The modern state of Israel is, in a sense, one of those countries. At the end of the 19^th century, there were some 25,000 Jews who had long lived as an integrated Middle Eastern population with some 600,000 Arabs, both Christians and Muslims, in a part of the Ottoman Empire known as Palestine. The area's political marginalization by the Ottomans perhaps facilitated a new movement among European Jews to seek safety from recurrent waves of anti-Semitism in a homeland related to the ancient people of biblical Israel.

Between 1882 and 1903, this new Zionist movement brought 25,000 to 30,000 European Jews to Palestine. By 1914 another 35,000 to 40,000 had been added. But the World War I years took a toll on the Zionist vision. The Jewish population of the area dropped from about 85,000 to 56,000. Zionist leaders were anxious to stem the tide of emigration. The British government, which administered Palestine under a League of Nations mandate, was anxious to cement Jewish support for its imperial goals in the Middle East. Both were served when the British government expressed sympathy for the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine in the so-called Balfour Declaration of 1917, "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

This encouraged several other waves of European Jewish immigration over the years. The holocaust carried out by the Nazi government of Germany during the 1930s and 1940s brought a huge flood of Jews seeking refuge. By the end of World War II, the Jewish population of Palestine stood at 564,000. Tens of thousands more came illegally in the years immediately following. Political pressures were building in the U.S. and Europe, as were Jewish and Arab attacks on the British Mandate Troops and Jewish terrorist actions against the Arab population. The British wanted out of a situation they could not control. With no effective voice calling for protection of Arab rights and interests and western nations anxious to atone for their silence during the holocaust, the western-dominated United Nations in 1947 proposed a partition of Palestine which gave 55 percent the land to the 600,000 resident Jews and the remainder to the 1.3 million resident Palestinian Arabs. (At the time, more than 50% of the land was privately owned by Arabs, 35- 40% was state land, and 7% was Jewish owned.)

Predictably, most Jewish groups were jubilant and favored the plan while most Arabs felt betrayed and called on Palestinians to resist what they regarded as an internationally imposed injustice. In retrospect, the Arab decision to reject the partition plan may have cost them dearly. Never since have the Palestinians had opportunity to control that much territory.

People in the West tended to regard the struggle for land as one between a Jewish David against the Goliath of Arab powers. The reality was quite different. The Jewish resistance force designed to drive out the British and secure the U.N.-offered land for a Jewish state, numbered almost 60,000 under arms, vastly more than organized Palestinian forces. (Note: The Middle East, 9^th Edition, Congressional Quarterly, Washington, DC, 2000, pp.26-27) While the combined armies of the surrounding Arab states may have been greater, they did not see defense of Palestinians as their responsibility until too late. With no central Arab command, Palestinian resistance proved no match for the well-organized and larger Jewish forces that had been trained and armed by Britain over the years. When the date of partition arrived in 1948, the new State of Israel already controlled more land than the United Nations had apportioned -- 74% of historic Palestine. Forcibly evicted or fearing massacre, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians left their homes in Jewish majority areas. They have never been allowed to return, thus beginning a Palestinian refugee problem that still bedevils all hopes for peace.

The Palestinian state the UN envisioned was left unrealized since Jordan and Egypt controlled the remaining 25% of historic Palestine. The 1949 armistice lines held tenuously as the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union played out in the Middle East. The growing influence of Jewish voters in US elections helped John F. Kennedy narrowly win the presidential election in 1960 and he acknowledged their interests by declaring and demonstrating American support for Israel. The inauguration of the American-Israel alliance was solidified under President Johnson as US relations with moderate Arab states waned and the US accelerated its arms shipments to replace France as Israel’s primary supplier.

Years of tension between Israel and Syria over water resources and frequent Israeli-Arab clashes in border areas led to a joint defense agreement between Egypt, Jordan and Syria and the flexing of their military muscles. While he pointedly insisted that any war would be initiated by Israel, in May, 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, closed the Strait of Tiran, Israel’s gateway to Africa and Asia.

