When peace is at hand the radicals seek to derail the

The paradox of violence raging currently in Israel, in Gaza and the Lebanon recently is that the way to put an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not hard to find. A vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians speaks for the solution of two States, which is based on the return to the 1967 borders. The major Arab States, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, share this point of view. The problem is not having to find a solution, but translating in fact, because minorities influential and often violent on both sides oppose the solution supported by the majority.

Three-quarters of Israelis and Palestinians yearn for peace and compromise, while a quarter often fueled by an extreme religious zeal research complete victory over the opponent. Radical Palestinians want to destroy Israel, Israeli hardliners control the West Bank through a permanent occupation, or to a tiny minority, by expulsion of the Palestinian population.

When peace is at hand, the radicals seek to derail the. Their actions are sometimes sources of serious disputes between moderates and extremists in the same edge, as was the case when an Israeli religious fanatic assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at a time when peace negotiations were great. From time to time, the tactics of radical Palestinians to derail peace are to launch a terrorist attack on Israeli civilians in the hope of provoking a violent exaggerated response on the part of Israel response which would fly down the emerging confidence of moderates on both sides.

They lead a daily fight against their own extremists, who claim that it is impossible to reach a compromise. Extremist Israelis argue that the Palestinians intend to destroy the State of Israel and consider the abduction and Palestinian suicide attacks and evidence that peace is unthinkable. Palestinian extremists say that Israel is simply a conspiracy to maintain the occupation and that the withdrawal from Gaza or the announcement of a partial withdrawal from the West Bank projects are merely tactical, without giving real control of the territory, transport, water, defence and other attributes of sovereignty.

The extremists have been able to block the peace process because any attack systematically a violent counterattack. They constantly tax moderates of weak, naive and idealistic, and push the appealing idea that total victory is possible. Israeli forces regularly try to "decapitate" the violent opposition by the murder of Palestinian leaders, as if the problem came down to a few individuals rather than to the political impasse. Radical Palestinians, for their part, spread the noise that a new terrorist attack would be fatal to Israel.

In this context, the details and the symbolism of a possible agreement weigh heavy. Israelis and Palestinians are close to agreeing on a "land for peace" in the Oslo process, in which they approved the borders from before 1967. The market has not quite found, with each accusing the other of intransigence on one or another point. The agreement can be signed, but only if avoiding the useless debate over who blocked the peace process can be avoided.

The theory of the Nobel Prize in economics Tom Schelling is highly relevant in this context. Schelling of the principle that it is essential that the parties find a focal point in their negotiations for an agreement. Gold borders of before 1967 could be this point in the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both sides should agree to the terms of the principles, then Exchange small parcels of land and delineate zones of control (especially regarding Jerusalem) by slightly modifying the 1967 borders and ensuring that neither one nor the other party are adversely affected. In other words, quibbling over details should come after the conclusion of the agreement on respect for the borders of before 1967, are recognized by the influential countries of the region and the world, and are enshrined in many resolutions of the United Nations.

The tragedy today, it is possible that the possibility of such an agreement of receding. Israel is rightly the removal of its troops by insurgents supported by Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah forces in the South of the Lebanon, but its massive and disproportionate military response is manipulated by extremists. Israel refused even to negotiate with the Palestinian Government of Hamas, trying to make it capitulate and financial pressure. Hamas has refused to consider the solution of two States, except indirectly. However, Palestinian public opinion is in favour of the compromise.

In addition, the United States are not a stabilizing role. They, too, is in the hands of extremists fighting terrorism by military means rather than political. Just as the war in Iraq was a mistaken response to the threat of Al-Qaeda, the green light from the Bush administration to military assaults of Israel in Gaza and the Lebanon is not a valid solution. The United States and other external powers to the conflict should be pressure on both sides to a compromise solution before that the spiral of violence is out of control.

Currently, the most powerful political ideology in the world is self-determination. As long as there will be no Palestinian State, as long as the Iraq will be occupied by American troops, Islamic extremists free new recruits. Military retaliation would swell that further their ranks. And as long as political grievances remain, the spread of democracy will not change, since the extremists will win votes.

To summarize, targeted terrorist threats must be combated by targeted counter-terrorism operations. And the moderates must undermine the extremism by policies of compromise rather than by the dangerous lure of military victory.