(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-11-30 07:21

The consensus Israel and Palestine reached on restarting their first talks on December 12 raises hope for peace and stability in the Middle East.

That Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas shook hands at the Middle East Peace Conference in Annapolis, Maryland on Tuesday meant a lot to the tense and volatile region.

Divided on some key wording, the two sides failed to release a joint statement but a "joint understanding". Still, the agreement has steered the Middle East peace process in the right direction.

Both Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed that peace is the only choice for the region and were committed to bury the hatchet.

Their visions decide the region's fate. The way they see the situation in their region in perspective is helpful. Both Olmert and Abbas know they will have to make major concessions and undertake major commitments to establish any credible agreement that has any chance of holding.

They have agreed to push for a peace deal by the end of 2008. The thorny problems they will put on the negotiation table are the core issues, or the final status issues as they were described in the 1993 Palestinian-Israeli Oslo interim peace accords. They include the borders of the Palestinian state, the status of Jerusalem, and fate of Palestinian refugees.

A final status agreement is a holy grail that so many previous generations of negotiators have not attained.

Hopefully, the two leaders will open their eyes to the past and their minds to the future.

No one expects a cure-all document at one meeting between the leaders of the two sides. But their following talks should seek to reach initial specific agreements that will ease and end the economic suffering of the Palestinians, reduce the oppressive Israeli military presence on the West Bank, freeze Israeli settlement building and, in return, maintain effective security from guerrilla attacks against Israel.

Peace is not impossible nor is it unattainable. However, it is unrealistic to expect a final agreement in a single giant leap.

The peace conference at Annapolis was the first stepping-stone the two leaders and the international community have laid for cracking many hard nuts in the Middle East.

It is hoped that the two leaders will stand by the words in the "joint understanding" they signed.

(China Daily 11/30/2007 page10)