With no confidence that the international community would defuse the situation without eroding Israel's gains, Israel launched a pre-emptive bombing of Egyptian airfields, destroying almost three-quarters of that country's aircraft. Then followed lightning ground strikes, south, north and central, which Israel dominated with total air superiority. In just six days, Israel seized the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria, more than doubling the land it controlled. The Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, with its attendant discrimination against Palestinians and violation of international law, continues to this day. Over the years, peace, the elusive goal, has sometimes seemed tantalizing close and at other times too distant to imagine.

WHAT ARE U.S. POLICY GOALS IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

Since the end of World War II, U.S. policy goals for the Middle East have revolved around maintaining secure western access to the region's petroleum supplies and assuring the security of the State of Israel. Those twin concerns have driven specific U.S. actions. For over forty years, the goal was to limit the involvement of the Soviet Union in the region. During those Cold War years, some Arab countries tried to increase their international political leverage by engaging or threatening to engage the Soviet Union through trade, arms deals, aid relationships and ideological jargon. At the same time, special U.S. ties to Israel were justified by claims that it was "our one sure democratic ally" in the region. Occasionally, developing Israel as the strongest military power in the Middle East was defended on grounds that it could provide at least a temporary stop to any Soviet military incursions into the region. That notion, however, was widely regarded as mere domestic political cover for the large U.S. aid budget outlays to Tel Aviv.

The U.S. has supported these over-arching goals with policy emphases on combating terrorism and challenging the development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the region, whether nuclear, chemical or biological. Israel, however, has been treated as a special exception with whom such issues are almost never raised in public. Their well-known nuclear weapons capability, for example, is not acknowledged officially by the United States. Israel's refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty is one reason some Arab nations have stated for taking a similar position.

Other important U.S. principles of international policy such as human rights and progress toward democracy are applied only selectively in the Middle East. U.S. antagonists such as Syria, Iran and Iraq are regularly pressured, but U.S. regional allies like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or the United Arab Emirates are seldom confronted. The Palestinian Authority has rightly been challenged for its undemocratic inclinations, but there is virtually no U.S. note taken of the second class status Israel accords the 18 percent of its citizens who are Palestinian Israelis.

It has long been clear that the United States does not have a single foreign policy for the Middle East. Rather there is an Israel policy and a policy for all other areas. The two are frequently at odds in ways that contribute to regional instability. This acknowledged "special relationship" with Israel has complicated greatly the achievement of important U.S. goals in the region. At the heart of U.S. tensions with many countries in the Middle East is their frustration of dealing with an open American double standard that always favors Israel.

WHY IS THERE SUCH A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH ISRAEL?

In this case, there is a lot in the name "Israel."  If Europe's 19^th century Zionists, most of whom were not religious Jews, had opted for a homeland in any other part of the world or had taken a name that had no biblical significance, it is doubtful it would receive the same degree of religious and political support in today's world. To Americans familiar with the Bible, the very name "Israel" allows those who choose simply to leap over almost 1900 years in which there was no Jewish state. Most churches long ago adopted new theological understandings of God's promise of land to Abraham's descendants. Still, the heroic stories of ancient Israel create positive images and associations for American Christians. Some fundamentalist Christians go much further and hold that only when biblical Israel is fully restored to the land can the final drama of God's judgment and salvation be carried out. Thus America's dominant religion predisposes most Americans to accept at face value modern-day Israel's claim to sovereignty in the West Bank and Jerusalem because God ordained it so.

Perhaps as powerful in generating U.S. support for Israel is the reality of the Nazi Holocaust, which resulted in the murder of 6 million European Jews and as many or more other Europeans in its attacks upon religious minorities, Gypsies (Roma), homosexuals and other nonconformists. When a people so persecuted for so long as the Jews voice a need to have a land and government of their own, not subject to some other dominant group, it is difficult not to feel supportive. But U.S. commitment to this new Israel goes beyond merely wanting to better the odds in the future. There is a large measure of American guilt at having joined other nations in turning a deaf ear to Jewish cries for help before the Nazis embarked upon a murderous "final solution."  If our national sense of guilt can now be relieved by supporting Israeli claims to lands and resources not ours, that is an easy policy for U.S. politicians to support. It only requires not asking too many questions.

