By Ted Belman, Israpundit , 09.11.06

Famed leftist author David Grossman lost his son in Lebanon War II. He was chosen to address the Rabin Memorial Service. His remarks are beautifully written and certainly passionate. We owe it to ourselves and to him, to read them.
He summarized Israel’s history thusly, “Israel lurched from infancy and youth to a perpetual state of gripe, weakness and sourness.” and asks, “How did this happen?” He puts it this way,
“Any reasonable person in Israel, and I will say in Palestine too, knows exactly the outline of a possible solution to the conflict between the two peoples. Any reasonable person here and over there knows deep in their heart the difference between dreams and the heart’s desire, between what is possible and what is not possible by the conclusion of negotiations. Anyone who does not know, who refuses to acknowledge this, is already not a partner, be he Jew or Arab, is entrapped in his hermetic fanaticism, and is therefore not a partner.”
and asks,
“What can be done in such a position? Keep strangling them more and more, keep mowing down hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza, most of whom are innocent civilians like us? Kill them and get killed for all eternity?”
and suggests,
“Approach them with the bravest and most serious plan Israel can offer. With the offer than any reasonable Palestinian and Israeli knows is the boundary of their refusal and our concession.”
As I said, “beautifully written”. Read it in full to get the full flavour.
In essence he argues we should start with a guaranteed end result that the majorities on both sides are willing to accept and then start the process of getting there. He assumes that there is agreement to be had on the ‘end result’ or that even if it could be agreed upon, that the radicals will endorse it or even it they do, that such agreement will protect us from future wars. This is what the Geneva Accords attempted to do.
Geneva Accords (MEW)
[Yossi Beilin and Yaser Abd Rabbo did attempt this approach and] “negotiated a new draft agreement, that would supposedly replace the Oslo accords as the basis for Israeli-Palestinian peace. The draft document was finalized, and a ceremony marking the agreement was conducted in Jordan October 12, though the text has not yet been released and the document was not signed.”
The document is incomplete and is missing several appendices that are still in the process of negotiation. The key innovations of the agreement:
* Palestinians give up Right of Return of Palestinian refugees (see Palestine Refugees
* Israel gives up sovereignty over the Temple Mount/Haram Al-Sharif, and evacuates Ariel, Efrat, Kiryat Arba, Ofra, Elon Moreh, Bet El, Eli Har Homa, the Hebron settlement and many others.
* Access to the Temple Mount/Haram Al-Sharif would be regulated at the discretion of the Muslim Waqf committee as at present.
* Israel gets to keep the wailing wall, the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus and the Mt. of Olives in Jerusalem, as well as Ma’aleh Edumim and the Gush Etzion settlement block and settlements around East Jerusalem.
* The implementation of the accord will be overseen by an international committee, which would also ensure access to holy places, and security will be the responsibility of a multinational force.
Under the agreement about half of the 220,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank would have to evacuate their homes while the other half live in settlements that would be incorporated into Israel. The agreement makes no provisions whatever for Israeli Arabs living in portions of Jerusalem that will be given to the Palestinian authority.
The Geneva Accord apparently intends to say that Palestinian refugees will be compensated and will be resettled in Palestine or other countries, with only a few coming to live in Israel. A specific stipulation states that the number of refugees returning to Israel will be determined by Israel alone. On the other hand, the document refers to UN General Assembly Resolution 194 and UN Security Council resolution 242. Palestinians believe that Resolution 194 gives refugees the right to return to Israel if they so chose. Some Palestinian negotiators immediately denied that the document gives up right of return.
Opinion polls showed that 20 to 50% of Palestinians and Israelis approved of the accord, depending on who asked the questions and how they were asked. Israeli Jews objected to losing sovereignty over the temple mount, excessive (in their view) territorial concessions, and ambiguous provisions concerning right of return for Palestinian refugees. Jews fear that if large numbers of refugees are allowed into Israel, they will constitute a majority within a short time because of higher Palestinian birth rate, and would put an end to Israel as a homeland as a Jewish people. Palestinian refugees insist on the right to return to the homes they abandoned or were forced to flee in 1948. Many have kept keys to their houses, though the houses themselves no longer exist. Israeli Jews have also raised the issue of compensation for over 600,000 Jews who were forced to flee Arab countries and lost their property when the State of Israel was created.
This was the second time that Beilin attempted to short circuit events and arrive at the end game. Now Grossman proposes a third time.
Grossman assumes that the arduous task of wearing each other down through violence and a peace process can be circumvented. It can not.
Like it or not, we are doomed to this dance of death for the foreseeable future. We must make no choices based on illusions or the our need for normality. No Messiah will save us.