LZA Praises Peace Initiatives

After more than three years of worsening terrorism and violence, and after every effort to restart the negotiations between Israel's government and the Palestinian Authority-including the Bush Road Map-has collapsed, we welcome the proposals put forward by Ami Ayalon and Sari Nusseibeh, and we welcome the "Geneva Understandings," an agreement attempting to resolve the conflict signed this month by a group of prominent Israelis and Palestinians led by former Israel Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and former PA Information Minister Yaser Abed Rabo.

The bloodshed of the last three years has strengthened those on both sides who reject the very possibility of ever negotiating any agreement with the other side. They claim that the only thing the other side will ever understand is the language of the gun, that each descent in the cycle of violence requires an ever-more-harsh response, and that the next escalation of violence, or the one after, will force the other side to give up. This is a death sentence for the generation of Israelis and Palestinians now coming to maturity. Only the prospect of meaningful negotiation will persuade the majorities on both sides that can force an end to the cycle of violence. That is why we salute the Israelis and Palestinians who took it upon themselves to demonstrate that there is another way.

While such private initiatives are not a substitute for negotiations between the Israeli government and a duly constituted Palestinian Authority, they nevertheless serve several essential purposes:

• demonstrating that there is "someone on the other side to talk to;"
• providing an alternate voice to those calling for continued and escalated violence;
• offering a tentative model for what a final agreement might resemble.

These private initiatives should also signal to our American administration the need to review its efforts to promote a resumption of negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. Ultimately, the details of such an agreement will be negotiated by Israel's elected government and the Palestinian Authority. These details will certainly not be identical to those in the Nusseibeh-Ayalon Agreement, the Geneva Understandings, or any other initiative by private citizens. But the authors and signatories of these efforts are true citizens and patriots: In this worst of times, they have demonstrated their faith in the possibility of a peaceful future, and in doing so, they have given hope to their two peoples.

We invite Palestinian and other Muslim organizations to voice similar sentiments in the Palestinian media and to join us in a wider dialogue to sustain those hopes generated by the authors of the Nusseibeh-Ayalon Agreement and the Geneva Understandings.