Americans adopting a nuanced stance on Middle East issues that make them seem less than fully supportive of Israel's claims have often been attacked as being anti-Semitic. This has been a powerful weapon used by some Jewish individuals and organizations in silencing criticism of the government of Israel. Particularly, no politician wants to risk having to defend him- or herself against such charges. It is safer to vote with the large majorities that accompany any action touching upon Israel.

Israel and its American supporters have had extraordinary success in working the U.S. political system to produce unwavering backing for Israel's needs, policies and perspectives. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is widely acknowledged to be among those few lobbying groups that dominate political action on their issue. AIPAC coordinates the spreading of millions of dollars each year to candidates for the U.S. House and Senate and for lobbying the incumbents. The political success of pro-Israel groups, however, goes far beyond dollars spent. And it goes far beyond the oft-mentioned "Jewish vote," as though ethnic voting was something new and different in American politics. It is not 5 million Jews among this country's 280 million people that accounts for Israel's U.S. political success.

Long ago, the American Jewish community realized that its interests were better served by being a part of political decision-making in this country than by being a self-isolated subculture. Jewish citizens are proportionately among the most politically active Americans. Most care deeply about Israel, but most are not single-issue people. They are concerned about a whole range of matters domestic and international. Their great secret of success is that because so many have worked so hard at doing politics, when it comes time to consider U.S. policy toward Israel, their voice is heard.

This lesson has not been lost on others. Armenians have recently experienced greater success in gaining the ear of Congress. Arab Americans are also entering more actively into the U.S. political process. Perhaps someday, full debate about U.S.-Israel policy will be possible. But that is not now the case.

 HOW IMPORTANT TO ISRAEL IS U.S. BACKING?

It would be hard to overstate the importance to Israel of its special relationship to the U.S. Without it that country's situation would be dramatically different. Some would go much further and say that without the U.S. as a champion Israel would not have continued to exist.

First there is the matter of U.S. foreign aid. Israel has received funds from the United States regularly since its self-proclaimed independence. But the amount jumped dramatically following 1978 as a reward for signing a peace accord with Egypt at Camp David. Since that time those countries have been the number 1 and number 2 recipients of U.S. official aid -- $3.0 billion dollars per year for Israel and $2.2 billion per year for Egypt (with ten times Israel's population).

The $3.0 billion has been Israel's baseline amount since 1978 and has regularly been supplemented by other special U.S. government funds that often added another $1 billion or $2 billion to the annual amount. Officially, Israel's annual aid from the U.S. is divided into $1.8 billion in military aid and $1.2 billion in economic assistance. (By 2008, the U.S. is planning to phase out non-military aid and increase military aid to 2.4 billion per year).  That accounting distinction is of little significance, however. Israel is unique in that it receives the entire amount at the beginning of each year, which allows the benefit of receiving interest on funds until actually expended. Israel is also exempt from the project ties and performance standards the U.S. typically requires of other aid recipients. Years ago, all previous loans to Israel were converted to grants, and Congress now continues the annual practice. In addition to U.S. government aid, Israel also receives about $500 million per year in private gifts, mostly from U.S. sources, gifts eligible for deduction from U.S. income tax, an arrangement unique to Israel.

How important is this annual $3.0 billion gift? Clearly it does not drive the Israeli economy, but the almost $10 million per day is no small sum. It is the equivalent of about 3% of Israel's gross domestic product. In previous years it would have constituted an even larger portion. The aid, of course, is not divided among Israel's citizens, but if it were it would presently come to about $525 per person.

Even for a country that has now reached the per capita income level of some western European countries, $3.0 billion per year is a crucial supplement. The annual grant has continued for so long that it is now regarded as a U.S. budgetary right by Israel and its Capitol Hill supporters.

The U.S. role as arms supplier has also been crucial to Israel. It is not just that the U.S. has stood ready to sell weapons to Israel. As noted above, effectively the U.S. provides $1.8 billion per year that Israel can use to purchase directly from U.S. firms. While our country sells arms to many countries, only Israel of all Middle Eastern countries is allowed to purchase the most advanced weapons systems. There is a clear understanding that the U.S. will help Israel maintain an absolute superiority in weapons technology.

