One of the most momentous declarations to come out of the
Arab world since Israel's inception in 1948 is the Arab Peace Initiative, launched in March 2002 in Beirut, Lebanon, and re-adopted by the Arab League in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in March 2007. It would be tragic to allow the Initiative to languish as it offers a solid promise for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.

To make serious progress toward a final status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, George Mitchell must first work on restoring confidence in a peace process that years of havoc and destruction have all but destroyed.

Israel's momentous withdrawal from Gaza and the ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, while substantially reducing the level of violence in the past eight months, have not produced the hoped-for momentum to propel the peace process forward.

Historically and theologically, the Jews could be, and to a certain extent were being, trusted by Muslims as long as they were subordinate to the Muslims. Since the beginning of Zionism and the establishment of Israel, the Palestinians have been called upon to trust Israelis when they are powerful.

Current Israeli-Palestinian discord over the final status of Jerusalem offers a golden opportunity to attain a major breakthrough rather than a deadlock in the negotiations. The United States must seek to interject new dimensions into the peace process. Whether the Palestinians raised the Jerusalem question because they must show a substantial gain from the peace negotiations, or because of factionalism in formulating a cohesive policy toward Israel, or as a ploy to gain other concessions, is secondary. What is important is that united Jerusalem has, for 26 years, served as a microcosm of Israeli-Palestinian coexistence that has worked well, even at the height of the Intifadah. Although the Palestinians consistently claim an inalienable right to East Jerusalem, what pushed them to raise the Jerusalem issue now rather than later was Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's closure of the territories, depriving them of access to East Jerusalem's health, cultural, and religious institutions. They regarded this as a sign of what they can expect of self-rule if East Jerusalem is excluded.

After more than six years of tragic neglect, Washington might have one last chance to push for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian impasse. Whether there is a direct or indirect link between this century-old struggle and the violence in region, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains, for Arabs, the most emotionally charged issue, fueling extremists throughout the Middle East. The administration's preoccupation with Iraq, however compelling, offers no excuse for its near paralysis on the Israeli-Palestinian front..

Whatever the circumstances and regardless of the Palestinians' internal struggle, Israel must recognize that continued occupation is not only non-sustainable but insidiously eroding rather than enhancing its own national security. This is why a responsible Israeli government must develop a framework for withdrawal and implement it in stages…

The failure of Fatah and Hamas to reach an agreement on a unity government that recognizes Israel and begins to deal with the desperate needs of their people is just another in a string of failures that have come to characterize the Palestinian situation. For nearly sixty years, the Palestinians hav

The conflict over Jerusalem transcends territory, time and human experience. In real historical time it is primarily a conflict between two peoples who have deep roots in the same space.