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Refugees and Israeli-Palestinian Peace
(Wall Street Journal) Michael Steinhardt - Over the past decade a great illusion has taken hold of three successive American administrations that the path to peace between Israel and the Palestinians will come through negotiating the fate of West Bank settlements. But the real issue that separates Israel and the Palestinians is refugees. Descendants of the Arabs who left their homes in 1948 now number in the millions. The Palestinians want these people returned to Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Israel says no, knowing this would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish state. Over the past ten years, two Israeli premiers have offered to give back virtually the entire West Bank in exchange for peace. The Palestinians have refused, citing the unresolved plight of the refugees as the reason. What would a final deal on the refugee issue look like? It's high time we found out. The Arabs have, in the past, demanded unlimited repatriation of families to land they left behind. Rightly or wrongly, that's not how refugee crises get resolved in the real world. President Obama should marshal his considerable popularity abroad to build an international coalition to solve the refugee problem, once and for all. As a first step, the coalition would create a fund to be used to create new communities within Gaza, the West Bank and elsewhere, and to help educate and employ the refugee populace. As a second step, the coalition would seek homes for at least some of the refugees beyond the borders of the West Bank and Gaza. Only the Palestinians will be able to say whether this is good enough. If it is, peace is truly possible. If it isn't, we will know that, too. And at least we will know that we tried. The writer is co-founder of Birthright Israel.