Is a two-state solution still viable?

Cohen, Stephen P. ; Hudson, Michael C. ; Guttman, Nathan 等

The following is an edited transcript of the thirty-second in a series of Capitol Hill conferences convened by the Middle East Policy Council. The meeting was held on April 11, 2003, in the Dirksen Senate Office Building with Chas. W. Freeman, Jr., moderating.

CHAS. W. FREEMAN, JR., president, Middle East Policy Council

Just about a year ago, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia signaled his intention, his willingness to lead the Arabs in acceptance of Israel in return for peace between the Israelis and a Palestinian state. In the run-up to the U.S. invasion and conquest of Iraq--possible liberation, possible occupation, only Iraqis can decide which it is--President Bush privately communicated with all of the leaders in the Arab Gulf his intention to make good on his commitment to move vigorously after the war to produce a two-state solution between the Israelis and Palestinians. More recently, the president has announced his intention to publish the "Roadmap" that was worked out over the past two years with U.S. allies and diplomatic partners. So we may be on the verge, conceivably, of the first serious American effort at peacemaking since the meetings in the last days of the Clinton administration.

It's important that we take some sort of major initiative, not simply because of the responsibility we have, as funders and armers of Israel, to ensure that everything possible is done to bring peace to the Holy Land, but also because we now need to separate the issue of the U.S. occupation of Iraq from the issue of the Israeli occupation of Arab lands slightly to Iraq's west. We need to do this to mitigate the inevitable Arab and Muslim backlash to what we have just done in Iraq and to ease pressures on Arab friends who acquiesced and facilitated our invasion of Iraq over strong domestic political opposition. We also should empower a new, emerging Palestinian leadership with the hope that it needs to inspire exploration of alternatives to violent resistance and asymmetric warfare or terrorism.

In the end, what we are committed to doing and should do is to test the willingness of Israelis and Palestinians once again to coexist with each other. I put it this way because five or ten years ago it was clear that the trend on both sides was toward greater acceptance of coexistence in a two-state framework. That is, what Madrid and Oslo appeared to be producing, but the last two and a half years have seen a hardening of attitudes and an apparent reduction of willingness on each side to consider peaceful coexistence with the other on terms that the other would find acceptable. Are Israelis now prepared to accept a viable, real Palestinian state on part of the territory of the old Palestine mandate? Are Palestinians prepared to accept the Israeli state as it has evolved over these past 55 years?

The question we're here to talk about today is whether the two-state solution is an idea whose time has come or whether it is an idea whose time has passed. And if the latter, what alternatives may there be, short of protracted efforts by each side to annihilate the other and to carry out ethnic cleansing against the other within the Holy Land. But most important, what should the United States now anticipate, and what should we do as we turn our attention from Iraq, one hopes, to this longstanding and extraordinarily difficult issue.

STEPHEN P. COHEN, national scholar, Israel Policy Forum; president, Institute for Middle East Peace and Development

Chas. Freeman is as usual one step ahead of the curve. I believe that the way you constructed this morning is an indication of the fact that you know where the problem lies: in whether or not this is the ideal time to create a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian problem, or is this going to be the time when we come to believe that this idea, which has existed at least since 1937, is finally coming to its end. If we're going to be serious about instituting a two-state solution--an Israeli-Jewish state next to a Palestinian-Arab state that is more or less within the borders of 1967--we're going to have to be serious about aspects of this conflict that have been too easy to ignore over the years.

The fact that this panel begins with someone talking about the American Jews and ends with somebody talking about the American Arabs is a step in the direction of realism. The issue of whether or not there is going to be a serious attempt to create a two-state solution is dependent first, on Israelis and Palestinians; second, on the Arab world; third, on the relationship between the United States and the region as a whole and the United States and Europe; but no less on the domestic situation within the United States and the extent of maturity of the American-Jewish community and the American-Arab community and whether these two communities will be able to take a mature and responsible role towards the United States leading this process.

We have an opportunity this time because most Americans, whatever they thought of the war in Iraq, understand that the test of American victory is not the military outcome but whether there is a possibility of the United States translating this military success into regional political stability and peace. The United States now has to show that it has more than one arrow in its quiver, that it is not just military might that the United States brings to the table of regional change but diplomatic skill and clout.

In all the loose talk about Syria, we should understand that the most important way that we could influence Syrian behavior at this time is not by maximizing threat but rather by showing the Syrians that the United States is really determined to bring about an Israeli-Palestinian solution. This would engender in the Syrians not a comparison of itself to Iraq as a military target but its comparison to the Israelis and Palestinians as an object of an American attempt to bring about peace.

It's very important that in this period everybody come to think about the relationship between this military victory and benefits to Israel not in terms of removing from Israel the necessity of making peace with the Palestinians, but rather in understanding that the United States has taken a major step in removing from Israel any threat of an eastern front. Therefore, the whole relationship between the West Bank, Jordan and Israel now has a possibility for peace rather than for confrontation.

The issue of American Jewry is perhaps the most misunderstood issue in this conflict. It is discussed sotto voce, not as part of serious political analysis but as mudslinging, talking behind the back, as part of implicit hatred and resentment. It's time that we do what Chas. Freeman has done today, which is to move this issue into the light of day as worthy of and requiring serious intellectual and political analysis. There is much that prevents that. People quickly slip legitimate political discussion into antisemitism. And anybody who discusses this issue is quickly subject to the favorite political game of American Jews, "anti-antisemitism," which is a way of preventing this discussion.

American Jewry is a community that has a wide range of political views and political understandings on what is the best policy for the United States and the Middle East and the best policy for Israel's survival as a prosperous, safe country in the future of the Middle East. The problem is that there is a long distance between that variety of views and the way that the community is represented in the political struggle and in the understanding of the political struggle in the media and political discussion.

Many years ago, when the political situation of Israel was not so closely tied to U.S. policy, the United States government encouraged the Jewish community to come together to have one voice so that there would not be so many different organizations making representations to official U.S. agencies. At that time, it seemed like a sensible thing to do. However, the result of that process has been that, even though the variety of views is very great and the vast majority of American Jews are strongly in favor of a two-state solution, that view is not expressed or widely understood. The centralized organization continues to operate alone and is treated by political analysts and the government as if it were the singular voice of American Jewry.

It is essential that that monopoly on what constitutes American Jewish opinion be broken, by political analysis, media analysis, the actions of the U.S. government and world governments. It must be understood that this is a community with a depth of discussion and debate, difference of opinion, smaller and larger organizations, and different perspectives. Even if they are united by the notion that there must be a safe and permanent Israel, American Jews are very divided about whether or not the present way that the United States and Israel relate on that issue is the best way for either country. Indeed, there is a groundswell of American Jewish opinion that is hoping that the answer to Chas. Freeman's question will be given now by the United States in the most clear way: we will not tolerate the possibility that there will not be a two-state solution; we are determined that there will be a two-state solution and that it will happen now, under strong American leadership. This strong American leadership is necessary to bringing about a situation in which the Israeli view that there must be a change will also be mobilized.

The United States does not need to force a solution. What it needs to do is to force the parties into a situation in which they feel they have to make their fundamental decision, that there is no more time to delay. I believe that, if we start to act that way, we will find American Jewry beginning to act that way as well, as an advocate of a two-state solution.

AMB. FREEMAN: Thank you for that characteristically eloquent, honest and very courageous statement, which I hope will be heard in the councils of government and refute the view that you yourself so persuasively refuted, that there is some monopoly view on the part of American Jews that is inextricably connected with the views of Mr. Sharon.

MICHAEL C. HUDSON, professor of Arab studies and international relations, Georgetown University

My short answer to whether a two-state solution is still viable is yes. I don't see much else in the way of a solution coming down the pike. I don't think the old binational model, even though it is talked about, has a lot of viability under the present historical circumstances. And I hope that the present state of seemingly incessant low-level violence will not be permanent.

But I do think that we are at a historic turning point. This is a watershed event, both for the United States and also in the region. I think we're at a kind of a tipping point in the way the region is going to confront or be receptive to a new diplomatic process. It's also a tipping point as to whether the assertive, preemptive, preventive, unilateral style that has dominated U.S. Middle East policy in this administration will continue to go forward. Or might there be, as everybody reassesses the historical possibilities of this juncture, a reconsideration in problem solving of the virtues of diplomacy, negotiation and multilateralism as opposed to the use of threat, force, intimidation and an imbalance of power.

