AGREEMENT OR ACCEPTANCE ARE THE ONLY CHOICES:

Top Israelis Meet With Palestinian Leader: Encounter Precedes Prime Minister Olmert's Washington Visit; Medical Aid Approved (Scott Wilson, May 22, 2006, Washington Post)

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's top two cabinet ministers met Sunday with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh, the first time senior officials from the two sides have met in nearly a year.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Olmert's chief deputy, and Vice Premier Shimon Peres spoke with Abbas, the Palestinian Authority's president, for 30 minutes at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East. Afterward, Livni said the U.S.-backed peace strategy known as the "road map" was "still relevant," and Palestinian officials suggested the meeting was a positive first step toward renewing regular talks. [...]

Formal peace negotiations between the two sides have been dormant since January 2001. Olmert, who visits Washington this week on his first official trip as prime minister, has pledged to explore the possibility of new talks with Abbas before carrying out a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from parts of the West Bank. He led the Kadima party to victory in Israel's March elections on a promise to define Israel's final eastern border during his four-year term.

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Voices from the prison (Uri Avnery, 5/16/06, Daily Times)

Prison serves an important function in the annals of every revolutionary movement. It serves as a college for activists, centre for the crystallisation of ideas, rallying point for leaders, platform for dialogue between the various factions.

For the Palestinian liberation movement, the prison plays all these roles and many more. During the 39 years of occupation, hundreds of thousands of young Palestinians have passed through Israeli prisons. At any given time, an average of 10,000 Palestinians are held in prison. This, the liveliest and most active section of the Palestinian people, is in continuous ferment. People from every class, every town and village, every political and military faction are to be found there.

Prisoners have ample time. They have the opportunity to learn, to think, to organise seminars, to concentrate full-time on the problems of their people, to exchange views, to work out solutions.

In order to prevent an explosion, the Israeli prison authorities allow these prisoners a communal life and self-government. This is wise. In practice, the prisons resemble camps for prisoners of war. Clashes between the prisoners and the prison authorities are comparatively rare.

One of the results is that, in prison, the inmates learn Hebrew. They watch Israeli TV, listen to Israeli radio and become acquainted with the Israeli way of life. They come to know Israeli reality and even to appreciate some of its components. Israeli democracy, for example. “What we liked most,” an ex-prisoner once told me, “was to see the Knesset debates on TV. When we saw Knesset members shouting at the prime minister and cursing members of the government, we really got excited. Where do you have such a thing in the Arab world?” [...]

All this comes as an introduction to the central event of this week: the agreement achieved in prison between the representatives of all the Palestinian factions.

This is a document of very great importance for the Palestinians, both because of the identity of its authors and its content.

At this time, many leaders of the various Palestinian factions are in prison, from Marwan Barghouti, the leader of Fatah in the West Bank, to Sheik Abd-al-Khaliq al-Natshe, a Hamas leader. With them there are the leaders of Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front and the Democratic Front. They spend their time in permanent discussion, while in touch with the leaders of their organisations outside and the activists inside. God knows how they do it.

When the leaders of the prisoners speak with one voice, what they say carries a greater moral weight than the statements of any Palestinian institution, including the presidency, the parliament and the government.

This is the background, against which this fascinating document should be examined.

In general, it follows the policy of Yasser Arafat: the two-state solution, a Palestinian state in all the territory occupied in 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital, the release of all Palestinian prisoners. This means, of course, the recognition of Israel in practice.