"Sari Nusseibeh, the President of Al Quds University, may be a genuinely moderate Palestinian...."

Very true.

There is an aproximately equal chance that Sari Nusseibeh, the President of Al Quds University, may be a leprechaun who is trying to steal your Lucky Charms.

Excuse me but wasn't this called Taba?
And Israel shouldn't and doesn't have to via, 242 withdraw from all of the West Bank. Ariel and Efrat as well as Jerusalem suburbs should go to Israel, period! and they did in Taba.
Further, 242 calls for security concerns and Ariel is at a point where Israel would otherwise be 12 miles fing wide!!

Just because the Palis have been frothed into seething animals, doesn't mean Israel now has to withdraw to every inch prior to 67. THAT'S NOT THE WAY NEGOTIATIONS WORK......

Ho Hummmmmm.

Just out of curiosity:

How many states have NO militaries? And I don't mean "Costa Rica has no military," since Costa Rica's "National Police" has 81mm mortars.

Will the Palestinian police retain the right to M-16s, machine guns, and RPGs? How about high explosives?

Why does the PA's police force currently have M-16s, machine guns, and RPGs?

What would be the legal ramifications if the State of Palestine chose to renege on the "no military clause" and proceeded to obtain weapons and form a military? Will Israel be allowed to invade? Or would that violate the sovereignty of a state?

Just curious....

Well, I think it says "blessed are the peacemakers" in the Talmud or somewhere. These two brave men are to be saluted for lighting this candle of reason amid the monsoon of madness.

Pulling back to the '67 borders would give 22 percent of the land between the Jordan and the Mediteranian to the people who will be making up a demographic majority in that same area in about twenty years. Mike, you're right, that's way too much. In any case, even if Mr. Nusseibeh's plan was endorsed by 99% of the Palestinians, everyone knows most of the settlers are unwilling and won't be asked to leave under any circumstances. To the victor goes the spoils, right?

Don't misunderstand me, if I was talking to Palestinians, I'd be berating them too, laughing at their idiotic foolish pride in refusing half a loaf or more in the forties, a third of a loaf in the fifties and sixties, and for now down having reached the point of being about to lose less than a quarter of a loaf. I'd also point out to them that when they act on their grievances through martyrdom operations and terrorism, this only increases the contempt that most Israelis feel toward them. If they express these grievances in a more civilized manner, and put forth reasonable proposals for resolution, they'll get the best deal and outcome they probably can. But it won't be much. And they'll always have to deal with people who think of them all not as children of God but as "seething animals", or who insist on putting quotes around the word refugees when talking about the events of 1948. They are victims of the conflict, as well.

Thanks, Markus, for reminding us that the Palestinians are nothing but victims, passive agents steam-rollered by history. Never had a say; not responsible for the choices they were compelled to make.

You might have mentioned, too, in your catalog of compromise offers too insulting to take seriously the 1937 Peel Commission Plan -- it would have incarcerated the Jewish population along a thin coastal strip. Too insulting for the Palestinians, who therefore rejected it. The idea of a shriveled Jewish community huddled along a narrow, litrally defense swath of land would only have victimized the Palestinians. (Who in 1937, by the way, would have been startled to be addressed as "Palestinians," that term referring to the Jewish populace. The now-Palestinians would more likely have regarded themselves as Syrians, if anything, but that's another story.)

You know, at some point, it might occur to someone there's a trend at work: each time a compromise solution is offered the Palestinians turn it down; sooner or later they turn instead to war; they get the crap beat out of them; they act as if they won the war and can dictate terms of Zionist surrender; and the next offer is just a bit less generous. Maybe the Palestinians' "friends," especially in the West, can try to impart this lesson to them, in the hope that some day they might actually grab something that's put on the table. Of course, it's also possible that their "friends" are less that and more anti-Zionists, and simply revel in Palestinian victimhood. And possible, too, that the reason the Palestinians don't have a state by now is that they don't have the national cohesion necessary for the task of nation-building.

Criticism of Palestian 'martyrdom operations and terrorism' as ineffectual and not conducive to getting the best deal is what is heard from Palestinian 'moderates' all the time. From polls, it doesn't seem as if even this morally bankrupt message is getting through, Markus. It is condescending to think of and treat Palestinians as children and not to hold them responsible for choices they have made. It shows contempt not to take seriously what they say, and not to tell them Jew-hatred and suicide bombing is unacceptable, immoral, uncivilized and comtemptible, whatever 'their grievances'. I think believing Palestinians when they say they would support suicide bombing even after the creation of a state shows respect. Maybe the reason Palestinians don't have a state by now is that they mean it when they say they don't want even half a loaf, they want all or nothing.

Markus,

You seem to have a problem understanding the Palistinian position as expressed by their leadership, to wit, Arafat and his terrorist organizations will never accept peace while Israel exists, period!

Dont believe me, read the Palestinian Charter and take special notice of the "destruction of Israel" language. It becomes clear after reading the Charter that what the Palestinians really want is to destroy Isreal and to erase all vestiges of the Jewish population from what is now Israel.

