ISRAEL THE ALOOF NEIGHBOR : Patience Is Running Out : An integrated Middle East is inevitable. Arabs will negotiate if Israelis will provide a leadership of pragmatic realists.

Based on the two-state solution adopted at the Palestinian National Council’s meeting in Algiers in 1988, we have made it clear that we are serious about making peace in the Middle East. We are prepared to enter negotiations as the starting point of constructing a lasting peace, provided that every delegation chooses its own representation without foreign interference.

U.N. Resolution 242, which calls for Israeli withdrawal from occupied lands to secure and recognized boundaries, and the Camp David declaration that Israel accepts the “Palestinian people’s rights and their just requirements,” are the only common denominators of negotiation. But we must agree on the definition of these two pillars of peace to make any progress. How can we live in peace one day if we can’t even agree on the terms of reference so we can communicate?

For us, there is only one translation of 242: Israel’s withdrawal from all lands occupied during the 1967 war. That means not only the Sinai, from which Israel negotiated its withdrawal with Anwar Sadat at Camp David, but also the Golan Heights, Gaza and the West Bank.

The “rights and just requirements” of the Palestinian people means the same thing to us that it means for the Jews with respect to themselves: self-determination in an independent state. We no longer seek the partitioning of Israel to create a state; we ask for the West Bank and Gaza just as they were before 1967. With the exception of negotiable minor “mutual amendments” to the 1967 borders, it is my clear understanding that the United States agrees with our definition of the meaning of 242.

What term of reference should apply, then, to the “just rights and requirements” of the Israelis to have a state? Is it religion? We cannot agree on that, and neither can the Americans or anyone else. The Likud Party’s definition of the “just requirements” of Israel would include an Israel stretching from the Nile all the way to the Euphrates, or minimally, a “big” Israel that includes all the West Bank and Gaza stretching to the Jordan River.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III made the main point about peace when he said recently that the dream of a Greater

Israel should be put aside because it would only mean continuing wars. After all, how can I make peace with a man who says he wants a Greater Israel, any more than he can make peace with me if I say that the peace I propose is only a step toward taking all of his territory?

Is history the term of reference for what is “just”? Our case is a million times stronger because Palestinians were in Palestine before Moses brought the Jews, and we have lived on this land continuously.

Is international legitimacy the term of reference for what is “just”? The only internationally recognized accord is the United Nations Partition Plan of 1947, which would grant us much more than the “green line” borders of 1967. So we are the losers by accepting less than what international legitimacy would accord us.

What about Israel’s right to security? In an age of missiles, geography is no longer a factor of security in such a small area--only 8,000 square kilometers. Even if the Arabs were to use large, powerful missiles, they’d have to go to Baghdad to do it! In such a small area, the only real security threat is a people’s uprising, like the intifada. Thus, the only real security is peace arising out of a just settlement.

Furthermore, international relations in the future will be dictated by the global economy. In such a future, there is no room for a small economy like Israel’s, forever dependent on U.S. aid, especially in a world of diminishing superpower status and shifting alliances. The only realistic choice for Israel at the end of the 20th Century is to become an integral part of the Middle East. Our common future of integrated economic life can probably be ensured only in a confederated arrangement of Israel, Palestine and Jordan.

The main problem now is the inability to communicate. If we could agree on terms of reference over 242 and “rights and just requirements,” all our problems could be resolved very quickly. Justice is justice. There cannot be four justices. There can be only one justice. Justice for us is to have a homeland; justice for the Jews is to live in peace. That is the term of reference we propose.

So far, the other side refuses to come to a term of reference other than the Torah. They run away from a realistic and internationally accepted term of reference and talk politics instead. But in politics, everyone speaks his own language, and that precludes understanding.

Despite the long, even perilous distance we feel we have traveled toward acceptable terms for peace since 1988, no positive response has been forthcoming. Personally, I fear it may soon be too late for negotiations if there is not some tangible progress.