I've always wondered, how some people have a right to return to a place they've never lived, while others are denied the right to return where they were born. A.I.

New Tries for Mideast Peace: "Ami Ayalon took over as chief of the Shin Bet security service in Israel in 1996, as a string of Palestinian suicide bombings massacred scores of Israelis. In the first nine months of 2000, the year he left office, there was one Israeli death from Palestinian terror. Much as he would like to take credit for the shift, Mr. Ayalon says, it had little to do with Israeli security techniques and a great deal to do with Palestinians' hopes for a state. When there was optimism about their political future, he said, support for violence plummeted, and Palestinian security services fought radicals. When hope declined, terror rose and no one lifted a finger to stop it. The most urgent task for Israel today, he says rightly, is to find a way to renew that hope.

Mr. Ayalon and Sari Nusseibeh, a Palestinian university president, have produced an admirable but unofficial statement of principles for a two-state solution, which they say has been signed by 100,000 Israelis and 70,000 Palestinians. It deals with the most sensitive issues: Israel would be recognized as the 'state of the Jewish people,' sovereignty in Jerusalem would be divided and shared, and the Palestinian 'right of return' would not include returning to Israel. "

A second significant peace development has also occurred. Key figures on both sides, including former ministers, have produced a detailed agreement, also unofficial, known as the Geneva Accord. It, too, would give explicit Palestinian recognition of Israel as the Jewish state and come to a reasonable solution for Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees. Both efforts deserve to be encouraged.

They reflect a reality that is hopeful and endlessly frustrating: a majority of Israelis and Palestinians favor such a solution, but the leadership needed to produce it is missing in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Washington. At his press conference on Tuesday, President Bush blamed only the Palestinians for the failure, saying they had not fought anti-Israel terror. This is true, but he neglected to say anything about Israel's settlement-building or its aggressive tactics in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, Israel's military chief of staff, spoke wisely this week when he said these policies worked against Israel's strategic interest.…

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/31/opinion/31FRI1.html