a_unique_person
27th November 2003, 05:25 PM
The leaders have had a go at it many times, and never achieved a lasting resolution. According to this article, http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/27/1069825913841.html the problem is that they have always tried to get the easy things out of the way first, and leave the hard ones to last.
This people based movement hopes to resolve the hardest issues first. It appears to be in accord with what I believe is the best compromise. By dealing with the hard issues up front, then everything else would hopefully fall into line.
The two initiatives have generated much debate for their willingness to tackle topics that are often ignored because they are divisive: Jewish settlements; the Palestinians' claim to a right of return to areas in Israel that they left in 1948; and the status of Jerusalem, which both peoples claim as their capital.
Despite hardened attitudes on both sides, 113,000 Israelis and 65,000 Palestinians have signed.
Many peace plans - including the US-backed "road map", which is now stalled - have deferred negotiations on tough topics. But the Geneva Accord and the People's Voice campaign stress that those issues must be dealt with upfront so that both sides know what they would get for ending the conflict, in which more than 900 Israelis and 2500 Palestinians have been killed since the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation began in September 2000.
Retired Major-General Ami Ayalon, the Israeli head of the People's Voice campaign, is a former head of Israel's Shin Bet security agency. He initiated the petition drive with Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al-Quds University and a leading Palestinian advocate of negotiations.
The two peace plans, which were drafted independently, lay out what many analysts and moderates see as the inevitable solution if a Palestinian state and Israel are to live side by side in peace: Israel gives up most of its Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, except for a few large, well established ones, for which Palestinians would be compensated with a land swap; the Palestinians give up their demand to return to lands they owned in Israel, with some type of compensation; and the two countries would share Jerusalem as their capitals. Neither government has accepted either plan.
This people based movement hopes to resolve the hardest issues first. It appears to be in accord with what I believe is the best compromise. By dealing with the hard issues up front, then everything else would hopefully fall into line.
The two initiatives have generated much debate for their willingness to tackle topics that are often ignored because they are divisive: Jewish settlements; the Palestinians' claim to a right of return to areas in Israel that they left in 1948; and the status of Jerusalem, which both peoples claim as their capital.
Despite hardened attitudes on both sides, 113,000 Israelis and 65,000 Palestinians have signed.
Many peace plans - including the US-backed "road map", which is now stalled - have deferred negotiations on tough topics. But the Geneva Accord and the People's Voice campaign stress that those issues must be dealt with upfront so that both sides know what they would get for ending the conflict, in which more than 900 Israelis and 2500 Palestinians have been killed since the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation began in September 2000.
Retired Major-General Ami Ayalon, the Israeli head of the People's Voice campaign, is a former head of Israel's Shin Bet security agency. He initiated the petition drive with Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al-Quds University and a leading Palestinian advocate of negotiations.
The two peace plans, which were drafted independently, lay out what many analysts and moderates see as the inevitable solution if a Palestinian state and Israel are to live side by side in peace: Israel gives up most of its Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, except for a few large, well established ones, for which Palestinians would be compensated with a land swap; the Palestinians give up their demand to return to lands they owned in Israel, with some type of compensation; and the two countries would share Jerusalem as their capitals. Neither government has accepted either plan.