With the blessing of the United States, Israel has tabled proposals for a long-term resolution of its dispute with the Palestinians which they hope will restart the peace process in the region. Two things are necessary for this to happen, each conditional on the other. Israel must make it clear, not least to itself, that the plan as it stands is only an opening offer, and all aspects of it are negotiable. And the Palestinian side has to drop preconditions it has previously insisted on, such as Israeli withdrawal to its pre-1967 borders, though still using that demand as a bargaining chip in order to trade it for something more realistic.

The heart of the problem predates the existence of Israel, which came into being after a resolution passed by the United Nations General Assembly in November 1947, ratified the following spring. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, which committed the British Government to seek a national homeland for the Jews, was incompatible with promises of self-government covering the same territory that Britain had given to the Arabs. Set in motion was a conflict between two irreconcilable claims, perceived subjectively as a conflict of rights, that has festered ever since. And it is as clear now as it has ever been, that both rights cannot be fully satisfied.