JERUSALEM - Israelis, Palestinians and the United States have long assumed that the key to lasting peace in the Middle East was the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. But Israeli and Palestinian leaders are now challenging each other with radically different proposals.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is offering the Palestinians a state but on the condition that Israel alone decide its borders rather than determine them through negotiations. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia is proposing instead of two states for two peoples, one state for two peoples, in which Palestinians would outnumber Israelis.
Here is Sharon willing to hand the Palestinians their long-sought state, albeit only on his terms. And here is the Palestinian leadership, saying Palestinians would rather be integrated into Israel than have their rights dictated to them.
Many dismiss Sharon's disengagement plan and Qureia's idea of a single state as empty threats made in a region where few people do what they say. Neither Sharon nor Queria would satisfy his own public with the proposals.
Sharon would have to dismantle Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza and evacuate tens of thousands of settlers. Qureia would have to surrender the chance for Palestinians to govern themselves in an independent state - the goal of years of fighting that has claimed thousands of lives.
"Everybody knows that Israel will reject totally the proposal of a binational state," said Danny Rubinstein, an Israeli who has long written about Palestinian politics. "It is an ultimatum by the Palestinian Authority to Israel: If you destroy the possibility of the establishment of two states, this is the only option we have left."
Rubinstein said that he doesn't believe Sharon is serious either. "It is part of the vicious cycle," he said. "The Palestinians want their own state, and Sharon doesn't want to give away territory or dismantle settlements."
Qureia said this week that if Sharon took unilateral actions, the idea of a Palestinian state would become a "meaningless slogan" because it would be on far less land than the Palestinians envision, and they would not have any say in the shape of their territory.
Some Palestinian officials have talked of dismantling the Palestinian Authority, which rules over six West Bank cities and the Gaza Strip, and returning to formal Israeli military rule.
