JUST BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T NEGOITIATE IT DOESN'T MEAN IT DIDN'T HAPPEN:

Who Needs a Jewish State? (LA Times, October 10, 2004)

The second intifada, or Palestinian war on Israel, is 4 years old. Although it has featured guns and suicide bombs, it has failed just like the first intifada, in 1987-93, which featured rocks and Molotov cocktails. For every dead Israeli, there are three dead Palestinians. Thousands have been injured. Thousands more have been turned into refugees by Israel's unsubtle policy of avenging suicide bombs by destroying the houses of the bombers' relatives. The Palestinian economy — near totally dependent on wages from jobs in Israel — is a shambles, as Israel quite understandably has become choosier about who it lets in.

The headlines have obscured one remarkable positive development: Israel's acceptance in principle of a Palestinian state.

Now, if they could just hold that thought until the next time they're ready to write that the Road Map is in trouble. President Bush's Israel/Palestine policy had three parts: a Palestinian State; democratic reform within Palestine; and a settlement of border issues. The Wall is an implicit acceptance of Palestinian statehood, as well an imposed boundary, and the Intrafada is the beginning of internal reform. Game, set, match.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 10, 2004 3:06 PM