Let me talk about the regional climate just for a moment and then say a couple of words about the Roadmap. I want to structure these comments in terms of pluses and minuses, costs and benefits, optimism and pessimism. As you look around the region at the moment I don't know whether we're in something as momentous as the post-World War I era, the era in which new borders were drawn, the era of Sykes-Picot and so forth, but I think it is an important turning point in the region.

We have to ask what the war in Iraq is going to mean for the region. From Israel's point of view, the news, of course, is mostly good. The big question then that we have to ask is, if the regional climate suddenly becomes a lot less threatening on the eastern front, whether that would translate into a more flexible, bolder kind of Israeli diplomacy, a less reactive, frightened, hostile approach to its difficult circumstances.

From Israel's point of view, we've now seen the termination of whatever strategic threat came from Iraq. We have surely seen the end of the problem of weapons of mass destruction pointed at Israel from Iraq, and that's good news. Some Israeli analysts believe that this American victory, which might be construed loosely as a victory in the war on terrorism as well, will lead to the weakening of Islamist extremist movements, that they will be materially and psychologically weakened, frightened into not challenging the touchy American administration, given America's recent determination to use a lot of force.

Israeli analysts also will point to the weakening of Syria. Syria is in an extremely difficult regional security position now obviously, and people in Damascus are noting the threats and warnings that have now repeatedly been coming out of the U.S. administration. Iran too will be on notice that, with a powerful American force now installed to some degree and maybe for some length of time just across the Gulf and just next door in Iraq, it should be very careful about its nuclear programs, its weapons programs, and its political and diplomatic behavior in the region. The idea of Syria or Iran supplying resistance fighters or material to destabilize an American-dominated Iraq is something that the United States is now in a good position to counter.

On the negative side, from the Israeli point of view, it is possible that the tipping goes the other way. The overall reaction to the war in the region may indeed, as President Mubarak observed, create a hundred new Bin Ladens. The climate may become so inflamed in the Arab region and in the Muslim world that the possibility of non-state-networked terrorism will increase and the incentive for suicide bombings and terrorism on the part of Palestinians against Israelis even inside the Green Line will also increase.

The Israelis also wonder what Washington is going to do next. Israelis who prefer that Washington continue to support Sharon's very tough policies towards the Palestinians will be asking if that will continue. I must say the recent evidence leads one to think that maybe it will, that the personnel who seem to have the most influential voices in the Bush administration are quite sympathetic to the hard-line, preemptive use of force without getting much in the way of diplomatic concessions that characterizes the Sharon regime.

On the other hand, there are Israelis who fear and other Israelis who, as Dr. Cohen alluded to, might actually be hoping that there will be a sudden shift in U.S. policy and that the Bush II administration will do what the Bush I administration did in 1991: seize upon a moment in which American leverage and capital seem to be at a high point to put pressure on Israel to make concessions it otherwise would be unwilling to make. This question might be summed up with another: Can Colin Powell be a James Baker?

From the Arab governments' point of view the news is mostly bad. There's a disconnect between what they said and what they allowed the United States to do. There is a sense in Arab public opinion of the hypocrisy and impotence of Arab government behavior and diplomacy. And there is a manifest gloom over a new U.S. role. But maybe that really doesn't make any difference. Arab governments don't seem to count for very much, so maybe it doesn't really matter what they think or do. In this connection, however, I would remind you that Arab diplomacy did make a good try. With the Saudi initiative of last summer and the Beirut summit there was a plan put on the table. This has to be assigned to the plus side of the ledger.

As for Arab opinion, those of us trying to track it right now tend to feel that the anger and hostility toward the American action in Iraq is hardening resistance and making it much more difficult for a U.S. administration to do the right thing in the Israel-Palestine conflict, should it choose to do so. There is manifestly a great deal of distrust of the American government's role. It will take a good bit of diplomatic and public-diplomacy skill to convince Arab opinion that the United States is really serious about activating the Roadmap.

I think it's possible to say as we look at the unofficial text of the Roadmap, which talks about three phases, the good thing is that the United States has endorsed the idea of a Palestinian state and the Roadmap actually puts the establishment of a Palestinian state with provisional borders in the first phase of a diplomatic process. That's probably an improvement over Oslo. It also talks in the first phase about the necessity of Israel's rolling back recently acquired settlements and freezing the development of existing ones. That's on the plus side.

On the minus side, according to this timetable, which is already out of phase with the actual calendar, it doesn't say a lot about how you get to the final-status issues, the famous issues of Jerusalem, settlements, borders, refugees and so on. This leads me to think that this is a Roadmap that may be leading in a very circuitous way to the goal that it seeks to reach.

On the whole I would have to say that I am a short-run pessimist on the situation. I don't think that this administration is likely to do what Dr. Cohen and many other people would like it to do, which would be to get back to a vigorous, evenhanded and multilateral approach using the other members of the Quartet.

But in the long run I am not all that pessimistic. It seems to me that there is a prominent solution. Reasonable people see that there is an opportunity for a dramatic American role at this particular historic juncture. It is possible that Arab governments, for all kinds of reasons, will weigh in, in the right direction, that the Palestinian Authority will continue to make steps--small perhaps but still steps--toward reforming itself. As for Israeli politics, one can only hope that there is still a silent majority in Israel that sees that a military solution really is not good for anyone, Israelis included.

NATHAN GUTTMAN, Washington correspondent, Haaretz

In a few weeks, this so-called Roadmap that we have been talking about for so many months will probably be presented to both sides formally, even though both sides and everyone else in the region already knows exactly what it will say. Anyone who follows the Middle East should already know that the presentation of the Roadmap will not mean the end of the road for the question of whether Israel and the Palestinians accept it.

Answers in the Middle East are usually "yes, but" or "no, but." We don't expect to get a straightforward answer like "we accept the plan" or "we reject the plan" from either side. This is one of the things that has fed this conflict for so many years and put an end to so many peace plans in the past.

Eventually the time will come when both sides will have to commit themselves to either supporting or rejecting this U.S. led initiative. When it comes to Israel, the question will be, do the Sharon government and the Israeli public agree to the two-state solution that is the basis of the U.S. vision as presented by President Bush in his June 24 address in the Rose Garden?

Surprisingly enough, I believe that the Israeli answer, whether it's the Israeli public's or the Israeli government's answer, will be a yes. The Israeli people and the Israeli government are ready for compromise. Even after two and a half years of intifada and terror and bloodshed, there are some fundamental facts that have not changed since Yitzhak Rabin shook the hand of Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn and since Ehud Barak went to Camp David in an attempt to put an end to this conflict. So I believe that the answer the Israelis will give eventually will be yes to a two-state solution. But, as always in the Middle East, this won't be a straightforward yes. It will be a "yes, but."

So let's begin with the "yes" and then move over to the "buts," which are a bit more difficult. The first fact that we should take into consideration is that Israel has abandoned the notion of a greater Israel. The process of realizing the fact that the Israeli border on the east will not be the Jordan River and that there is a Palestinian entity that has to be taken into consideration has grown in the Israeli public for the past two decades. But it was the Oslo accord, signed in 1993, that turned this mental realization into a political fact. In accepting the Oslo accord, the Israeli public accepted the idea that Israel is going into a process--maybe a long process--of departing from the West Bank and Gaza Strip and moving towards a two-state reality.

It is true that from the beginning there was a lot of criticism of the Oslo accord, criticism that led eventually to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by Jewish extremists. But even as the criticism grew and became louder, the issue was not an attempt to revive this idea of Greater Israel. It was rather a question of whether Israel would be safe with the accord that was brought back from Washington.

This realization was not only on behalf of the Israel peace camp, the Labor party or the political left wing. When Benjamin Netanyahu came into power in 1996, he also accepted the Oslo outline. Even Ariel Sharon, when he was elected prime minister in 2001, embraced, maybe without great enthusiasm, the idea of an independent Palestinian state at the end of the process. Some may say he never thought we would get to the end of the process, but Sharon's declarations do prove that he does accept this idea eventually.

