"A fierce attachment to the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. The assertion of ties to ancient peoples who lived here thousands of years ago. A mythology of universal victimization and unblemished righteousness. National feelings nurtured in aberrant conditions of exile and statelessness. The dream of return to Paradise Lost and a righting of historical wrongs."

Most readers would assume the above describes the Jewish peoples and their struggle to possess and retain the Israeli state. Not so. Michael S. Arnold wrote these words about the Palestinians in an article titled "Birth of a Nation" (The Jerusalem Post, Internet Edition, October 22, 2000). It speaks to why we see the depth of passion evidenced in recent clashes between Palestinians and Israelis as the postponed deadline for declaring a Palestinian state approaches again.

Observers of and participants in the fighting have asserted that the struggle is out of the hands of the PLO leader Yasser Arafat. Even if he were to attempt to make peace, the rank and file Palestinians say that they would not. On the Israeli side, feelings run strong that the fighting has only verified that the Palestinians never wanted to settle into a peaceful coexistence with Israel, but rather to eliminate Israel altogether-in the way once called for by Arafat in his overtly terrorist days.

Many of the Palestinian people were displaced 52 years ago with the creation of the Israeli state in 1948. Another 1.1 million were displaced in the '67 war, when Israel captured the West Bank. Not only are they still officially refugees (Palestinians represent 25 percent of the world's refugee population-UN figures), no compensation has been given to the Palestinians for lost land or homes. The "legal" argument maintained by Israel is that the Palestinians abandoned their property.

The estimated value of lost property runs approximately $180 billion, $40 billion of which has reportedly been offered by President Clinton (from U.S. taxpayers' money) as part of the "peace negotiations." At best, that falls considerably shy of the actual value of Palestinian losses. Additionally, the deal on the table would exclude about half the total number of Palestinians, which number between 5 and 6 million. It's hardly surprising that it's been met with little enthusiasm.

So, there is no apparent mutually acceptable solution to the conflict, and the thoughts that introduce this piece help illustrate why that is so.

Arnold adds, "Palestinian nationalism has been suffused with images of a perfect place that never was: orchards that produced the juiciest lemons known to man, the tastiest olives ever harvested. In many ways, Palestinian nationalism is a desire to return to the Garden of Eden, a pre-industrial paradise that is supposed to have existed before the Zionists came and ravaged the land."

He quotes Fouad Ajami, a Lebanese-born political scientist, who offers, "The dream of Palestine was always bigger than Gaza and the West Bank; it was always this grand concept" (ibid.).

Additionally, a looming unknown is what attitude will Arafat's successors assume-will they be revolutionaries or diplomats? Will they be pragmatists, willing to scale down their expectations, tone down the nationalist fervor and correct the myths assumed about their past? Or, will they perpetuate them in order to stir the nationalistic "righteous" anger? While the latter would likely guarantee them control over the Palestinians, it would also guarantee that negotiating a peaceful coexistence with or within Israel would remain hopelessly out of reach. ( "Palestinians-Stay Out!" by Eric S. Margolis, October 22, 2000. )