THE HAWKS VS. THE ISRAELI PEOPLE

Israelis Dare to Hope for Peace: Saddam Hussein's fall, a new Palestinian premier and broad resignation to separate states could better the new Mideast plan's prospects. (Henry Chu, May 7, 2003, LATimes)

A week after the unveiling of the U.S.-backed "road map" for a final peace between Israelis and Palestinians, there is a fragile sense that this time, just maybe, events have aligned to create circumstances conducive to a resolution of the conflict.

Most dramatic is the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, which removed one of Israel's staunchest enemies and has given the Israeli government more flexibility in its security strategy. Also, a new Palestinian leader has arrived on the scene, Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, a man many believe is willing to jettison armed struggle in favor of a political settlement.

Not so sudden but no less important, experts say, is the entrenched support among Israelis for a separate Palestinian state ? not necessarily out of a sense of moral obligation or charity but from a hard-eyed judgment that it offers the only way out of the fighting, which has claimed more than 2,000 Palestinian and 700 Israeli lives in the last 31 months.

A decade ago, the idea of carving out a separate Palestinian state was the mantra of Israeli leftists but anathema to most other Israeli Jews. Now, it is firmly part of the political mainstream, according to analysts and pollsters.

"Ten years ago, I'd have said, 'Who are they that we give them a state?' Now I say, 'This is the reality,' " declared Eran Levy, a restaurateur in downtown Jerusalem. Levy, 34, puts himself on the right of the political spectrum, but if a two-state solution will "stop the mess here," he said, then so be it. [...]

"There should be a Palestinian state," said [68-year-old Ruth ] Schor, a longtime voter for the hawkish Likud Party, which has steadfastly opposed the idea. "They need their own state, and I don't think we should have to live together with so many Arabs."

Analysts trace the shift in public opinion in support of Palestinian statehood back to the Oslo peace process of the 1990s, when a resolution to the crisis seemed tantalizingly within reach. Talks between Israel and the Palestinians led to agreement that there ought to be a separate Palestinian homeland, carved largely out of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Ultimately, the 1993 Oslo accord fell apart, leaving both sides embittered and disillusioned. But the concept of a separate Palestinian state had crept from the political fringe toward the center and stayed lodged there.

"If we go back before the beginning of Oslo, let's say '91 or so, there was not a majority in favor" of giving Palestinians their own state, said Ephraim Yaar of the Tami Steinmetz Institute for Peace at Tel Aviv University. "In this respect, you can say the Israeli public has shifted toward the left."

Yaar co-directs a monthly poll examining peace issues. In his most recent survey, which was conducted last week and is to be published Thursday, 60% of respondents said they favored the creation of a Palestinian state, while 36% were opposed. (The rest did not answer.)

Yet the resounding reelection of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in January reflected a curious dichotomy in the public psyche, Yaar said. Although a majority of Israelis have now adopted one of the key elements of the leftist agenda, they apparently want a strong right-wing government to bring it about.

Yaar's poll found that 64% of Israelis back the new road map.

The time will never be riper than now for Ariel Sharon to impose statehood on his own terms. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 8, 2003 8:05 AM