This commitment has extended not just to military sales but also to joint development of weapons systems such as the Arrow missile. Israel also holds a unique position outside NATO of being allowed to bid as a supplier for U.S. weapons firms. That results in opportunities to become very familiar with a variety of advanced technologies.

Perhaps the most crucial part of the U.S.-Israel special relationship is that other governments and American political constituencies understand the depth of the U.S. commitment. While Washington will occasionally differ in public with Israel over some issue, the spat seldom goes beyond words. Only Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan actually postponed aid payments to Israel as a way of underscoring U.S. policy decisions. Note that even then it was delay that was considered, not reduction or cancellation.

The result is that Israel can safely assume that it will have the full backing of the U.S. in decisions about its own interests and security. Other parties are left to adjust to the reality of Israel having the biggest big brother on the block. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Israel has been left as the full operative partner of the only remaining super power.

The U.S. has also been anxious to maintain its role as sole arbiter in issues touching on Israel. The American veto in the United Nations Security Council has been used to protect Israel from actions and criticism it finds unacceptable. Nor are U.S. allies normally allowed a significant role in seeking an Arab-Israel settlement. Even the breakthrough of the Oslo talks had to be formalized in Washington, and the U.S. has made little or no effort to involve Norway or other intermediaries further.

Palestinians, then, are left having to depend on Israel's chief defender as an "honest broker" of peace and virtually the only intermediary allowed at the table.

 THE ISSUES OF PEACE

Borders -- It was a breakthrough in U.S. Middle East policy on October 3, 2001 when President Bush gave public, conditional endorsement of the idea of a Palestinian state. He softened the impact by noting, "The idea of Palestinian statehood has always been part of a vision, so long as the right of Israel to exist is represented." But while most parties, including Israel, have assumed that there would ultimately be a Palestinian state, ideas of what that sovereign area would actually look like vary dramatically.

The Palestinian position as expressed by the PLO has been consistent for years: the international borders between the States of Palestine and Israel should be the armistice cease-fire lines in effect on June 4, 1967. Both states are entitled to live in peace and security within these recognized borders. Palestinians point out that this is totally consistent with actions of the international community in United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which emphasizes the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and calls for Israeli armed forces to be withdrawn to territory Israel controlled before the 1967 conflict. That would create a Palestinian state governing just 22 percent of the territory of Palestine as it existed during the period of the British Mandate.

While Israel might have accepted these terms in exchange for a secure peace in 1967, no recent administration has shown an inclination to make such a deal. In the past 34 years, Israel has created a new reality on the ground by annexing areas of Arab East Jerusalem and moving in 180,000 Israeli Jews, and by establishing a large network of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza that are now home to another 180,000 Israelis.

Public opinion polls continue to show that a majority of Israelis favor giving up at least some of this land in exchange for a secure peace with the Palestinians. There is little political support, however, for abandoning most of the West Bank settlements and a virtually a unanimous commitment for Israel to retain annexed East Jerusalem.

Israel's strategy on defining the final borders with Palestine has been to hint at marginal adjustments to its present control. In Stockholm in early 2000 and later that year in a Camp David meeting convened by President Clinton, negotiators discussed the idea of land swaps to allow Israel to annex some settlements in the West Bank in exchange for land elsewhere. This represented an important shift in Israel's position in which it implicitly accepted the Palestinian principle of a return to 1967 borders. Discussions broke off, however, with Israel wanting 9 percent in exchange for 1 percent elsewhere.

Prime Minister Barak, in December 2000, presented maps reflecting what was described as "a generous offer" to the Palestinians. Close scrutiny, however, shows the plan to be far from generous. It proposed final borders that would transfer 10 percent of the West Bank to Israel by gerrymandered lines that would incorporate 69 settlements with 85 percent of the settler population. Another 10 percent of the territory would be under "temporary control" of Israel with no date set for ceding that land to Palestine. Critics of the plan also point out that the land being offered for exchange by Israel was inferior to that Israel would gain.

