Editors' Page

...According to die peace agreements, signed and to be signed, it will be completely demilitarized (unlikeJordan...

...Economically and administratively, it will have to be dependent on Israel...

...The prize at its end shines clear—the shalom of the prophets, of our daily prayers, of our passionate millennial yearning...

...Is this the Israeli who has left behind shtetl...

...Israel's greatest protection lies in the prosperity of this tiny Palestinian state...

...And we must do this for Israel's security...

...In this topsy-turvy world^ with a stroke of the pen our interests have become inverted...

...I believe it is...

...Palestinians now comprise 70 percent of the population of Jordan...

...But the chances are verv good now that economics will be more important than ideology...

...In all likelihood, economic conditions in Jordan will remain roughly the same...

...If Israel is no longer demonized in a significant part of the Arab world, Israel will become a pla\er in regional politics...

...For analogous reasons, Israel's best interest may lie in a Palestinian state in part of the West Bank and Gaza— assuming that the peace process works, that the Palestinians organize themselves democratically and responsibly, discontinuing acts of tenor and sabotage...

...Yitzhak Rabin spoke to all of us whose sons have fallen in defense of Israel when he said that "For them this ceremony has come too late...

...In die past, Israel's interest may have been perceived to he in an economically penurious West Bank and Gaza (so dial die Palesunians would be willing to compromise or to give up the intifada...

...Today is the third day after Yasser Arafat stood sunbathed on the White House lawn and reached for the reluctant hand of Yitzhak Rabin...

...You'll have to provide your own answers...

...If a Palestinian state does not emerge, the likely alternative (assuming the peace process works and the Palestinians obtain further concessions) is a confederation with Jordan...

...Today is the eve of Rosh Hashanah 5754...

...I don't want to take all the kudos for the current agreement, though...

...If the Palestinians cannot demonstrate that they are responsible stewards of Gaza and Jericho, if they fail to develop democratic institutions, if they fail to control the radicals among them, if terrorism against Israel does not stop, then the Palestinians will get no more...

...So in this upside-down world, we must now work for a prosperous Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza...

...If that happens and the West Bank and Gaza are part of a Jordanian confederation, these territories will simply be absorbed into Greater Palestine...

...Remember, what is nowJordan, formerly Transjordan, was originally part of the British Mandate over "Palestine...

...To be successful, it will have to live largely in Israel's economic shadow...

...Again Israel's interests have been inverted: While formerly, confederation with Jordan was pushed as in Israel's best interest (this avoided a hated Palestinian state...

...At this point, no one knows where they will land, what coalitions will form around what issues, what natural interest groups will emerge among the nations of the region...

...How About Saddam Hussein...

...Another question: What do you think of the deal with Saddam Hussein diat ended the Gulf War...

...You consult your intelligence experts, who report: 1) Hitler is sincere and willing to make the deal conveyed through the emissary...

...For the Israelis, the alternative was unending enmity...

...So long as it is economically significantly better off than Jordan, it will resist absorption...

...But peace is never loo late, nor was the ceremony in Washington the arrival of peace...

...With Israel's and the world's help, the tiny West Bank-Gaza state of Palestine could become the envy of the Arab world...

...His confidence seemed wonderfully healthy...

...But the dangers to Israel seem just as real from continued occupations as from—taking the worst possibility— a Palestinian state on part of the West Bank and Gaza...

...Israel and all the Jews of the world have embarked on a journey...

...It is this that dramatically reduces Israel's risk...

...From Israel's viewpoint, that sounds like a good deal...

...In this inverted regional order, Israel can only hope that it will find a natural ally in a Palestinian state...

...With the passing of King Hussein, the chances are very good that the Palestinians will take over or otherwise dominate what is now Jordan...

...The major risk to Israel is that the agreement conceivably gives the Palesunians an advance position (and promise of more) from which to launch a war of extermination against Israel at some lime in the future...

...The most effective was Saddam Hussein of Iraq...

...the region does not need a 23rd Arab state, etc...

...The second part was, then show that you can handle this responsibly and you will be in a much better position to demand more—eventually, a state of your own...

...They themselves will determine whether they move on to the next step and whether, eventually, they achieve a Palestinian state...

...III...

...If this seems speculative and conjectural, consider the alternative...

...The development of responsible and effective Palestinian democracy is Israel's best guarantee of peace and Israel's best assurance that the risks it is taking in die peace process are worth the gamble...

...In these circumstances, it is unlikely the tiny Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, now fat and prosperous, will want to take on the burdens ofjordan, much less be absorbed into it...

...He said, "Israel can never be destroyed...

...Is the agreement worth the risks...

...Equally important, just how much the Palesunians will eventually get depends on whether they continue to follow my advice: After accepting whatever they could get as a first step, my advice was then: "Show what you can do...

...We spoke of peace, of the signing to come, of risks, of promise...

...I wept with those whose sons lie with ours...

...We must support him, help him, endorse him, elevate him, even pray for his success...

...My advice was, negotiate hard and take what you can get...

...Alas, too true, too true...

...While we eagerly watch for the signs of peace dividends, let us be prepared for the price of peace, yet to be paid...

...Or, seen from another view, is this the Israeli who has forgotten the persistence of hatred, the patience of enemies, the power of fanaticism...

...I had a number of partners...

