The Peel Commission report (that was in 1937), the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry’s recommendations (1946), the UN partition resolution (1947), the Bernadotte plan (1948), the Lausanne conference (1948-49), Security Council Resolution 242 (1967), the Rogers plan (1970), the Jarring mission (1971), the Camp David “framework for peace” (1978), the Madrid conference (1991), the Oslo declaration of principles (1993), the Palestinian-Israeli interim agreement (1995), the Wye summit (1997), the Camp David summit (2000), the Sharm-el-Sheikh summit (2000), the Taba conference (2001), the Bush road map (2003): if none of these could end the Jewish-Arab conflict in Palestine, what hope is there for Annapolis? Indeed there is little. When time after time a problem cannot be resolved, it is reasonable to suspect that it may be unresolvable, at least in the manner in which it is conceived. And yet, we have been told, the problem has now come so tantalizingly close to resolution that all it needs is one more little push.

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