Such borders would make permanent the present isolation of Palestinians within pockets of the supposedly sovereign state and would create a circumstance where citizens actually have to pass through Israeli military checkpoints to travel from one part of their country to another.

With Israel's elections approaching in February 2001, a desperation meeting of negotiators was held in Taba, Egypt. Israel discussed the possibility of borders that would annex only 6 percent of the West Bank in exchange for 3 percent of territory elsewhere. The gap appeared to be narrowing, but Israel broke off the talks under the pressure of other issues and of time. Whether a Barak government could have delivered on a 6 percent solution will never be known. What is clear is that the new government of Prime Minister Sharon has no intention of picking up where Taba, or even Oslo, left off. His comments indicate that he envisions a settlement of borders with Israel left in control of 57 percent of the West Bank.

In its early days, the Bush Administration hoped to keep a low profile on the issue of Israeli-Palestinian peace, expressing the position that the parties had to work things out themselves. The pressure of world events, however, has made that impossible; thus the President's statement accepting the principle of a Palestinian state. Far greater U.S. involvement will be required, however, if something near the compromise on borders that surfaced in Taba is to be reconsidered.

Israeli Settlements --Since 1967 when Israel militarily occupied the Palestinian areas of Gaza and the West Bank, hope has revolved around a general formula of "land for peace." Almost immediately, the United Nations condemned Israel's seizure of territory in U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which called for Israeli troops to withdraw. Instead, Israel has not only maintained a large military force there but has also established civilian settlements (whose inhabitants are often well armed) throughout the occupied territories, greatly complicating any plan or hope for peace. Israel chooses to maintain the West Bank and Gaza as occupied territories as an alternative to annexation, which would soon lead to a Palestinian majority in Israel.

To the American ear, "settlement" harkens back to the notion of strategic defensive villages established early in the life of Israel. But today's settlements are quite different. Typically they are privileged suburban towns or apartment complexes. Residents often admit to being there because subsidized prices and credit gave them a lot more house for the money than if they had bought within Israel proper.

By 1998 there were some 150 Jewish settlements in the West Bank with a civilian population of 175,000. That does not count another 180,000 Israelis who live in East Jerusalem in areas annexed by Israel long ago but still regarded by Palestinians as part of their traditional lands. Gaza is infused with 22 settlements, home to 6,000 Jewish Israelis.          [maps]

Such civilian settlements in contested land taken in war are illegal by most readings of international law and were so designated by Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter. By the time of the Reagan Administration, however, settlements were referred to merely as "obstacles to peace." That more tepid description continues as the U.S. standard today. Our country's policymakers may not like them, but they are regarded as facts on the ground that the U.S. will not publicly contest with the Israeli government. Knowing that, Israel's present Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the original architect of the settlements policy, has not only refused calls to dismantle settlements but has promised to add 700 more homes and 3,000 new apartments in disputed areas of East Jerusalem. The unwillingness of recent U.S. administrations to challenge Israel's dramatic expansion of settlements and settlers in Palestinian territory is perhaps the greatest blow dealt to hopes for peace.

The settlements, however, are not only impediments to peace; they are a dangerous source of tension between Israelis and Palestinians and a daily source of humiliation to Palestinians. Israel's West Bank settlements have been linked with one another and with Israel proper by a network of roads built for the exclusive use of Israel's Jewish settlers. The roads deal multiple blows to Palestinians. They are denied access to these roads and thus the personal and economic benefits of rapid movement in the West Bank and to Jerusalem. The high quality roads and the buffer zones lining them have taken a large chunk out of the area Palestinians want for their proposed state. Taken together, the settlements, Israeli military posts and the settler road structure keep 72% of the West Bank and 20% of Gaza exclusively in Israel's hands.

The "Israel-only roads" also become a physical barrier to Palestinians who seek to travel from one part of their land to another or to Jerusalem. The political effect is to isolate Palestinian cities and villages, physically and economically. If the settlements and their supporting roads structure stand, any anticipated Palestinian sovereignty will be reduced to administration of isolated ghettos of population.

