In 2001, a group of Israelis and Palestinians decided to work on a project that simulated a negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians for a final status settlement. These Israelis and Palestinians included participants in the 2000 Camp David talks, which had advanced after Camp David at Taba in Egypt following the drafting of the Clinton parameters. This group convened as often as possible and, about a year into their project, sought the assistance of the Carter Center’s Conflict Resolution Program. Ultimately, in October 2003, a model draft settlement was reached, known as the Geneva Accord.
So far, this model represents the most comprehensive attempt at describing a solution that provides nation-states for both Israel and the Palestinians, or as this lternative has been described, a two-state solution.
The central questions that will need to be answered in any long-term agreement between Israelis and Palestinians are no secret. One concerns the issue of borders, which breaks down further into sovereignty for the Palestinians and security for the Israelis. There is very little debate that the borders of any proposed Palestinian state are largely going to configure to the 1949 Armistice. However, adjustments are certain, particularly around Jerusalem, to account for some settlement activity that is not likely to be reversed. By contrast, it is hard to envisage a long-term agreement that permits the retention of outlying settlements that dot the West Bank, some of them lying much closer to the Jordan River than to Jerusalem.
Yet another question involves Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war. Since 1948, Palestinians have used the term "right of return" to describe Palestinian refugee rights. However, as the Geneva negotiators understood, the use of this term is problematic in that it tends to suggest the remedy for the problem as well as the problem itself. That remedy is not workable because the problem is far more complex: a group of people were dispersed in several different countries and the occupied territories themselves; they have been living in appalling conditions for years; and countries in which the camps were located have no interest in absorbing the refugees as immigrants. Finally, the Palestinians have been a stateless people for such a long period of time that generations have been born and raised inside these camps.
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