Another fact that we should take into consideration in trying to understand the Israeli viewpoint is the attitude of Israelis towards the settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Contrary to what many may think, the Israeli public does not believe that settlements are essential for the well-being of Israel or for its security. A monthly poll done by two researchers from Tel Aviv University, Tamar Harman and Efrayim Ya'ar, found as late as last month that seven out of ten Israelis are willing to evacuate all settlements in the Gaza Strip and all of the isolated settlements in the West Bank, leaving under Israeli control only a few settlement clusters near the Green Line in return for tree peace. This means that, even without any peace plan on the table, Israelis understand that the settlements are something that will have to go sooner or later.

After Camp David, with a crumbling government at home, polls showed that 60 percent of the Israelis supported what Ehud Barak had offered the Palestinians, including over 90 percent of the territories, a land swap with Israel, dismantling of the settlements and even the most difficult issue for Israelis--raised for the first time at the Camp David talks--the division of Jerusalem. This is an overwhelming rate of willingness to reach out for compromise. We should keep in mind that, before Ehud Barak raised the question of dividing Jerusalem, it was a taboo in Israeli culture. No one was willing to talk about it. When he came back with this idea, even though the talks did not succeed, Barak had 60 percent of the population supporting him.

Some will say this was two and a half years ago, and since then Israel has drifted to the right. So let's look again at the Harman-Ya'ar peace poll of March 2003, two and a half years after the intifada began: 69 percent of the Israelis wanted the immediate resumption of talks with the Palestinians, and 58 percent were willing to accept an independent Palestinian state and the 1967 borders with only minor adjustments. The bottom line is that the Israeli public does support a compromise and a two-state solution.

But, of course, there is a major piece of evidence to prove the opposite: the results of the 2001 and 2003 elections. Being a democracy, there's little room for speculation about what the Israeli public thinks. What Israelis think is what they say with the ballots. The results of the 2001 and 2003 elections show that there is indeed a drift to the right and that the so-called peace camp has declined in power. But it takes a deeper look into the Israeli elections to understand exactly what the Israelis were thinking when they sent Ariel Sharon to the prime minister's office in Jerusalem. Was it really a vote against the peace process? Did the Israelis say no to the notion of a two-state solution?

I would like to offer another explanation. The Israelis did indeed vote no, but they did not say no to the peace process. They voted no to terrorism. They voted no to the use of violence as a political instrument. And they voted no to going back to being terrorized at home. They also voted no to Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who was perceived after Camp David as arrogant, adventurous and irresponsible. Ariel Sharon got 63 percent of the vote, not because his agenda was against a two-state solution, but because he offered Israelis a sense of stability and a promise of security. The same was true for the 2003 elections. The people voted out of fear, out of despair, and because they saw no other alternative. They were offered no other alternative by either of the political parties at home.

The Middle East peace process was not abandoned by the Israeli public; it was only set aside. The public in Israel is still a great supporter of peace and compromise, but these issues aren't relevant right now. There is only one issue that has had control of the Israeli public agenda for the last two years: fear. When people are afraid to get on a bus, to send their kids to school or to sit in a coffee shop, the question of two states or territorial compromise seems very distant. It is fear that can explain the outcome of the elections in Israel and the continuing decline in the power of the Israeli peace camp. But the situation can be reversed. Since the fundamental approach of the Israelis has not changed, the way to turn the wheel back is by dealing first of all with the cause of the fear, which is the terror.

Going back to the "yes, but," it's time to deal a bit with the "buts." Yes, Israel will resume talks and agree to a two-state solution, but something has to be done to ensure that Israelis can return to their daily lives without thinking twice before entering a shopping mall.

There is another but: the need to rebuild trust. We can say, yes the Israelis are willing to go back to the point reached at Camp David, but this time the process has to go much slower. Two and a half years later and after thousands of casualties on both sides, there is little trust left on either side. The majority of Israelis won't accept again the notion of going from zero to 60 in one summit. Camp David did away with that possibility. The Israelis would like to see an incremental process with measurable benchmarks. In simple terms, the formula is this: the more security we get, the more we'll be willing to give. I'm sure that by building the peace mechanism in that way and showing real action to curb terror, there will be a possibility of reigniting the basic Israeli willingness for peace and compromise.

What about the Israeli government? Some would say Ariel Sharon is now leading a right-wing government that will not agree to any compromise in any situation. That is true; the government that Ariel Sharon formed after the January 2003 election is based on the right-wing parties. He has the Likud, which is a right-wing party, and his partners in the coalition are even farther to the right and more opposed to a two-state solution. Ariel Sharon himself is considered a hardliner. He is known as a supporter of the settlements and the territories. He is known as someone who is opposed to any two-state solution.

But having said that, we also have to understand that Ariel Sharon has another side, the pragmatic side, a side that we see more and more of lately. Ariel Sharon knows that his greatest asset right now is his good relationship with the U.S. government. Sharon has become best friends with the Bush administration, with the president himself, even with Congress, and he will do nothing to compromise this relationship. Sharon owes much of his success in Israel to this fact. We should remember what the Israeli public already showed us in 1992, when they ousted Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir because of the feeling that he was leading Israel to a crisis with the United States--that it won't tolerate a leader that endangers the relationship with its greatest ally, the United States.

So, how do you go about resuming the peace process on the basis of a two-state solution? As far as Israel is concerned, the way is to base the plan on the yes and deal with the buts. The basics are there, but it will take a lot of work.

KHALIL E. JAHSHAN, executive vice president, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee

Is a two-state solution to the Palestine problem still viable? Theoretically yes, practically no. First of all, if by a two-state solution we mean the concept that aims at recognizing Israel as a democratic and sovereign state within secure and defined borders, namely those of June 4, 1967, living at peace alongside an independent, sovereign and democratic state of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza that comprises 22 percent of historic Palestine, then the two-state solution remains the only rational, realistic and viable option. So, in that sense, I say yes.

Let me explain my schizophrenic answer to this question. First, the reason I say that the two-state solution remains the only rational, realistic and viable option is the fact that all the other options are neither attractive nor morally or politically feasible. A Jewish state over all of greater Israel will not work. Neither would a Muslim state over all of historic Palestine. The reason is very simple: The price of either option is too high from a political and moral perspective. Each would likely lead to a prolonged and existential military confrontation that would end with some form of ethnic cleansing. I am not sure that the international community, particularly at this juncture in history, would allow either option to materialize, even if the parties on the ground deemed it morally or politically feasible.

There is, of course, a third option, a secular democratic state in all of Palestine. That option would also, in my judgment, generate insurmountable opposition since it challenges Israel's predominantly Jewish character. Therefore, it's safe to expect that Israel will continue to oppose it vehemently.

Second, since the Oslo process failed to produce a permanent-status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, the prospects for a two-state solution have been receding at an accelerating pace over the past ten years. I would like to highlight five main reasons for this decline.

One is Israel's expansionist settlement policy. The settlement policy of the state of Israel and its insatiable appetite for more Palestinian land has left no room, practically speaking, for the concept of exchanging land for peace and for creating two states within the borders of mandated Palestine. With 45-50 percent of the West Bank land today under the control of Jewish settlers in terms of actual settlements, bypass roads and security fences, very little is left to establish a viable state for the Palestinians even if the will to create such a state were there.

Successive Israeli governments, both Labor and Likud alike, have been quite effective at preempting the realization of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state by creating demographic facts on the ground to prevent that state from emerging. So as we speak today we are dealing on the ground with 141 illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, 11 in East Jerusalem, 16 in Gaza, 33 in the Golan Heights, with a total population of at least 435,000 settlers.

Add to this the fact that these settlements are not isolated. Sometimes the impression you get is that they are small and easy to move. Some of them are, but today settlers control 45-50 percent of the area of the West Bank, more than 2,400 square kilometers. What is left? When we talk about returning 80 percent, 90 percent or even 99 percent of the West Bank back to the Palestinians, are we talking about a percentage of the whole West Bank and Gaza, the 22 percent of Palestine, or are we talking about a smaller portion of that? This becomes even more critical when you take into consideration the fact that over the past ten years since Oslo we have witnessed a 52.5-percent growth in housing units and a 72-percent growth in the settler population.

