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Waiting for a Palestinian Leader Ready to Make Peace with Israel
(Mosaic) Menahem Milson - The issues I discussed with Palestinian interlocutors more than four decades ago continue to reverberate loudly today. Despite the Oslo agreement between Israel and the PLO in the early 1990s, which led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, there has been no progress toward the realization of a two-state solution. The Palestinian leadership insists on the right of the Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to their original homes in Israel, which would effectively spell the end of Jewish sovereignty. It has also rejected or failed to respond to repeated official offers from Israel to move toward the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. I continue to maintain that a two-state peace settlement is the only solution that is both just and internationally recognized. Although it does not seem feasible at present, I am convinced it can become so if and when a Palestinian leader emerges who, like Anwar Sadat in 1977, openly and unequivocally declares his readiness to make peace with Israel and to end the conflict in return for Israeli territorial concessions. Col. (ret.) Menahem Milson, former head of the civil administration in the West Bank, is professor emeritus of Arabic studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.