As is well documented in his earlier books, particularly My Friend, the Enemy, Avnery spent many years practicing a kind of ad hoc shuttle diplomacy between his own Israeli government and representatives of the PLO, entirely on his own at considerable personal risk. Although it is difficult to measure precisely the influence he had, it can nonetheless definitively be stated that Avnery's contacts with Yassir Arafat, both directly and through PLO spokespeople Said Hammami and Issam Sartawi,48 contributed to PLO recognition of Israel and the eventual signing of the Oslo Declaration of Principles in September, 1993, based at least in part on the 1967 UN Resolution 242, the so-called "land for peace" resolution.
Despite its many faults and ultimate failure, the Oslo Declaration of Principles was a breakthrough in Palestinian-lsraeli relations, signaling, for the first time, a publicly aired willingness on each side of the issue to formally recognize the other. Since that time myriad plans have come and gone, leading to claims that the process of peace, rather than peace itself, was the goal.49 After September 2000, when then Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, accompanied by 1,000 armed troops, entered the Haram al-Sharif, otherwise known as the Temple Mount, site of the al-Aqsa Mosque, tolling the final death knell for the Oslo agreement and igniting the second, or alAqsa Intifada, peace plans have proliferated without bearing much fruit.
Not all the plans that have been proposed since Oslo are represented in Avnery's works. Some were extremist schemes that were never taken seriously by the vast majority of interested parties; others were flashes in the pan, fading as soon as they appeared as incidents on the ground moved quickly. Moreover, not all the plans were actually put forth as such. Ariel Sharon's "unilateral disengagement" from Gaza was certainly unilateral if not really disengagement, and it was never a formal plan proposed for negotiation toward final status.
One idea that has been articulated time and again, though never negotiated by any involved parties as a viable alternative, is what is commonly called the one-state solution. Avnery has written quite extensively about the idea, including sentiments on both sides of the issue. Though he has, at times, lauded the general idea as part of a distant dream in a borderless world, and continues to call for a Semitic confederation with close cooperation, Avnery resides firmly in the camp calling for two independent states of Palestine and Israel. His discussion of these options is included in Chapter 1: "In the beginning."-SRP