The second point is the damage of the past 30 months. There is a total underestimation of this issue in Washington. Administration officials seem to adhere to the naive notion that once President Bush tells the parties to jump, they all are going to say "how high" instead of asking why. They are supposed to kiss and make up in spite of the vicious bloodletting of the past two and a half years. There is absolutely no serious estimation of the damage done by the past 30 months of the most violent phase in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Furthermore, there is no serious recognition of the damage this administration has done through its policy of neglect.

Palestinians have 2,370 dead over the past 30 months and more than 40,000 seriously injured. Israelis have 760 dead and more than 4,500 injured. Let me put these numbers in American terms so that you can understand the shock and trauma these people are going through. 2,370 Palestinians killed is the equivalent of 204,681 Americans being shot on the streets of America over a period of 30 months. Look at what happened to us trauma-wise with 3,000 killed in the vicious terrorist attack on September 11,2001, and consider for a moment what would have happened if we had had 200,000 people killed. The injured in Palestine are the equivalent of 3.5 million Americans shot and maimed by soldiers. For Israel the numbers are not insignificant either. 763 Israelis killed is the equivalent of 43,491 Americans. That's more than ten times what we lost on September 11. The injured on the Israel side is the equivalent of 256,000.

To expect these parties, simply because President Bush is ready, to jump on the bandwagon and say, "Yes, sir, let's move forward," is very naive, in my judgment. Our policy of benign neglect since September 2000 is apt to come back to haunt us even if we were to proceed with the Roadmap with good intentions.

Third, I fully agree with what Nathan described earlier in terms of the difficulty involved with the nature of the coalition government in Israel being very hard-line and avowedly pro-settler. If we proceed with the Roadmap, I simply can't see the Sharon government implementing a settlement freeze before the end of this year, as provided by the Roadmap. Of course, this assumes that the Palestinians would fulfill the long list of security requirements demanded of them before Israel delivers its first concession to the Palestinian side.

Clearly the current government in Israel has no vision for peace. It has, however, a vision that uses settlers to preempt a Palestinian state. So it's not surprising that when Sharon talks about a state and President Bush talks about a state they're talking about two different concepts. Does the president really understand Sharon's vision of a Palestinian state that does not exceed 40-45 percent of the West Bank? Does the president share that vision? You don't get a clear and straightforward answer at all from the White House or the State Department.

Fourth, the political situation in Palestine is also dismal. You are not going to be able to effectively implement a two-state solution with Yasser Arafat a prisoner in the ruins of his own office. Suddenly everyone is calling for reform in Palestine. The Palestinians have been asking for reform for ten years to no avail. At least three secretaries of state have urged us to slow down, because this is not the right time for reform. "When the Palestinians have a state of their own," we were assured, "then we'll start talking about reform." Now all of a sudden everybody in this administration is for political and economic reform. My poor old friend Abu Mazen is quickly becoming the ultimate victim of the frustration of rising expectations. I wish President Bush had not endorsed him publicly the other day. The last thing he needed is that hug of death. He is facing a difficult position as it is, trying to put a functional and credible government together. Leaving him alone for the time being would probably be best. I think it is very unrealistic to expect this man to come in and somehow single handedly rescue Israel and the Palestinians from their folly and bring them back miraculously to the negotiating table.

What we just heard about Israeli public opinion also applies to Palestinian public opinion. It's a mirror image of the situation on the other side.

Fifth, the political situation in Washington is probably the most serious hindrance to the success of a two-state solution and the Roadmap. With the aggressive and unilateral political tendencies of post-9/11 thinking in Washington, the global war against terrorism, Afghanistan and the Iraq war, I cannot see this administration paying more than lip service to the Palestine problem.

I have closely observed American decision-makers at every phase of the past three peace processes in the Middle East. There were always serious deliberations and preparations preceding negotiations. Right now there is no such preparation in Washington. So I can't see how this administration is going to shift gears and suddenly come up with a peace process with no preparation at all. They seem to forget what happened at Camp David. Why did Camp David fail? There were many reasons, but the lack of preparation on the part of the Clinton administration ranked first among them.

I see why there is this urge now to move forward. Chas. mentioned earlier defusing the anger of the Arab street, helping Blair, helping the EU, coming up with a positive project to bridge the gap that has developed with Europe over Iraq, and placating Arab allies who participated in the coalition of the willing but were too embarrassed to tell their people about it so they were not included on the official State Department list. All these factors militate for action at this time.

We are all quite aware of what it takes to achieve a two-state solution. Former Secretary of State Jim Baker wrote an op-ed piece a couple of days ago in the Toronto Star. I'd like to quote him:

 This is a tragic version of the old chicken-and-egg problem. Land
 for peace under United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242
 and 338 therefore is the only basis upon which the dispute can be
 settled. Any decision to reopen the Roadmap to substantive
 amendment, for instance, is an open invitation for interminable
 delay. And there should be no conditions whatever to Israel's
 obligation to stop all settlement activity. The United States must
 press Israel--as a friend but firmly--to negotiate a secure peace
 based on the principle of trading land for peace in accordance with
 U.N. Security Council resolution 242.

Finally, where does that leave us? We're left with three options:

(1) The status quo, which is totally untenable in view of Israel's situation economically, emotionally, psychologically. I agree totally with Nathan--they want a way out of the current predicament. Palestinian society is in the same situation. Intifada fatigue characterizes the psychological and security situation both in Israel and Palestine. Both peoples want out. The status quo is not going to work.

(2) The option of one state as a result of Israel's annexing the West Bank and Gaza and extending citizenship and full equality to all its citizens. If you believe that this will happen, I have a piece of real estate on the surface of Mars I'd like to get rid of today.

(3) The option of one state as a result of Israel's annexing the West Bank and Gaza but expelling or transferring large numbers of Palestinians to neighboring Arab countries. It has as much viability as any other option, but I don't think it will happen that easily. There are people in the Israeli cabinet who advocate it, so you have to take it seriously.

This brings us finally to the Roadmap. We are told it's the only game in town. It claims as its ultimate objective a sovereign, independent, democratic and viable Palestine by 2005 in the context of a two-state vision. I think the Roadmap under certain conditions might lead to the establishment of an independent but truncated Palestinian state. However, I doubt that it would succeed in fulfilling the vision of two states, as the document itself says, "living side by side in peace and security." At best it will create a state and a half, reflecting the vision of President Bush that falls between Barak-minus and Sharon-plus: a state of Israel and a state of Palestine encompassing Gaza and no more than 50-60 percent of the West Bank.

Q&A

Q (Jerome Segal, University of Maryland):

The Roadmap, despite the fact that it identifies the two state solution as a stated objective, is largely a decision to rewind the clock and restart the Oslo process. Like Oslo, it begins with a series of confidence-building phases. Phase II gives rise to the provisional Palestinian state, but from the Palestinian point of view this is only a symbolic restatement of the Palestinian Authority that already exists. Stage three is similar to Oslo's stage two: final-status negotiations, all the big issues, are to be negotiated at that point. The Roadmap doesn't offer anything more than a verbal consensus around the goal of two states. The gap on all the final-status issues is so wide that there's no possibility of successful negotiation with a Sharon government True, Sharon has a pragmatic side. True, there is a decreased threat on the Eastern front, but there remains little likelihood of successful negotiations, if Phase III is ever reached.

What we really need on the Israeli side is a new government, and the last election showed us why we can't get there now. It's not because of the substantive positions of the Israeli public; it's because of the damage that's been done in the last couple of years to the notion that there is any real Palestinian interest in ending the conflict. The contribution that the Roadmap can make at best--and it will be important--is to re-legitimize the Palestinians as a partner in the peace process. Implicitly, if we get to the point where the Sharon government is negotiating with the Palestinians, then Sharon himself will have reversed the declaration that Barak made: that there's nobody on the other side to make peace with.

If we can get to that point, and a negotiation deadlock occurs, then there will be an opportunity for the Israelis to make a real decision to elect a new government. I wouldn't count on the United States making much of a contribution to that. And after 15 years of running a Jewish peace organization--though Stephen Cohen is absolutely right about the centrality of American Jews--I don't believe we should put too much faith in any suggestion that something productive is going to come from our community.

