It is now fashionable to bury the idea of a two-state solution, saying it is no longer practical. However, all who are quick to bury the idea are very slow to propose an alternative, possibly because no alternative exists. What follows is an attempt to delineate the parameters needed to end the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For such a momentous achievement of resolving a deep, entrenched conflict, three things are absolutely essential: • An Israeli leader who is committed to bring peace to his/her people and is willing to pay the necessary price; • A Palestinian leader who is committed to bring peace to his/her people and is willing to pay the necessary price; and • A shared belief by both leaders that the time is ripe for peace. This means both leaders believe that enough blood has been shed, that they need to seize the moment because things might worsen for their people, and that they have the ability to lead their respective people to accept the peace agreement in order to change reality for the better. At no given time during the past two decades have these three ingredients coexisted. In 1993 and 2000, Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak were committed to peace and felt that the time was ripe, but it’s debatable whether that commitment and feeling were shared by their Palestinian counterpart, Yasser Arafat. The three leaders did not have the full backing of their people and were either unable or unwilling to instill in their people a sense of urgency and yearning for peace, which must come at a high price. The way to escape the current deadlock is to rely on the Clinton Parameters, the Geneva Accord, the Arab Peace Initiative and the Olmert-Abbas Talks. These documents contain the foundations for resolving all contentious issues
