Land for peace. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, scheduled to come to the Middle East in the next few weeks, should remember these three simple words when she arrives. Today, Israelis facing an ugly act of terrorism cannot support a solution that fails to guarantee their personal security. And Palestinians yearning for a peaceful future cannot see any hope while bulldozers tear up Palestinian land to build housing for Israelis. But one cannot happen without the other.
Political trust needs to be re-established for the security cooperation to work.
Consultation and information sharing between the two security forces worked during the governments of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres because they were accompanied by political progress based on mutual trust. Yes, there were suicide bombings. But afterwards, Rabin would wait till the end of the mourning period and then immediately relaunch peace talks, knowing full well that one of the aims of the terrorists was breaking up the talks. As a result, cooperation was accelerated and produced some impressive results in detaining would-be suicide bombers and the discovery of weapons caches. Rabin's attitude also left a different impression on Palestinians in the streets.