Condoleezza Rice is not being forthright when she says her current trip to the region is void of new ideas from the American side. One idea is on the table: sketching the rough outlines of an eventual Palestinian state. The idea is indeed on the table and Rice is seeking reaction and input from both Israelis and Palestinians. Israel is very interested; Palestinian sentiment should, however, differ.
If there is to be a return to the negotiating table, the issue of boundary demarcation will be of paramount importance. Each state must have well-defined and mutually recognized borders. The 1967 Green Line, which separates Israel from the West Bank, is the political border that at some point will almost certainly become the line separating Palestinian and Israeli sovereign states. But the Green Line is also the default boundary behind which Israel must withdraw if it is serious about returning the West Bank. However, every Israeli leader since 1967 has argued against such a pullback, arguing in not so many words that the more elastic and less permanent the boundary, the easier it to change in the future — in other words, easier to expand the areas of occupation. It is also along the Green Line that the unilateral West Bank separation barrier has been constructed. Where the barrier deviates from the Green Line, it annexes parts of the West Bank to Israel, thus awarding even more Palestinian land to the Jewish state. The Palestinians are fighting for a fully independent state on all the land occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem, while Israel is trying to get the Palestinians to accept a state with temporary borders, minus Jerusalem and other areas and minus independence. A long-term transitional deal is what Israel wants, forcing the Palestinians to give up large areas of the West Bank, including Jerusalem, as part of an interim solution, which is of course likely to be permanent rather than temporary.
Jumping straight to final status talks would be a departure from the road map which calls for dismantling terrorist groups, freezing Israeli settlement activity and creating a provisional Palestinian state before a final accord. But in its three years of existence, the road map has not been adhered to — Israel’s recent decision to build a new settlement in the Jordan Valley is a case in point — and as such is all but dead. It is the Palestinians who say so and who are leading calls to bypass it.
In the present situation in the Middle East, it is extremely tempting to go for the quick fix. Given the year-long drift in peace efforts since Hamas won parliamentary elections, starting to outline the final contours of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal looks bright in the surrounding dark. But a state with temporary borders would spell the end of the Palestinian cause. Because it is so hard and takes such an agonizingly long time for the Palestinians and Israelis to agree on anything, and then it is so easy for any agreement to collapse in the face of the slightest stir, a state with temporary borders would be the farthest the two parties could ever hope to advance.