DR. HUDSON: I agree with Dr. Segal's characterization of what appears to be the Roadmap--that it looks in many ways like Oslo with all of its failings, putting off important things until it's really too late. But the modality of the Quartet, were it to be fully and actively implemented, might lead to a happier ending. That, of course, depends on an American government acting multilaterally when in Iraq at least it appears not to be in a mood to do so. But were it to accept the framework it has agreed to, of a quartet, and if it allowed the other three members to play an active role, and if everybody knew there was an international consensus, maybe you'd have a happier ending.

DR. COHEN: I'm concerned right now with what is happening here to the Roadmap, as if there isn't enough criticism of the Roadmap in the parts of the American community that don't want it to be implemented. In the parts of the American community that want it to be implemented, there should be something more of how to make it work rather than how to further destroy it.

Let me just point out one thing that is in the Roadmap that is supposed to happen at the very beginning of Phase I that would already be a very significant event in Israeli society and American Jewish society. At the outset of Phase I, the Israeli leadership issues an unequivocal statement affirming its commitment to the two-state vision of an independent, viable, sovereign Palestinian state living in peace and security alongside Israel. That's the first thing in the Roadmap.

If that first thing in the Roadmap were to be accomplished by this administration in the year 2003, that would already change the context of the next Israeli election. It would change the context of the American Jewish political debate. It would change some of the ridiculous discussion that goes on in the American Congress. And that's at the very beginning. Never mind the third year, never mind the second year; that's at the very beginning, Phase I.

We can all come up with an enormous list of reasons for being pessimistic. That does not require a forum chaired by Chas. Freeman. A Chas. Freeman forum should be a meeting in which people are trying to find a way to get somewhere, to get out of this problem, not to get deeper into our own despair, which is deep enough right now.

MR. GUTTMAN: I think the Roadmap can contribute something to the political discussion in Israel. Right now the choice the Israeli voter has is either to vote for the right wing or for nothing on the other side, because there is no peace plan to discuss. Once this peace plan is put forward, several things can happen in Israeli politics. First of all, Sharon will probably try to say some sort of a "yes" to maintain his good relationship with the United States. When it comes to implementing the plan, he will probably lose his coalition partners, but he always has the Labor party sitting in opposition, which will give him a security net. Amram Mitzna of the Labor party will be happy to jump into a national-unity government based on this Roadmap, so we can pass the first stages of the Roadmap with only slight political changes in Israel. When it gets to the final stage of having an independent Palestinian state, the Israelis will probably have to go to elections again, but then they will have a plan on the table. They will be either voting for or against the peace plan, not for Sharon or against Sharon.

MR. JAHSHAN: The most attractive thing about this plan, from a Palestinian-American perspective, is the fact that, unlike other plans, its preamble states clearly its objective of seeking an independent, democratic and viable Palestinian state. I think the Roadmap is going to be announced soon. I think the parties are going to proceed forward with it. The Palestinian side is committed to this. They have been informed by the United States and the Europeans that it's on the way and they are ready to move forward with it. But there are numerous versions of the Roadmap. You look at the original ones, and you look at the most recent one that is most likely to be announced in a few days. It's no longer a roadmap; it's a ramp to the Roadmap.

My problem is not with the ramp or the Roadmap. We all need ways to get out of the current predicament. But what's the final objective? I'm not sure it will lead to two states. Palestinians have not gone as far as they have--55 years of pain and agony--to settle for half a state. If we have learned anything from the past ten years of negotiations, it has to be a credible, viable, independent and sovereign Palestinian state. The document starts well and ends well by calling for an independent Palestinian state. However, there are many problems in between. For example, what is an "independent state with attributes of sovereignty"? It's either a sovereign state or it's not. What is an attribute of sovereignty?

I wish that the circumstances in the region were such that we could just adopt the Roadmap and move forward with it, but they're not. Unless these fundamental difficulties are tackled, the plan is going to be jeopardized.

Q: I took great interest in Dr. Cohen's challenge that the American-Jewish community and the American-Arab community work towards getting their people to be positive about the Roadmap or peace. There is a lot to do to protect against what I understood Dr. Cohen to talk about: I'm referring to what he called the antisemitism aspect. I feel that in the intellectual community this boil must be popped so that we can move on to allow the political process to go forward. If we don't get to it through the intellectual community, the political process will be stymied.

DR. COHEN: Some of us have been trying to get Arab Americans and Jewish Americans to work together. It's not such an easy process. But there is much more goodwill between some elements of the two communities than there has ever been before. There's a recognition on the part of elements in both communities that we can greatly reinforce each other by developing the kind of discourse that would push a strong part of the American citizenry to make the United States a leader in peace and be willing to take responsibility for moving this process beyond the shaky uncertainties that exist in the two communities and also in Israel and among the Palestinians. Those shaky feelings should not stop the United States. They should be an encouragement to the government to understand that the best thing it can do for both of those peoples is to push that ambivalence in the direction of solution and not in the direction of continuing to do nothing to change the situation.

I believe that the Christian churches in the United States are a very important part of that process. We have seen a coalition that has involved some Jews and some Christians who have wanted to make this into an endless conflict. Now we have to see a majority of Christian churches operate with Jews and Arab-Americans who want to solve this problem to take the lead in changing American public opinion. We can't leave it to those who want to perpetuate the conflict and who want the United States to focus on everything in the Middle East except this problem. We must not let that happen.

MR. JAHSHAN: I agree. Steve and I have participated in many of these efforts over the years, and we continue to do so. Unfortunately however, and I think Steve would agree with me, the quality of the interaction between our two communities has not reached the serious and productive level that he and I would like to see. We've allowed events in the region to determine the level and quality of our interaction as two communities. I remember for years Jewish leaders in mainstream organizations whose excuse was always, "the time is not right, the circumstances in the region do not allow us to do that." We've had the same hesitation on our side, too. I hope that sooner rather than later we transcend this timidity and approach the issue with much more seriousness and moral commitment.

AMB. FREEMAN: I think, Steve, in your opening remarks you were much more direct and honest in addressing a problem that afflicts both communities, which is the effort by some to impose political correctness and inhibit discussion. As you said, too much of the discussion of this issue among Americans is sotto voce behind the backs of those with whom we disagree and ultimately dishonest and unproductive. I heard you call for a different type of dialogue. I hear Khalil calling for that also, and I heartily endorse that.

Q: There has been a lot made in the press lately about the so-called cabal of neocons, who are mostly pro-Israelis. How serious is this, how important for the image of the United States as the Bush administration tries to do something in the Middle East? I heard Dennis Ross recently say that one of the failures of the Oslo process was the failure of the two sides to talk to the people on either side.

DR. COHEN: One of the most controversial questions has been about the role of people like Richard Perle. There are two aspects to that controversy that I think are very important to our discussion today. One is that Richard Perle and a group of others who came into this administration advanced a set of ideas about the U. S. relationship to the Arab world, which was a highly aggressive one and which created an intellectual basis for a new kind of American approach to many of the countries in the region. I happen to disagree with those views very strongly and I haven't hidden my disagreement with them, either in discussions in open conversation or within the Jewish community.

But there is a kind of criticism of them that makes it impossible to defeat their influence within the American Jewish community. That is when they are attacked as if they're not acting according to their jaundiced views of what's good for the United States but as if they're acting only for the interests of Israel. When you do that, you're crossing the boundaries in a way that increases the reluctance of Jews to join in the criticism of their views. These people, in my view, are misguided, but they're misguided as Americans trying to think of what America should do. They are not acting as Israeli agents. Insofar as that kind of discussion is going on in America and elsewhere in the Arab world, it just makes it harder to have the debate that's necessary about these very dangerous views of how the United States should relate to the Middle East.

These are views that I believe that every one of us on this panel would be happy to disagree with and join in attacking. But don't make it into something that has to do with issues of disloyalty to the United States. The issues have to do with directing the United States in a very wrong way, based on deep misinformation and disinformation about the Arab world. They have to do with the fact that there is very little knowledge in the United States in general about the Arab world, and that knowledge has become highly polarized. Respect for the scholarship of those who know something about the Middle East has been trashed to the point where everybody's views are seen entirely as political, and nobody is seen as having any real knowledge or expertise. This has reduced this debate to a terribly low level.

