Israel needs to recognise that its self-interest lies in launching a peace offensive and promptly declaring its willingness to consider some form of two-state solution and to negotiate a comprehensive peace not just with its neighbours but, most importantly, with the Palestinian people.
Contrary to common wisdom, sharing the Holy Land is not a zero-sum game, in which any development advantageous to one side must be disadvantageous to the other. One can envisage a society in which, by severing political and voting rights from economic and social rights in a negotiated settlement, both the legitimate national aspirations of Palestinians and the legitimate security interests of Israelis could be simultaneously satisfied.
The non-negotiable minimum for both peoples of the Holy Land is their own self-determination as peoples and nations - that they can have a state of their own in the land they both love, including at least some share of Jerusalem, and that never again will anyone else govern them.
This is not impossible. The Holy Land could be a single economic and social unit encompassing two sovereign states and one Holy City. Jerusalem could form an undivided part of both states, be the capital of both states and be governed by an autonomous, elected municipal council.
Borders would have to be drawn on maps but would not have to exist on the ground. The free, non-discriminatory movement of people and products within the Holy Land could be a fundamental principle subject to one major exception: to ensure that each state would always maintain its national character, the right of residence in each Holy Land state could be limited to that state's citizens, to citizens of the other state residing there on an agreed future date, and to their descendants.
As an essential counterpart to the absence of border controls within the Holy Land, Israel could retain the right to participate in immigration controls at the frontiers of the Palestinian state, with any visitors restricted to the Palestinian state and found in Israel facing penalties.
The settlement agreement could be guaranteed by the United Nations and relevant states, with international tribunals to arbitrate disputes regarding compliance with its terms.
Jerusalem's status poses the toughest problem for any settlement plan, causing many to assume that no settlement acceptable to both sides can ever be reached. When the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 in 1947, it addressed the problem by suggesting an international status for Jerusalem, with neither the Jewish nor the Arab state to have sovereignty over the city. Yet the concept of joint undivided sovereignty, while rare, is not without precedent.
Chandigarh is the undivided capital of two Indian states. Until German reunification, the western sectors of Berlin, under American, British and French sovereignty, were jointly administered by an autonomous, elected senate. For more than 70 years, Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides) was under the joint undivided sovereignty of Britain and France.
As a joint capital, Jerusalem could have Israeli government offices principally in its Western sector, Palestinian government offices principally in its Eastern sector and municipal offices in both. To the extent that either state wished to control persons or goods passing into it from the other state, this could be done at the points of exit from, rather than the points of entry to, Jerusalem. In a context of peace, particularly one coupled with economic union, the need for such controls would be minimal.
Such a framework would address in ways advantageous to both sides the three principal practical problems on the road to peace - Jerusalem (through joint sovereignty over an undivided city), settlers (through a separation of citizenship rights from residential rights in a regime of free access to the entire Holy Land for all citizens of both states, under which no one would be compelled to move) and borders (through a structure of relations between the two states so open that the precise placement of borders would no longer be such a contentious issue and the pre-1967 borders - subject only to the expanded borders of Jerusalem, under joint sovereignty - might well be acceptable to most Israelis, as they would certainly be to most Palestinians).
For Israelis, the threat of one day living in a state with a majority of Arab voters, or an inescapable resemblance to pre-1990 South Africa, would be replaced by the assurance of living in a democratic state with fewer Arab voters than today. The Israelis' security would be enhanced by assuaging, rather than continuing to aggravate, the Palestinians' grievances. By escaping from the role (so tragic in the light of Jewish history) of oppressors and enforcers of injustice, Israel would save its soul and its dream.
For all Palestinians, human dignity would be restored. They would cease to be a people treated (and not only by Israelis) as pariahs uniquely unworthy of basic human rights. For those in exile, an internationally accepted Palestinian citizenship, a Palestianian passport and a right to return, if only to visit, would have enormous significance.
And if the Palestinians themselves accepted a settlement, few, if any, Arab states would continue to reject Israel. If a Palestinian flag were peacefully raised over Palestinian government offices in Jerusalem, few Arab eyes would still see Israel through a veil of hatred.
Acceptance and implementation of such a framework for peace would require a moral, spiritual and psychological transformation for both Israelis and Palestinians. Yet, given the decades of hatred, bitterness and distrust, any settlement would require such a transformation. Precisely because such a transformation would be so difficult, it is far more likely to be achieved if both peoples can be inspired by a truly compelling vision of a new society of peaceful coexistence, mutual respect and human dignity, in which both peoples are winners, than if they are left to contemplate painful programmes for a new partition and an angry separation in which both peoples must regard themselves, to a considerable degree, as admitting defeat.
Israelis, Palestinians and the true friends of both must join the search for a compelling vision of a society so much better than the status quo that both Israelis and Palestinians are inspired to accept in their hearts and minds that peace is both desirable and attainable, that the Holy Land can be shared, that a winner-take-all approach produces only losers, that both Israelis and Palestinians must be winners or both will continue to be losers and that there is a common destination at which both peoples would be satisfied to arrive and to live together.
John Whitbeck, 150 rue de l'Universite, 75007 Paris, France (tel 010 331 4266 0319 w; fax 4266 3591; tel 4555 0658 h). His proposals won a Social Inventions Award.