The counterculture, as it was called in the late ’60s, when young Americans tired of their government’s policy in Vietnam and the perceived hypocrisies of the establishment, chose to embrace an alternative view of the world around them, is not an altogether fashionable term these days.

Its ethos, however, has been appropriated by large majorities among Palestinians and Israelis who, like their American counterparts three decades ago, have become disillusioned with their own governments and the stubborn censoriousness of the established order.

This appears to be the dynamic propelling the unveiling of the Israeli-Palestinian agreement known as the Geneva Accord, a peace initiative that seeks an alternative to the myopia and stalemate that have characterized traditional leaders’ approach to conflict resolution.

The agreement addresses itself to no less than a comprehensive settlement of the dispute between Arabs and Jews in the Holy Land and goes, beg pardon, where no man has gone before.

It is a serious, scrupulous and earnest document that is, as it were, respectful of its elders, since it does not attempt to supplant or muscle in on the road map, but to complement it, as both its authors, former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and former Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, were at pain to repeat while they made the rounds last week in Washington and New York, appearing at the State Department and the UN, and on countless talk shows. Beilin and Rabbo may have respected their elders, but that was precisely their problem.

Their elders are not of a mind to be equally serious, scrupulous or earnest. For though the two peaceniks were not shown the door by the American establishment, they nevertheless were told that their initiative will never be adopted. All the pity.

The Geneva Accord, a package deal that effectively expects both sides to make painful concessions, bursts with ideas. Its appeal for compromise disguises an elegant strategy to achieve peace on the basis simply of what is attainable today, not on the basis of who is right — all of which explicated throughout the agreement with admirable clarity and fairness.

Let’s face it. The search for peace continues to elude the established leaderships in Israel, Palestine and the US. The Israeli government has already taken a unilateral step toward final settlement by building that infamous wall along a border of its choosing, virtually annexing half the West Bank and Gaza, leaving the Palestinians a mere 10 percent remnant of their ancestral patrimony. The Palestinian Authority is paralyzed by its cluelessness about where it stands in the balance of power, which translates as cluelessness about its people’s limitations and potentialities in a projected peace agreement. And the American president, after his impassioned speeches about an independent Palestinian state, has resigned himself to the status quo, thus avoiding a crisis in the coming presidential elections.

Hats off to the Geneva Accord, a brave and innovative initiative, already praised by a number of former and current world leaders.

What is even more significant is that it has been warmly embraced by roughly 30 percent of Palestinians and Israelis, no mean majorities in two societies whose populations are seldom at a loss for an opinion — or two or three.

The legacies left us by the counterculture of the late ’60s are everywhere around us today, reflected in our conventions of statement in language, in politics, in music, in cinematic art, in social values, in our perception of the meaning of civil rights and the rest of it. Without them, America would not only be a different but a diminished culture today.

The Geneva Accord, in like manner, may turn out to be the first stirring by Palestinians and Israelis toward an alternative posture to their conflict.

As a peace agreement, it may never be implemented, but it will have the effect — intended so by the authors, no doubt — of shaking up the political culture of their societies, and convincing ordinary folks in Palestine and Israel that an “alternative solution” to the current stalemate is possible, desirable and, yes, inevitable.