We are not in the situation with regard to some of these countries that we were when we started a war in Vietnam. There are many Americans who have spent time and parts of their lives studying and visiting these countries and know something about them. We have relationships with people in many of these countries. We don't need to act on the basis of stereotypes developed by people who never visit these places, who never talk to anybody from these places. We should be able to have an honest intellectual discussion. We have distinguished former members of the American diplomatic corps who are cut out of any of these discussions because they don't have the PC view on this or that issue.

That's our collective problem: How do we have a serious discussion about the Arab world in this country? How do we have a serious discussion about the fact that the failure to solve the Arab-Israeli problem is an important factor in how the United States is perceived in the world and how the Arab world will perceive the United States? We have to have such a discussion. Those of us who have this discussion and those of us who know that it's a crying shame that we don't have a discussion have to be especially careful that we keep issues of loyalty and antisemitism out of it so that we don't muddy the waters and prevent this debate from going forward in the proper channels.

MR. JAHSHAN: It's very important for me personally and also in terms of my association, since I work for a civil-rights organization. Some people in our community and in the Arab world, particularly in the Arabic-language media, fail to understand the complexity of this issue of antisemitism. It's always described as a weapon used by people who support Israel to stifle debate. And quite often it is. Stephen mentioned that in his earlier remarks, this anti-antisemitism tendency on the part of some in the Jewish community. They use it as a double-edged sword, and the moment you say something critical of Israel or Israeli policy, they chop your head off with it.

There has to be a deeper and more intelligent discussion of this issue. If this current war in Iraq has taught us anything, it is that we need to have some more serious dialogue intercommunally and in general as a country.

We've had serious differences for years with people like Richard Perle and Douglas Feith and others. But it's easy for a reporter to come in, for example, and lump together Perle and Feith and Wolfowitz and Rudman and any other Jewish name they can muster, put them on a list and say, "Jews have taken over, and this is what they do." First of all, it's stereotyping to lump all these people together. Having observed them over the years, they are not of the same "ilk." Second, how would we feel as Arab-Americans if somebody questioned our loyalty or our commitment to our national issues? For example, what if there were an article today in Haaretz or Forward attacking John Abizaid, the deputy commander of CENTCOM? How would we feel if his Arab identity or Arab-American identity were brought up as a reason to exclude him from this position or to raise doubts about where he stands on issues? What if there were a similar attack on the two Arab-American cabinet members in this administration?

Q: Israel was created through a process of ethnic cleansing. The second time, if it happens, the United States will accept it, for two reasons. One is their insensitivity to Palestinians. Mr. Guttman said that Israel is being driven by fear of terrorism. I am from India. It is because of our terrorists that we are independent; Ghandi alone could not do it. As long as there is the sense that people who are fighting to liberate their country are terrorists, the understanding of Palestinians will not come. Those who attacked on 9/11 were terrorists. In the United States, since Gallup started taking polls, even on the worst day of violence against Palestinians, support for Israel has not dropped below 45 percent, and support for Palestinians has not risen above 16 percent. It is this insensitivity that will make possible the third option.

MR. GUTTMAN: It is true that the current Israeli government does have elements in it that support the idea of Jordan as the Palestinian state and of expelling Palestinians from the territories and taking them over. This is disturbing, but we must remember that this is a small fraction of the Israeli society.

The idea of transfer or ethnic cleansing has been living in the margins of Israeli society for years. It never gains any more support than it has nowadays except the certain political result that led these people into the government. It is not part of the Israeli mainstream. It's hard to see how an idea supported by 5 percent or less of Jewish Israelis will have the ability to change the reality. Even if they don't agree on a Palestinian state of 90 percent of the land or 50 percent of the land--and that is a big discussion--Israelis agree on the idea of a two-state solution. Everyone is aware in Israel of the fact that this idea of just throwing the Palestinians to the other side of the Jordan River isn't realistic. And, even though Israel does enjoy a lot of support from the United States, there is no doubt that the United States will do everything to oppose such an idea. But this is far from even being discussed.

DR. HUDSON: I think the idea of transfer is the most extreme expression of a larger, more general philosophical or analytical position that places the priority on the use of force as a way of solving problems. So while I don't expect to see a policy of transfer actually coming out of the Israeli government, it's certainly much more possible to imagine a continuation of what we've been seeing for some time, maybe on a more advanced scale. That means continuous misery and violence and bloodshed, to the disproportionate disadvantage of the weaker party.

Q: What does the American government feel about this? The thing that puzzles and disturbs me is that within the philosophical framework of the neoconservatives, especially when it comes to the Middle East, there is a strong feeling that force works. I've heard a prominent Middle East specialist, who's very much associated with that movement, say it very boldly. Senator Mitchell had said that this is a problem that can't be solved militarily. And this person said, "Oh yes it can, and that's the way to go about it." The question is, to what extent do the American administration and those hawks who seem to have so much influence in it really buy into this. Since we're sitting here in the buildings of the U.S. Congress, would it not be a constructive thing to do to try and develop an argument to counteract this particular notion that force works, that what you really need to do after you've finished with Iraq is to take on Syria, Iran and, as Mr. Woolsey said the other day, maybe even Saudi Arabia and Egypt and so forth, to just show these people what they have to do. If that view prevails, we're in for a very difficult time. So it seems to me a useful task would be to try to develop arguments, not just on the basis of morality or principle but on the basis of American interests, on why is this not a very good idea.

AMB. FREEMAN; I think you raise a very important issue that is broader than the Middle East, which has to do with whether or not the United States now embraces Caligula's view of foreign affairs: it doesn't matter if they hate us as long as they fear us. Whether our foreign policy is, in fact, progressively more militaristic and likely to become more militarized as time goes on--that is a debate that badly needs to take place in this country and that may be provoked by unfolding events in the Middle East or elsewhere.

Q: There is a rumor that during operation Defensive Shield, the goal of the IDF in Ramallah was first of all the land records, and they seized those. More disturbing was that the second thing they went after was the educational records of the Palestinian Authority, down to the elementary school level. I was wondering if Mr. Guttman had any kind of knowledge of that. As I was going over the list of the Palestinian Authority ministries, I was interested to see which billets got filled first and which were left hanging. It looks as if everyone wants to be the foreign minister, the finance minister, the head of security. The things that looked like they were gaps were the education ministry, roads and housing. It seems to me that if the Palestinians are going to be credible, even with 45 percent of the West Bank, at some point those are the real issues, not the foreign ministry. For the policy folks, what can the American Jewish community and what should the U.S. government do to try and deal with these pinpricks?

MR. GUTTMAN: In comparing the goals of the Defensive Shield, I never heard about the idea of going into Ramallah just to get the land records or the education records of the Palestinian Authority. I know that Israel was interested in getting it's hands on archives of the Palestinian Authority mainly to try to get information about weapons transactions and try to stop them and support for terrorist groups. I really have no other information about it.

Concerning the educational material, I know this is an issue that disturbs Israelis. I don't think you have to take over Ramallah in order to know what the textbooks of first-grade kids are. Israelis know that, and it's an issue of debate that goes back to the question of did this peace process, since Oslo, really work in changing the attitudes of the two peoples. That starts from the textbooks on the Israeli side and on the Palestinian side. What do we teach the kids, and what will the next generation learn? This issue, which leads into the question of incitement, was one of the questions that Israel has dealt with, but I don't think the purpose of Defensive Shield was to get hold of this information.

MR. JAHSHAN: I don't think the Israelis discriminated during that period in terms of what ministries they targeted for destruction and confiscation of property. The damage done to the ministry of education, to the ministry of agriculture, to the Bureau of Statistics, to the records across the board was very widespread. Did they really need the land records? A lot of these land records and maps were under Israeli control before. They did not even turn these over as provided for in agreements with the Palestinians. The Palestinians have been having a hard time all along over the past ten years trying to get some of this stuff. In terms of the education, they ran the educational system before the PA, and they knew exactly what was and was not being taught, but they still confiscated the records. It was destructive behavior. This is an issue we're facing right now in Iraq.

