are seeing to it. There’s intelligence, and the area is under control. Besides, don’t forget that the territories went through 15 tumultuous years, the first intifada and then the second one. Everybody is worn out. People want a respite. They want to raise a family and kids quietly. In a way, this is exactly the opposite of what’s going on with our neighbors.”