Israeli author Amos Oz writes, "Every Israeli in the street knows what the solution is, just as every Palestinian knows it. Even Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat know the solution: peace between the two states, established by the partition of the land roughly in accordance with demographic realities based on Israel's pre-1967 border." (The International Herald-Tribune, March 13, 2002)

Ron Dermer argues that Israel cannot absolve Yasser Arafat from punishment: "By leaving Arafat's office in Ramallah standing, Israel is telling the whole world that there is a place here where terror has a right to exist. And if terror has a right to exist in the Land of Israel, it is hard to believe that we will be able to defend the Jewish state's right to exist for much longer." (Jerusalem Post, April 4, 2002)

Marwan Barghouti, one of Yasser Arafat's top Fatah lieutenants, asserts, "The only way for Israelis to have security is, quite simply, to end the 35-year-old Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. Israelis must abandon the myth that it is possible to have peace and occupation at the same time, that peaceful coexistence is possible between slave and master. The lack of Israeli security is born of the lack of Palestinian freedom. Israel will have security only at the end of the occupation, not before." (Washington Post, Jan. 16, 2002)

An architect of the Oslo Accords, Yossi Beilin contends that Israel and the Palestinians have already agreed on a peace plan. He writes, "The solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has already been spelled out in all its stages and details. The Middle East does not need new solutions. It needs a kindergarten teacher to separate the two children, splash some cold water on their faces, calm them down, and send them back to the fine place where they left their sanity." (The American Prospect, March 11, 2002)

George Washington University professor Amitai Etzioni suggests that in order to implement the Saudi peace plan, "The Israelis and Palestinians need what Northern Ireland had. While negotiations ensued there was a long period in which killings dwindled to zero. Tempers calmed down and people came to terms with their grief and got busy rebuilding. At the end of such a rainbow, the Saudi plan may have a prayer." (The Christian Science Monitor, April 1, 2002)

Former special Middle East coordinator Dennis Ross proposes a four-part U.S. initiative to halt the violence in the Middle East. He argues that in order to have any chance of success, such an initiative must "deal with the violence, offer a political pathway, create consequences for those who fail to fulfill their commitments, and provide enough drama to get everyone's attention and give all involved a greater stake in the outcome." (Washington Post, March 16, 2002)

According to Stephen Zunes, "There is a major contradiction between the U.S. role as chief mediator of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its role as the principal economic, diplomatic, and military supporter of Israeli occupation policies. That contradiction is directly responsible for the disillusionment leading to the ongoing Palestinian uprising." (Foreign Policy in Focus, Feb. 2001)