In terms of the makeup of the Palestinian Authority, this is the issue that Abu Mazen is straggling with. He's facing public demands to form a cabinet in a new way in Palestinian politics by selecting technocrats, experts, and other qualified individuals who are equipped to end corruption and inefficiency and to lead their respective ministries at this critical time. The Palestinian leadership needs to focus on the issues that really matter right now--building Palestinian institutions and society to allow the Palestinian people to stand on their own feet economically, socially, educationally and so on.

DR. COHEN: The minister of education of the Palestinians would be the position that would make the biggest impact on American Jews. If the minister of education was someone who really paid attention to all of these questions about what the next generation was going to be learning about Israelis and Palestinians and about the history of this conflict and these people, and would pay real attention to that issue and make a big change in it, that would really get to the heart of the fears of American Jewry.

DR. HUDSON: I understand that Abu Mazen is having some difficulty filling his cabinet positions and that they've delayed yet again the announcement of a final cabinet. I think that speaks to the terrible problems that the Palestinian leadership has in putting things together. It imposes a particular obligation and an opportunity perhaps on the United States to play a more constructive role. But the problem is that at the moment, particularly as we're still experiencing the fallout from the U.S. operation in Iraq, we are not in a particularly strong position in terms of opinion to be able to help things along. Hence, the comments that Abu Mazen does not need to be embraced at this moment by George Bush. It is absolutely essential, if the Roadmap is to start operating--in fact, it's written into the terms--that a coherent Palestinian political structure be rebuilt. But to do that, the United States and the Quartet have to make a credible commitment that there is light at the end of this particular tunnel. Without that, Abu Mazen and the liberals in the Palestinian community will not be able to develop the kind of coherence that will be necessary in order to control all the elements in Palestinian society, some of which are, of course, engaging in violence.

Q: The reason that James Baker succeeded in paving the way to Madrid and having great influence on what later occurred in Oslo was that he was working hand-in-glove with President George Bush, Sr. It was the president of the United States who was making those policies, and they were being carded out by Baker. There is no possibility that Powell will become a Baker unless George W. Bush becomes his father. What we're talking about here is what degree of determination, confidence and push and courage is going to be shown by George W. Bush. That's what's going to bring about the changes in the Israeli government. That's what's going to determine whether or not Ariel Sharon will trim his sails and mend his ways. That will have a huge influence on what happens within the Palestinian community and the way the rest of the Arab world responds. It will have an influence just as much on what Dr. Cohen and Mr. Jahshan were talking about: the relations within the American communities. This is going to be the decisive factor, and we're going to know it very soon.

DR. HUDSON: It's no secret now that much of the State Department, which is I believe very loyal to Mr. Powell, has been extremely disillusioned in the policy battles over Palestine-Israel and earlier over Iraq. Even admirers of the professionalism, good intentions and analytical skills of the secretary of state have to begin to ask questions. If you've got serious policy concerns that deviate from those of your boss, how long do you go on doing what you probably think is not the right thing to do? Why can't you be more effective in changing your boss's mind? And if you can't change your boss's mind, why do you stay in your job?

MR. GUTTMAN: I agree that it all starts from the boss. If the president really embraces this Roadmap and is committed to it, things will start moving. But one of the lessons from the Middle East is that you can't just put a good plan on the table and expect the sides to go forward and implement it. In the past two years, we have had the Mitchell Plan, the Zinni and Tenet trips. We had the Saudi plan, which was embraced for a second. All these good plans were on the table but no one did anything to push the sides into the implementation phase. You need someone there all the time to deal with the difficulties day by day and to work out the problems. Even if the president is committed to the Roadmap, he will still need Secretary Powell or someone at that level to push both sides on a daily basis.

Q: There is a concerted effort by the "monopoly" to smash Colin Powell and get some motions and resolutions through Congress against the Roadmap as it currently stands. The solution to getting the Roadmap through and the solution of getting an exit strategy in Iraq are the same. Can we get the Congress to hold hearings on the Roadmap? Why do these major political decisions that determine the future for the next century perhaps go forward without a debate, like the preemptive-war doctrine? And what are the 15 objections that the foreign minister of Israel is now raising?

MR. GUTTMAN: Rumor says he started with 100 reservations to the Roadmap and went down to something like 14 or 15 with six or seven core issues. The process of dealing with the Roadmap as a plan in Israel and putting it out of several different ministries and authorities, having each contribute his ideas and then trying to combine that into an Israeli response led initially to that huge number of 100 reservations to the Roadmap. The main issues deal with making sure this is a results-based procedure and not a time-based procedure. You move forward to the next stage based on results on the ground, meaning dealing with terrorism or reforming the Palestinian Authority and not moving automatically to the next stage just because the time has passed. That is the core of the Israel reservation. You have to add onto that other questions about how to define the temporary new Palestinian state, how to define the final Palestinian state and so on.

DR. COHEN: The last two comments about the president's determination and the extent to which the Roadmap will be undermined by domestic American processes are very closely related. The president when he was in Ireland made a statement that is very important because it was so personal. He said to the European press, "You don't believe I'll do what I say. Saddam Hussein now believes I'll do what I say. You're going to see." This Roadmap has become a very personal thing for the president. I think that the American Jewish community in its official institutions has believed all along that the Roadmap was a wink and a nod, that the president was only saying that he supported it as a temporary expediency to get through the war on Iraq and to satisfy certain European concerns about that war, and that as soon as that was done, the cloud would be lifted and the Roadmap would disappear.

What has been happening in the last short period of time as the war has been proceeding is a recognition that the determination about the Roadmap has not been diminishing. That's had a certain effect in the American Jewish organizational community. When Condi Rice went to AIPAC and spoke about the Roadmap, that had a very decided impact. It was the beginning of the breaking of the notion that the Roadmap was a sandbox for the people of the State Department, where they were allowed to play while the big boys of the administration were doing war. Once Condi Rice said that to AIPAC, there began to be some reconsideration. The moment is not far off when the president is going to be instructing his people as to how to talk to the representatives of the prime minister. Those of you who were upset at the reference to Abu Mazen, feeling it was politically too early for him, should understand the importance of that communication for the other side of the debate--how Israelis and the American Jewish community take what is happening.

If the United States considers the appointment of Abu Mazen to be a meeting of the condition of the Palestinians beginning to change leadership and beginning to engage in reform--that this is not something that is to be done in the future but something that is already happening--this is a very important signal to the Israelis and the American Jewish Community. It will be understood that there is not an intention to wait until Arafat is "Saddamized" but rather to consider this political change, which is happening in quasi-peaceful conditions among the Palestinians, to be at least the beginning of a sufficient answer to what the president said in his June 24 speech, which the Israelis have been praising and praising and praising.

We have to begin from the assumption that the Roadmap is going to be delivered more or less as it is, that the problem is going to be what is going to happen once it's delivered. How is it going to be implemented? What steps are going to be taken to make it something that is perceived as real within Israeli society and Palestinian society--and not just another dead letter. Those of us who want this to happen have to move out of our own preoccupation with our skepticism about personalities into the question of real ideas: how to translate the ambiguous aspects of the Roadmap into concrete ideas that can be implemented once the basic decision has been made to deliver it as is.

That's where we have to start moving. To really make this work, we have to start creating the atmosphere within America and the region and internationally where more and more groups--Arabs and Israelis, American Jews and Arab-Americans, American Christians--get behind the process and treat this as the highest priority of American foreign policy in the next two years. We can't just leave it to the leadership. There is going to have to be support for this. We're not going to have the juggernaut that was behind the war in Iraq. We're going to have to build a constituency in America that cares about this, that watches it, that gets the media to pay attention to it. Because there's nothing dramatic involved. We're not going to have "shock and awe" in the peace process. The question of how to keep the steady and consistent interest of the press and public on this issue is our responsibility.