There is a hopeful (from my perspective) op-ed in today's Washington Post by Jackson Diehl called "a better road map."
Interesting excerpts:

1. "Israeli and Palestinian negotiators meeting at...Taba came tantalizingly close to finalizing the fine print before the negotiations launched by Clinton collapsed in January 2001. Even now...numerous polls show that big majorities of Israelis and Palestinians would accept something close to those terms if they brought a final peace settlement."

2. "Last week a prominent Palestinian activist, Sari Nusseibeh, and a former chief of Israel's domestic security agency, Ami Ayalon, were in Washington to promote the one-page "statement of principles" they have drawn up. The principles restate the consensus deal; the difference is that Nusseibeh and Ayalon have gotten the supporting signatures of 90,000 Israelis and 60,000 Palestinians in just two months. Meanwhile, another group of prominent Israelis and Palestinians, including former ministers on both sides, is preparing to sign a complete model peace treaty in Geneva, with maps of exact borders. This unofficial pact, too, follows the same lines, with variations of detail, laid out by Clinton and the Taba negotiators."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21852-2003Oct26.html

In response to Wm. Tyroler and Markus Rose: in this context, it is also worth mentioning the much-maligned 'settlements'.

Sure, the Palestinians rage when they see a new community set up, on land they expected to do something with someday. So what? (Contrary to popular belief, Israel does not 'steal land' from the Palestinians; Israel exerts eminent domain, just as the United States does, when necessary, and former landowners are compensated. Please note the recent reports, of Fatah threatening to kill Palestinians who sell land to Jews. But frequently, new settlements are established on unused land.)

From Israel's perspective, the contrast is clear. Palestinians express their outrage by killing innocent Israelis; Israelis express their outrage by going to the site of the murder and building a town there (and, frequently, naming it after the victims).

Philosophically speaking, both sides are playing very much to type. The Palestinian response is murder, while the Israeli response PROMOTES life.

More to the point, the message is clear: the more Palestinians murder, the less land they will eventually have to bargain over. This gives them incentive to stop killing Israelis NOW, and to bargain instead. (The Palestinians, naturally, find such an idea abhorrent, which is why they always START with the demand for the pre-1967 borders.)

In other words, talk of "dismantling settlements" because they are an "obstacle to peace" is quite counter-productive. Part of the purpose of the settlements is to make the Palestinians see reason... something they have not yet done.

Daniel in Medford

Daniel -- I don't have a huge problem with settlements near the Green Line, or with settlers who are willing to leave in order to implement a peace settlement.

But if you're talking about settlement as defacto annexation, as territorial acquisition designed to provide a disincentive to future Palestinian terrorism, you need to face the reality that for every Palestinian who sees the necessity of compromise as a result of a new settlement being built, another two or three or ten changes his mind back to his/her original view that a two state solution is impossible and that the fight must continue for a Jew-free Palestine.

The good people in this battle are people who support a Palestinian state and an Israeli state. The evil people are those who support a Jew-free Greater Palestine, or a Greater Israel apartheid state. The foolish people are those who assume the status quo benefits Israel.

Markus:

When Israel first won the Occupied Territories, how many Palestinians were prepared to make peace?

Are you suggesting that the bulk of Palestinians oppose peace because of the settlements, and not simply because of the existence of Israel?

If that is the case, how do you reconcile this w/ polls that suggest that many, perhaps even most, but certainly a VERY substantial minority, support continued action against Israel (read, presumably: terror, bombings, warfare) even AFTER the creation of a Palestinian state?

If the status quo is unstable, and there is a minority of "good people," as you put it, what solution then?

Dean -- The solution is for Israel to divest itself of the almost all of the territories, annexing just a few parts near the green line in order to enhance its security, while leaving the Arabs that will shortly make up the majority population of the area with enough contiguous land so that they can get busy building their own demilitarized state. The question is not whether some or many Palestinians will continue to try to destroy Isreal, the question is whether Israelis will be safer if they are trying to destroy it from outside its heavily armed borders, or if they are trying to destroy it from within, as members of the Arab-majority living in an apartheid-like Greater Israel.

"When Israel first won the Occupied Territories, how many Palestinians were prepared to make peace?"

Hard to know, because Palestinians have always been constrained from developing democratic political institutions by Jordanians, first, and then Israelis. The PLO, recognized by the entire world with the exception of the US and Israel as the Palestinians legitimate representative, did not accept 242, recognizing the legitimacy of Israel, until 1988. While Israel accepted 242 in late 1967, it did so under a weasel interpretation of 242 whereby Israel would be able to self-designate the fulfillment of its requirements simply by giving up ANY portion of territories taken in 1967, such as the Sinai. Israel's policy was also rejectionist of a Palestinian state at that time, as it touted the Allon Plan, which called on Israel to maintain control of the Golan Heights, Gaza and the West Bank.

It is my understanding that the very idea of a new Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank alongside an Israeli state originated on the Israeli left in the eighties.