Like us, the initiators propose in practice to allow a limited number of Palestinians to return to Israel, but they propose a sophisticated key: a number equivalent to the average number of refugees allowed in by other nations. We have proposed a quite simple method: to allow back a fixed quota (say 50,000) every year for ten years.
On the question of Jerusalem, too, the new draft tries to sweeten the pill. They avoid saying clearly that the Palestinians will be "sovereign" over their part of the city and the Temple Mount. All the paragraphs about Jerusalem are a bit clumsy, in an attempt, it seems, to make them more palatable to the Israeli public.
The document imposes several limitations on Palestinian sovereignty that may impair the feeling of equality. Also, without seeing the detailed maps, it is hard to say how much Beilin wants to swap. It seems that there is a certain disparity between their maps and ours.
But these differences are not really important. The people who drafted this document knew that they were preparing only a sample agreement. It will be presented to the public in order to show that peace is possible, that it poses no existential danger to Israel, that there is a partner on the other side, and that there is something to talk about. Even the refugee problem, which frightens so many Israelis out of their wits, stops being so threatening when one tackles it in real terms. It becomes a practical problem with practical solutions.
The reactions of the leaderships of the two sides is illuminating. Ariel Sharon has attacked the document furiously, as if it constituted high treason and stuck a knife into the back of the nation. That's no wonder, considering that there is no greater danger to Sharon and his grand design than the danger of peace. Ehud Barak, the man most to blame for the collapse of the Israeli peace camp, has also raged against the initiative. "The starling visits the raven," as the Hebrew saying goes.
Yassir Arafat, on the other hand, has blessed the initiative. He cannot accept it formally, because a real peace treaty must be negotiated between governments. No national leader can take official responsibility for terms when the leader of the other side does not. But it can safely be said that the agreement is acceptable to him-all the more so since he took part in its formulation behind the scenes. There is, of course, no symmetry: the Israeli doves are in opposition, while their Palestinian counterparts are in power.
Throughout the world, the document was well received by all who wish for an end to the conflict. The great hope is that this initiative, like the "revolt of the pilots," represents the end of the era of despair.
The first task of Beilin and his colleagues is to raise the Labor and