MR. JAHSHAN: I agree with Steve in terms of the Roadmap being delivered as is. The Roadmap has already been delivered as is, though there will be a formal version issued in a few days or weeks. We have to read between the lines. When Sharon says he is for the June 24 speech, yet he proposes 100 changes to the Roadmap, to me that means he is for the speech because the speech said nothing in detail; it was just general principles. But when that speech was put in the form of a plan, the Sharon government didn't agree with it. I haven't seen a clear political acceptance from the Sharon government of the Roadmap in any form. All their statements are carefully crafted to focus only on the speech, not on the Roadmap. They have failed to impose changes on the plan. Condi Rice played an important role and was courageous to raise the issue at AIPAC and say, this is the plan and this is the way it's going to stay, knowing that the purpose of the conference was how to change and amend the plan.

But AIPAC has not given up. People in this congress are trying right now to legislate what the Israeli government has failed to impose or to lobby the administration to change. Right now there are attempts to legislate these clusters of Israeli changes into American policy on the Roadmap. It's being done through congressional letters to the president. It's being done through actual legislation--non-binding thus far, but there are some plans underway to introduce binding changes.

It all centers around the issue of conditionality, how to condition Palestinian statehood by stating specifically in the law what it is that the Palestinians have to deliver to Israel before we recognize a Palestinian state. Congress does not care about the Roadmap or what the Roadmap would do. It's trying to dictate a parallel process through legislation. You have people from the extreme right to the extreme left, from Tom Delay to Tom Daschle, talking the same language. They got their talking points from the AIPAC conference, and they are mimicking the same demands in terms of what needs to be done. Unfortunately, they are not listening to the voices of wisdom--not on the Arab side and not on the Jewish side--with regards to this issue.

This is not a new problem. When was the last time you saw a serious hearing in the Senate or in the House about Middle East peacemaking? They stopped doing that in the mid '90s, '95 maybe. Why? Because the prevailing sentiment in Congress is that the Arab-Israeli conflict has been resolved or is on its way to being resolved de facto somehow. It is a "constituency-service" issue now. It doesn't matter to them whether it is Steve Cohen or somebody else. As long as they have a Jewish card, they could not care less. Most of them just use it for fundraising purposes. It is unfair for an issue that has been declared by successive administrations to be the number-one strategic objective of the United States in one of the most strategic regions in the world to be rendered into a constituency-service issue. That's where the crisis is; not with this community or that community or this position or that position.

Q: I attend many hearings in Congress, and when the Palestinian problem is raised it is not discussed, it is shouted down. It made me ashamed to be an American when nobody ever seemed to take the Palestinian side. When an assistant secretary of state would come up and say something positive concerning the Palestinian side, they were shouted down. Is the aid that's given to the Palestinians given not to the Palestinian Authority but to non-governmental organizations? And would the Arab states make another peace proposal, as they have previously?

MR. JAHSHAN: The United States has never given aid to the Palestinian Authority itself. U.S. aid to the Palestinians is delivered through NGOs and for specific projects. You sometimes hear members of Congress saying we shouldn't give Arafat any money, as if they are giving Arafat any money. They don't give any support to the PA itself. Most of the aid that the PA gets directly comes from the international community, outside of taxes that are raised locally, from European and Arab sources.

DR. HUDSON: Arab states would trade with Israel in the event of an overall kind of settlement. I think the Abdullah plan is certainly alive, but sitting on the shelf. What the Arab governments that are particularly friendly to or dependent upon us are very much concerned about now is that we will simply not give high priority to restarting the peace process. That leaves them out on a limb, but I don't see that they're ready to renege on previously stated commitments in principle. Their position has now become extremely difficult because the climate of opinion in the region is quite turbulent and very negative from their point of view, as a result of the earthquake that has taken place in Iraq.

AMB. FREEMAN: Given the personal communications from the president to leaders in the Gulf in particular committing the United States to act with dispatch in resuming a vigorous effort to find peace between Israelis and Arabs, and given the political risks that the leaders in the Gulf took during the Iraq war in reliance on it, I believe there will be a sense of betrayal and a political earthquake in the region if that effort is not forthcoming.

Q: Periodically we've had proposals, principally from the Europeans, suggesting that a peacekeeping force be deployed on the West Bank and perhaps in Gaza as well. That proposal, whenever it's been brought forth, has been negated by the Israeli government as not useful. Could such a force, perhaps out of NATO, be useful, and is there any possibility that the Israeli government might change its position?

MR. JAHSHAN: In addition to European sources, one member of Congress, Senator John Warner (R-VA, Chairman, Armed Services Committee), has been raising this issue with the president repeatedly and here in the Senate. He's talking about a NATO force. Many people believe that the Palestinians and the Israelis feel themselves entangled in a hug of death that it would be very difficult to disengage from on their own. It's not a matter of just a protection force or a military force to separate the two parties. It could be part of a larger peace plan to bring the parties back to the negotiating table.

AMB. FREEMAN: Yet the proposal does potentially go to the heart of the problem, namely that as long as there is Israeli occupation of Arab land there will be Arab resistance to that occupation, and that resistance is likely to take the form of terrorism in part. Therefore, having someone substitute for the Israeli occupation is a potential answer to the question of how to reduce terrorism. The Israeli government, however, has shown no interest in having anyone else occupy lands that clearly some people in Israel continue to covet.

Q: The common denominator is that in each constituency there is a great desire for peace from the people and yet a leadership that is somewhat more radical. Would the right tool bypass that leadership? I want to bring up the initiative to put a Nusseibeh/Ayalon framework of permanent-status agreement on paper, one page, get millions of signatures from constituencies and bring it back to the leaders.

MR. GUTTMAN: The Nusseibeh/Ayalon plan does have a chance. Any other plan that goes directly to the public has a chance in the long mn to change public opinion, but I don't think it is possible to bypass the government. Eventually the government will be the one to decide and negotiate. There is significance for these plans in signaling to the people sitting upstairs that things are happening on the ground.

MR. JAHSHAN: Politics has to go through a process. People like Sari Nusseibeh and other mavericks have taken very big risks and continue to do so, but the fact of the matter is that there is no simple shortcut. That's the source of the frustration. We have constituencies out there that we have to bring to the table.

DR. HUDSON: However bleak the situation, it's important to encourage track-two diplomacy or organized efforts in civil society to try and influence leaderships, however resistant to good sense and moderation those leaderships may be.

DR. COHEN: What is important about Ami Ayalon and Sari Nusseibeh is that they are both respected people in the two societies starting to take responsibility for bringing about change. It is not a replacement for what governments do. It is an encouragement to what governments do. Let's not take the numbers that they are able to achieve too seriously. The important thing will be when people with their views are able to achieve a position of support in the political systems of which they are a part. We have a chance now. Many of us know that Abu Mazen is not a maverick. Abu Mazen is a person who has operated within the Palestinian system for a very long time, understands its complications, and is trying to weave his way through an impossible situation. But he is a man who wants this to happen.

Our primary responsibility now is to make sure that this experiment that he is engaged in will succeed. Our role in this has a lot to do with the symbolic significance of the Roadmap. We all know that many other things are going to have to be dealt with in order to make peace happen that are not yet in anybody's "roadmap." But if the United States moves from the category of undecided to the category of those who are trying to push the peace process forward, that's a very important part of what we need.

It's not going to be sustainable unless the American people have a movement that is stronger for peace in the Middle East than the power of the small constituencies who have dominated and who have kept peace out of the center of American foreign policy. Unless we overcome the intimidation against building such a constituency, American government involvement is going to be sporadic, partisan, temporary and partial.

We need to have a recognition on the part of the American people that the crisis in America's relationship to the Middle East can only be solved if the American people become an aware citizenry, insisting that the United States take the lead in solving these problems peacefully and use at least the power and influence that it's willing to use in other ways in the region for this purpose. It will only happen if the American people demand it. It's not enough for us to spend our time just criticizing others for not doing things. Every American in their own way has to get other people to recognize and themselves to recognize that they have to speak up and demand it from Congress, from the administration, from each political party. It's not going to happen in a sustained way that really breaks this problem unless there is that American public demand for it to happen.

That's also a requirement from the countries in the region. The Saudis started, but they stopped at the door of their initiative. They never really tried to sell it to the American people. They never came here to talk about it. They never made it something that people could believe in.

This is a battle for the American people. Let's remember that. Let's remember what happens when the American people get mobilized to do something in the Middle East. We saw it with a vengeance. Now we have to get mobilized to do the peace.