It is not surprising that settlers and settlements have become the targets of Palestinian anger and frustration. Their mere presence provides the condition for much Palestinian resistance. Boys hurl rocks at the cars of Israelis passing by on their private highways. Settlers, for their part, shoot back or take revenge at some other location since the Israeli government allows settlers to own and carry guns while Palestinians have no such legal right.

Of course, some Palestinians do have guns and they sometimes attack Israelis. Notable is that, of the 200 Israelis killed in the Intifada between September 2000 and December 2001, most have been settlers or soldiers assigned to protect them. Israel typically responds overwhelmingly to such resistance with political assassinations, attacks on Palestinian police facilities, and demolition of Palestinian homes and property that Israel claims sheltered Palestinian gunmen.

Israel's security and the Second Intifada -- The security of Israel is the highest goal of U.S. Middle East policy, rivaled only perhaps by a determination to maintain secure access to Persian Gulf petroleum. In Israel, security is the national preoccupation. The knowledge that Israel is vastly superior militarily to any Arab country and to all Arab nations combined is not enough to make Israelis feel secure. Even being told that it has the full military backing of the United States does not make either the people or the government of Israel feel secure. While there is currently no viable threat to the existence of the state of Israel, the personal security of individual Israelis cannot be guaranteed. That is a reality that will not change until the injustices of the occupation are ended..

Pundits have long pointed out that only by finding a way to live at peace with its Arab neighbors can Israel have true security. Thus the peace process becomes the hope of security for Israeli people. Public opinion polls for years have shown that a strong majority of Israelis favor an agreement with the Palestinians based on a land-for-peace formula that would imply some type of Palestinian sovereignty. Yet in the last election, Israeli voters brought to office Ariel Sharon, arch hawk, architect of the settlements movement, and announced foe of the Oslo peace accords. How could this happen?

In late 2000, Palestinians mounted a second intifada after almost seven years. The elusive peace process begun in Oslo and confirmed by handshakes in Washington was producing nothing for Palestinians -- no meaningful sovereignty, continued growth of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, and unrelenting economic hardship. Despair overcame hope. But from the perspective of many Israelis, including many in the peace camp, this intifada is very different. This time Palestinians used guns of their own in attacking settlers and the military in the West Bank and Gaza. Suicide bombers brought death and destruction into Israel itself, killing not only soldiers but ordinary citizens as well.

Only the insistence of the United States brought PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Peres together at the end of September last year to announce confidence-building measures designed to lead to a resumption of formal peace talks. Like other truce talks, this one has failed in the face of continued violence by both sides. While ordinary Israelis fear the violence that has reached their lives, Palestinians continue to bury most of the dead and bandage most of the wounded. That is a reality American media have not fully conveyed over the years.

Jerusalem -- It has always been understood that Jerusalem would be among the last of the issues resolved in final peace negotiations. The original United Nations partition proposal envisioned the creation of two nations, one Jewish and the other Arab, and an internationally administered city of Jerusalem. In 1948, that partition plan was acceptable to the Jewish community but not to Palestinians.

After Israel's total victory in the 1967 war, everything changed. Jerusalem was the great prize. Suddenly in full control of the entire city, there was never any thought of returning the Old City and the Arab sectors in any future peace agreement. On the very evening of the conquest, leaders of Israel declared Jerusalem their nation's "eternal capital." Over the years was added the notion of it being the "undivided capital," that is, Israel would have exclusive sovereignty over the entire city. In less than a month, the Old City and all of Palestinian East Jerusalem were annexed by Israel.

The United States government backed Israel but warned against any change in the status of the city on grounds that it would have no support in international law. The United Nations passed two resolutions calling on Israel to rescind its so-called unification of the city. All this was to no avail. Israel has spent the years since creating facts on the ground to bolster its total claim upon Jerusalem. A single administrative structure was established early on but it has produced vastly unequal public services for Arab residents. The municipal boundaries have been extended so that today's Jerusalem encompasses an area three times the size of pre-1967 Jerusalem- due in part to the annexation of West Bank settlements that Israel now regards as Jewish neighborhoods. Building by Palestinians has been curtailed to create crowding and encourage departure from the city. Because vast land tracts have been defined as green areas and town planning schemes are not developed for many neighborhoods, it is virtually impossible for Arabs living in East Jerusalem to obtain the building permits that are required to build on private property. When Palestinians build illegally, they do so under the threat that their homes will be demolished and they will be left with nothing. Meanwhile, homes for over 180,000 Israelis have been built in order to create a Jewish majority in all parts of the city. Provocations of Israel's occupation forces have frequently been the excuse for closing the city entirely to Palestinians from the West Bank or for slowing the flow past military checkpoints so that normal business, religious and family contacts become virtually impossible.