...Will he and the young Israelis who danced with joy in Tel Aviv—the leaders of the next decade—will they who refuse to be paralyzed by history lose the protection of memory...

...Democracies have never gone to war against each other...

...When Arafat sided with Saddam, Arafat cut himself off from the financial support of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states...

...They must be ready to pause, to alter direction, perhaps even to head, for a time, back from where they came...

...The world gasped, most in disbelief and hope, some in remembrance and fear that the screams of innocents killed on order of the smiling man in a kafjiyeh and of his Israel-hating colleagues would again be heard in the land...

...Is this the new Israeli...

...Whether the Palestinians get a more meaningful state depends on them...

...As the Gulf War (to say nothing of the Iraq-Iran war in which different Arab nations chose different sides) proved, there is little that unites the Arabs except hatred of Israel...

...From the Palestisnian perspective, il the Palestinians don't develop a healthy democracy, they won't get— and they don't deserve—a meaningful Palestinian slate...

...Having looked at the matter from the Palestinian perspective, look at it from the Israeli perspective...

...Again families will walk behind the caskets of their sons, and diose sons will be part of making the peace, as surely as Alex and those who fell with him, before him and after him are part of bringing us to these times—shehipanu Itizman litaeh—for which we thank God...

...That the agreement with die Palestinians is not everything-Israel would have wanted must be conceded...

...From Israel's viewpoint, it would be far preferable to have, as its neighbor, a small Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza that will inevitably be dependent on and economically intertwined with Israel than a Palestinian state consisting of the West Bank and Gaza plus what is now Jordan...

...Through a reliable neutral emissary, Hitler sends a message: He is willing to end the war, to make peace, to slop the mutual killing, to withdraw from all lands except what was Germany before September 1939, to demilitarize Germany forever, even to compensate over time for the losses the war has caused...

...Would you deal...

...Questions, only questions...

...So long as it is prosperous, it will be allied with Israel...

...Shortly after Shimon Peres and PLO official Mahmoud Abbas signed on the South Lawn of the White House, a lawyer friend asked me to consider die following hypothetical case: It is late 1944...

...But, standing on a chair on the White House lawn, watching Israel's hated, wily enemy and the Prime Minister of Israel, who fought for his country's survival, witness the signing of the Declaration of Principles, I fervently added, Afem/ Hashem...

...Holocaust and pogroms...

...But that is not only die justification for Israel's taking some risks...

...While in die past, our interest may have lain in Arafat's demise—his just desert!—now our interest lies in his success...

...With that glue gone, the cards, to change the metaphor, have all been thrown into the air...

...This impoverishment left Arafat in such weakened condition that he had little choice but to take my negotiating suggestion...

...But Lie path, while clear at its start, quickly dips into shadow...

...2) the war will end, in any event, with Hitler's complete defeat in mid-1945...

...My advice is on record—in the pages of moment—in a piece entitled "How the Palestinians Can Achieve a Palestinian State" (August 1991...

...The Shabbat before this day a young Israeli exceedingly bright and at ease in the world, who had served in an IDF elite unit, sat at our table...

...It is that we must now embrace him, figuratively if not literally...

...But any settlement is bound to be painful to both sides— or, to put it differently, to involve risks...

...The Grand Inversion, or Why A Palestinian State May Be In Israel's Best Interest It is not simply that we have formally and even ostentatiously recognized a vicious terrorist, a murderer of women and children, into the world of respectable leaders...

...the demoralizing suppression of a hostile population, continued terrorism and a hobbling of Israel's creative energies that followed from a preoccupalion with its defense needs...

...Formerly, Israel's right wing (as well as its right-wing supporters in this country) pitched the slogan: Jordan IS Palestine...

...To none of us is it given to know the future...

...Our army is too strong for that to happen...

...now it lies in its prosperity...

...Demonstrate to the world that you are capable of democratically handling your own affairs...

...now it must be seen that confederation with Jordan will probably lead to a much larger Palestinian state...

...As Israel's leaders move creatively and eagerly along this path, the glow of the prize at the end must not blind them to risks to moving forward...

...Would You Make A Deal with Hitler...

...Today it is six years since Alex, a lieutenant in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), died in a terrorist attack in the security zone of southern Lebanon...

...I reach this conclusion not simply by looking at the alternative, though that is not irrelevant...

...jU^-^T^y^-^*--I. Reducing the Risk I don't want to take complete credit for the agreement between the Israelis i and the 'Pales-¦ tinians, but it is a i fact that the V Palestinians finally took my advice and got an agreement from the Israelis that might well lead to a Palestinian state...

...Given Israel's rights under the current agreement, even if the Palestinians declare a Palestinian state in Gaza and the Jericho area, that will not present an existential threat to Israel...

...If he hadn't invaded Kuwait, I don't think Arafat would have followed my advice...

...It has always seemed to me a bit superstitious and wasteful of God's attention to call on God when you're planning a trip to Cincinnati or a vacation in Switzerland...

...Traditional Jews, when speaking of an event in the future, significant or trivial, add without pause, b'ezral Hasheni, "with the help of God...

...3) ending the war now will save approximately a million lives—Germans, Americans, and Jews being processed through the death camps...

...He demands only that he be allowed to lead a new Germany, a democratic Germany, guaranteeing to hold internationally supervised elections within two years...

...Suppose the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have a per capita income of 60 percent that of Israel, instead of 15 percent, as is the case today...