Palestine: pantomime and paradox

This agreement will be based on a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state, and on firm security arrangements based on the IDF (Israeli military)

It must be crystal clear that the PLO can never agree to these conditions - which would undermine the PLO Charter claiming all of former Palestine to be an indivisible part of the Arab homeland.

So too - Israel can never accept the two-state solution propounded by the PLO - aJew-free Arab state in all the territory lost by Jordan to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War - having its capital in Jerusalem - its current 500000 Jewish population having to abandon their homes - whilst millions of Palestinian Arabsare allowed to emigrate to Israel.

The two-state solution to be artificially created for the first time ever in history - as contemplated by the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap - is dead in the water.

Is the international communityso blind in failing to recognise the impossibility of creating a second Arab state in former Palestine - in addition to Jordan - given the totally divergent and unyielding positions that both Israel and the PLO hold?

How many more years must these "negotiations"continue before the penny drops?

More winks, nods, understandings and attempted back room deals leading nowhere seem to be the order of the day - whilst a vicious and unrelenting effort to undermine and delegitimise Israel continues with ever increasing ferocity and intensity.

Airlines, hotels and restaurants will be the only sure winners as the "negotiators" and their entourages flit from capital to capital in the never ending quest to never achieve their very different conceptions of the "two state solution".

Waiting in the wingsis another "two-state solution" - based on history, geography and demography - that offers hope for the resolution of the long running Jewish-Arab conflict. It involves allocating sovereignty in the West Bank between Israel and Jordan -the two successor states to the Mandate for Palestine.

Not one Arab or Jew need move from his existing home under this scenario.

Jordan must first replace the PLO as Israel's negotiating partner before this solution can be addressed and progressed.

International diplomatic pressure coupled with financial, military and humanitarian aid to Jordan - rather than the PLO - would materially help in achieving this solution.

Meantime - the paradox of "negotiations with the PLO that are not negotiations" will continue going south until their inevitable denouement.

What cost to human suffering - both Jewish and Arab - will this pantomime continue to wreak until it finally becomes political history?