The path forward is clearly to end the apartheid. Rabin was assassinated by extremist Jews for coming to this conclusion....

From what I know of Arabic culture, had Jews entered Palestine in a respectful spirit of cooperation they would have been accepted. Instead, they embarked on a ruthless pogrom of ethnic cleansing from day one. How would you expect this to turn out?

David Brooks' column in today's NYT....."The Missed Chance for Peace".....details missed opportunities, from the outset, for potentially workable solutions that seemed within grasp, focusing especially on President Clinton's efforts with Ehud Barak of Israel and Arafat. It would have required concessions on both sides. Barak was a "yes." Arafat waffled and waffled, and refused to commit.

nytimes.com - Israel palestinians gaza peace

The essence.....

"Throughout this horrible week, my mind has repeatedly flashed back to Dec. 23, 2000. That was the day the Palestinians were offered a path to having their own nation on roughly 95 percent of the land in the West Bank and 100 percent of the land in the Gaza Strip. Under that outline, Israel would also swap some of its own land to compensate the Palestinians in exchange for maintaining 80 percent of its settler presence in the West Bank.

The Palestinians would control, in President Bill Clinton's formulation, 'Arab areas' of East Jerusalem. And on the most sensitive religious sites, there would have been divided sovereignty or jurisdiction, with Palestinians controlling the Haram al-Sharif (including the Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques) and Israel controlling the Western Wall and the holy space of which it is a part. There would also be a return of many refugees into the new Palestinian state (without the right of return to Israel itself).

There were a million complexities ' and many errors made by the Israeli, Palestinian and American sides along the way. But this offer pointed the way to the sort of fair solution negotiators had been struggling their way toward for years. It is hard to see this kind of option ever being on the table again. And the Palestinians let it slip away.

This memory comes hauntingly back because the misery that Palestinians and Israelis are now enduring did not have to happen. They could have reached some kind of moderately effective arrangement, which would have given the two nations a chance to pursue their own destinies.

Another reason I think back on this history is the way a simplistic oppressor/oppressed, colonizer/colonized, 'apartheid Israel' narrative has been imposed on this conflict.

The real history is much more complicated. It is the story of the Palestinians who were offered a state in 1947 that the Arab states opposed. More recently, it is the story of flawed human beings on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, who were confronted with a devilishly complicated situation. They worked doggedly to secure peace and made real, if stumbling, progress toward that end. It is the story of how radicals on both sides undermined their efforts, leading to the bloodshed we see today. This is what happens when the center does not hold."