"...we should look to a "three-state" approach, where Gaza is returned to Egyptian control and the West Bank in some configuration reverts to Jordanian sovereignty. Among many anomalies, today's conflict lies within the boundaries of three states nominally at peace. Having the two Arab states re-extend their prior political authority is an authentic way to extend the zone of peace and, more important, build on governments that are providing peace and stability in their own countries. "International observers" or the like cannot come close to what is necessary; we need real states with real security forces.

"Fifteen years after the Oslo Accords outlined a pathway to a final resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a "permanent status agreement" seems as unattainable today as it was at the time. If Israelis and Palestinians are committed to the principle of a "two-state solution" for their historic dispute, why does that objective remain so elusive?
In this new Washington Institute Policy Focus, Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, former head of Israel's National Security Council, examines the current agenda of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations and offers the provocative assessment that a conventional two-state approach may never succeed, given the cumulative weight of the compromises required from each side. If negotiations were challenging in 2000, he argues, they will be even more difficult today, with Hamas's ascendancy in Gaza and the injection of new technology -- such as short-range rocketry -- having entered into the strategic equation. In place of a diplomatic approach that has repeatedly failed to produce peace, General Eiland offers two new proposals -- a modified "Jordanian option" and a new "regional solution" -- that could bypass the growing political and security obstacles that have impeded peacemaking for so many years. "