PERSPECTIVE ON MIDEAST PEACE : Securing Israel’s Jewish Identity : The implementation of Palestinian self-rule will restore the Zionist ideal as well as enhance the prospects for peace.

With Wednesday’s initialing of the agreement between Israel and the PLO, the Israeli and Palestinian peoples embark on a historic but uncharted journey. The risks are real. But the present Israeli government has wisely recognized that an agreement based on territorial compromise--that is, trading land for peace with security--is Israel’s only viable option if it wants to remain a Jewish state.

It is symbolic that President Clinton announced the initialing Wednesday at a meeting of the World Jewish Congress board of governors in Washington.

The premise on which the state of Israel was established in 1948, the Zionist ideal, was that, while all citizens--Jews, Muslims and Christians alike--would have full equality, Israel would have a permanent Jewish majority, thus ensuring its Jewish character. Until the Six-Day War of 1967, the Jewish majority status was not in any jeopardy. With the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, however, Israel found itself in control of the lives of a large Palestinian population, which has since grown to almost 2 million.

As a practical matter, there were four options for the future, two of which were utterly unfeasible. The dream of Arab nationalists to drive Israel into the sea is no more viable than the desire of some reactionary Israeli politicians to transfer all Arabs out of the occupied territories. That left either territorial compromise or Israel’s permanent retention of the territories.

The essence of the politically fundamentalist vision of right-wing leaders, such as former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and former Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, was that Israel would never relinquish a single inch of the West Bank or Gaza. That path, however, would have led in relatively short order to the creation of a binational state, for it is inconceivable that 2 million Palestinians would have been allowed to remain in a state of perpetual disfranchisement. If Israel had insisted on retaining political control over the occupied territories no matter what, it would sooner or later have had to integrate the population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip into the Israeli body politic.

Ironically, it was for many years the goal of the PLO to have such a binational state--a secular Palestinian state in which Arabs and Jews could live together. What the PLO wanted to achieve, of course, was the extinction of the Zionist state of Israel, replacing it with a new political entity along the lines of Lebanon or Belgium, in which no one religion or nationality was dominant.

In December, 1988, the PLO changed its position and recognized the state of Israel, agreeing to have a Palestinian homeland that would exist alongside the Jewish state. This shift provided the basis for the Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles, which was signed on Sept. 13, 1993, and for Wednesday’s agreement implementing that declaration.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres understood that the only alternative to integrating the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza into the Israeli body politic was to give them the opportunity of having their civil and political rights, including the right to national self-determination, within their own, separate body politic.

Several days ago, I received a letter from PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, in which he reflected on the importance of the Declaration of Principles and the peace process:

“Definitely (the declaration) is an important historic event in the history of the Palestinian and Israeli peoples. It is, as well, an important historic event in the history and development of the region. It paves the way for opening wide horizons for establishing just peace in the region after decades of war and enmity, oppression and injustice. Now we have to be able to open a new chapter in our relations on the basis of our mutual respect, fruitful cooperation and resolution of conflict by dialogue and arbitration. . . . We believe that the commitment to implement (the declaration), in letter and in spirit, is the only guarantee to achieve just peace for both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, which would make it possible to end the bloody conflict. . . . “

The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has far to go, and there are sure to be many hurdles along the way. It is clear, however, that by enabling the Palestinians to develop separately into a viable national political unit, the leaders of Israel have also ensured the Jewish future of the state of Israel.