All this has been justified by Jewish Israel on grounds that God promised the land to Abraham's descendants in perpetuity and that Jerusalem was the site of David's capital and of the Temple that was built by divine dictate. Such logic washes away the fact that for almost 2000 years there was no Jewish political control of the city.

It is clear that Jewish emotional and religious attachment to Jerusalem is real and powerful. The Western Wall, a retaining wall regarded as the surviving foundation of the second Temple, is the holiest site of Judaism. Jews were denied access to it from 1948 to 1967 when Jordan exercised control over the Old City, East Jerusalem and the West Bank. No political party proposing to abandon Jewish control over the Western Wall could survive in Israeli politics today.

Palestinians, both Muslims and Christians, have their own strong ties to the Old City. The Dome of the Rock, built over the stone from which Muhammed is believed to have ascended to heaven, makes Jerusalem the third holiest city for Muslims after Mecca and Medina. Christians of all denominations are united by the scores of biblical and religious sites in Jerusalem, and especially by the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the traditional tomb from which Jesus is believed to have been resurrected.

For Palestinians, Jerusalem is not merely the locus of ancient and holy events. It is the center of the social, economic and cultural life of the community. Being denied free access to Jerusalem means constant adjustment to what is normal. To conceive of a Palestinian state that does not have a genuine political presence in Jerusalem is to drain all meaning from the word "capital."

To Palestinians, as well as to Israelis, statehood both logically and emotionally implies a presence in Jerusalem. That is perhaps the most difficult challenge in establishing a just peace.

For that reason, Jerusalem has been a particularly sensitive issue in U.S. foreign policy. Since 1948, our country, like almost the entire international community, has refused to acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel's self-declared capital. To do so would prejudge the outcome of negotiations, which alone can resolve issues of conflict and lead to peace. That has been the position of all U.S. administrations since Harry Truman.

The U.S. Congress, however, has usually been more under the sway of pro-Israel interests than most presidential administrations. For many years it has been commonplace, just prior to congressional elections, for legislation to be introduced requiring that the U.S. embassy be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Such bills have seldom passed both houses, and those that did allowed the President to defer action on grounds of nation interest. Nevertheless, such bills created a recurring fundraising bonanza for pro-Israel lobbies. Money raised has been used to mobilize constituencies for or against members according to their vote or simply to swell organizations' financial strength for future lobbying activities.

In 1995, legislation was passed requiring that work begin by May 31, 1999 to construct a new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. Only a ruling by the president that this would be opposed to U.S. national interests could forestall the action. Throughout his tenure, President Clinton exercised that annual waiver. While it remains to be seen where George Bush will come down on this sensitive issue, the State Department has made no move to proceed.

Palestinian Refugees -- One of the most taxing dilemmas in reaching an Israeli-Palestinian peace is the fate of the 3.2 million Palestinian refugees (officially registered with UNRWA, 1995), almost exactly half of the 6.6 million Palestinian population. Over a million displaced persons still live in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza. These are now beyond tent cities, but they still feature rudimentary construction, cramped living spaces, and few or no employment opportunities. UN agencies estimate that in 1948 and 1949 almost three-quarters of a million Palestinians either fled or were forcibly evicted from their homes in what today is Israel. Another 180,000 new refugees fled the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 war.

The Palestinian stance has been that all displaced persons must have the right of return to their original homes or be compensated, a right accorded to all refugees by international law. Israel has long insisted that no Palestinian refugees will be allowed to live in Israel proper and that the number returning from other countries to the West Bank and Gaza must be strictly limited.

