Mid-East Experts Answer Questions

I do not think that progress is possible unless and until the Palestinians unite their disparate factions and determine a unified course of action. I think it unlikely, given the current inequities in negotiating positions, that there is a good prospect for a resolution of this conflict in the near future. I cannot think of an instance where an occupied people negotiated equitably with an occupier. This occupation will only end, and this conflict resolved, when it becomes clear to Israel that the pain of continuing the occupation outweighs the pain of ending the occupation. The Palestinians will only end this conflict when they realize that the dream of 1948 is just that -- a dream. I say that not in order to denigrate the efforts of fair-minded people to resolve the conflict, but only as a reflection of historical reality. When have an occupied people ever been placed in the humiliating position of negotiating their own liberation? When have a permanently dispossess people (the Lakota, in our own country, for instance) ever regained access to their lands?

The Palestinians have been talking to the Israelis now since at least 1993 -- and many Palestinians for a lot longer. And the more they talk the worse it gets. Even in the midst of the current negotiations, their lands are being taken. Perhaps the world has gotten used to the Palestinians talking and talking and talking. Perhaps we have gotten used to the endless reconciliation conferences.

I would rather that the Palestinians break off all contact with the Israeli government and tell them:

"We are going to take some time to bind up the wounds of our own society, unify ourselves, set out our own strategy and then we will wait. We will not come to Jerusalem to talk to you, there will be no meetings in Washington or Oslo or Annapolis or Cairo, we will not attend any international conferences, we will not participate in any reconciliation seminars, and we will not negotiate our freedoms. Thank you very much, but you do not need to teach us about democracy. Nor are our rights something you can give us in exchange for our good behavior. We have them from God and they are inalienable -- as I believe your Mr. Jefferson once wrote. So, we will wait. You know what you have to do. When you have decided to do it, we will listen. Slide your proposal for peace under the door. If it is acceptable, you will hear from us. Otherwise, we have other things to do. In any event, we have stopped talking."

Ms. Smith,

Your suggestion has a certain natural appeal but on closer inspection, it is as inappropriate to the Arab-Israel situation as would a suggestion for the U.S. to sit down with Osama Bin Laden to begin to "get the conversation started," as you put it. Diplomacy can work when the parties have something to talk about.

Hamas is interested in Israel's destruction; it may be willing to discuss the pace and method of that process but not its content or direction. That doesn't leave Israel much to talk about. Thankfully, there are other Palestinians who are committed to an independent state next to, not in place of, Israel; with them, diplomacy is the way to resolve differences so as to make peace possible.