After years of little progress on the issue, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met in Taba, Egypt in January 2001 in a last ditch effort to reach a comprehensive settlement of all major issues. Reports indicate agreement that each Palestinian refugee would be offered several options: remain where they are with rights of citizenship; absorption in the new State of Palestine; settlement in the Negev desert of Israel; or immigration to some country outside the region.

In each case, financial assistance was to be extended with the understanding that each refugee would forgo claims to any property in Israel. It was also understood that Israel would assume a quota of no more than 40,000 immigrants and would retain the right to decide on a case-by-case basis who would be allowed into the Negev.

Overseeing all this would be a new international agency to replace UNRWA (U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees). Among other responsibilities the new organization would have the responsibility of raising funds from the international community to finance the agreement. That is, neither Israel nor Palestine would use its own resources to resolve the refugee problem.

It is notable that no consideration was evidently given to the political dilemmas faced by Lebanon and Syria in extending citizenship to large numbers of the almost 700,000 refugees they now host.

Despite serious problems with the reported refugee plan, this is the most concrete effort yet made to find common ground on one of the most intractable issues facing Israel and Palestine. The Taba negotiations represent the highpoint to date in concessions by Israel. But that is irrelevant now since the Barak government fell in that country's February, 2001 election. The Sharon government has made clear that Taba will not be its starting point in final status negotiations -- if and when they are resumed.

 WHAT SHOULD AMERICANS DO ABOUT U.S. POLICY TOWARD ISRAEL AND PALESTINE

1) Americans must urge the U.S. government to make participation in the international community the foundation of U.S. foreign policy. Relying on individual national decision-making, or merely on free markets and rhetoric about democracy, is not enough. In recent months, the United States has turned its back on or become negative about a number of important symbols of global community -- e.g., the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty; the Chemical Weapons Convention; strengthening the 1972 ban on biological weapons; establishment of an international criminal court. The message has been clear: the U.S. will not place itself firmly under international norms or agreements; U.S. national sovereignty must be absolute.

Peace in the Middle East cannot be brokered or guaranteed by the U.S. alone. Our government must rejoin the attempt to find meaningful symbols and institutions of the emerging global community that go beyond the pursuit of international terrorists. To do so would have a dramatic impact on negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

2) Americans must encourage the Bush Administration to pursue its announced peace initiative that was sidetracked by the September 11^th terror attacks. The President has indicated that a Palestinian State has long been part of this country's vision of the future of the region. He further noted, "We are fully committed to working with both sides to bring the level of terror down to an acceptable level for both." (Washington Post, 10/3/01, p. A26) This apparent attempt at greater even-handedness in addressing the issue of political uses of terror is important in bolstering the U.S. role as a facilitator of peace negotiations.

The White House should be urged to press this initiative. Letters to members of Congress should call for their full support and urge that no actions be taken by Congress backing Israel that would weaken the intent or effect of the Administration's efforts.

3) The U.S. should make clear to Israel that a complete end to all settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza is key to continued U.S. support in the peace process. The U.S. will no longer accept any rationale for further expansion of Israeli presence in those areas.

4) The U.S. should press the Palestinian Authority to make clear that it will no longer indulge violent action by paramilitary groups as an unofficial alternative to announced Palestinian policy. Specifically, Mr. Arafat must take all necessary actions to end attacks upon Israeli citizens, particularly upon civilians. At the same time, the U.S. must urge Israel not to use particular acts of violence as an excuse for abandoning or delaying negotiations and agreement on the final status issues.

5) Americans must urge the U.S. media to give a fairer and more balanced picture of what is happening. This includes giving greater attention to the vast majority of Muslims who condemn the political use of terror as an expression of religious faith. The media must not cooperate in ceding the voice of Islam to the few radicals who seek to define the whole of Islam. Fair reporting must include an active solicitation of broader Muslim opinion and not be content with merely documenting the actions and statements of the most incendiary groups and individuals.

These suggestions by no means exhaust useful actions that may be taken by concerned Americans to help shape a better U.S. policy on Israel-Palestine. They do, however, point to some politically meaningful ways to begin.