With the use of force, Israel has no hesitation to interfere with the electoral process in the occupied territories. Israel is keeping in Jail Marwan Barghouti the head of a Palestinian list. Israel prevents the Palestinians from campaigning in East Jerusalem. Israel threatens the Palestinians with dire consequence would Hamas' candidates win the elections.

Can the Palestinians interfere with the Israeli elections? The fact that the question is not raised is an indication of lack of strategic thinking among most Palestinian leaders. In fact, the Palestinians could play an immense role in the upcoming Israeli elections if only their leaders would understand the opportunity available to them.

Not to see the possibility of affecting the results of the Israeli elections is lacking vision and imagination. More than anything else, it is the start of the second intefada that brought Sharon to power, and has thus strongly affected the results of the Israeli election. It had affected it negatively by falling in Sharon's trap aiming at increasing the distance between the two people, at stirring up the Israelis' fear of the Palestinians. Here is a speech that Abu Mazin could make to influence the results of the Israeli elections, to change for the better the mindset of the Israelis: Such a speech should be made after Sharon's health condition is definitive, one way or the other.

A suggested speech Abu Mazin could address to the Israeli people.

A message I wish Abu Mazin would direct to the Jewish Israelis:

To my Israeli Jewish neighbors,

Most of the Israeli population are too young to remember the time when Jews and Arabs were living in "Palestine" in friendly and even brotherly neighborhood. Many of the older Israelis and Palestinians do remember it quite well.

This does not surprise anyone versed in the History of the relations between Jews and Arabs in the Arab countries. There has not been pogroms against Jews in Arab countries. The Jews could feel safe, build their Synagogues, live according to their Jewish character, whatever it had then been. Their possessions were safe, their families were safe, the freedom to have their own schools was respected. The Jewish communities, all around the Arab countries, prospered and developed a culture of their own illustrated by names such a Maimonide, for instance, whose writings in Egypt were done some in Hebrew and some in Arabic.

While Jews endured various degrees of persecution in Europe, and even in the US, they did find a friendly refuge in Arab countries. It is the Muslim conquest that brought peace to the Spanish Jews and allowed them to occupy prominent positions as statesmen, physicians and scholars.

The hospitality the Jews enjoyed in the arab countries lasted for centuries. If today there are less Jews in the Arab countries than fifty years ago, it is not because the Jews were persecuted in the Arab countries. They were not coerced by Arab authorities into leaving the Arab countries.

So, why did a relation, a friendly relation between our two people, that was so outstanding compared to the anti-Semitism Jews endured elsewhere in the world, why did such a relation suddenly became sour? Why is it that now Israeli soldiers occupy Palestinian territories where they are not welcomed? Why is it that Israeli soldiers shoot at our people, destroy their houses and uproot their olive trees, divide their territories into a number of islands which are perceived as prisons by the Palestinian population? Why is it that misguided Palestinian go on suicidal missions to kill Israelis on Israeli territory?

I can understand that an average Israeli, facing the reality of suicide-bomber attacks on Israeli territory, is outraged. He may come to hate Palestinians. He may come to be blind to the righteousness of the Palestinians aspirations. Such an Israeli may say that his leaders must take whatever measures necessary to eliminate those Palestinian terrorists, even if they have to be chased into the Palestinian territory, even if it requires "collateral damage" to the Palestinian population in terms of the humiliation related to the checkpoints, and in terms of destruction of Palestinian houses.

I do not approve the suicide-bombing attacks. But it is obvious that they are not the root of the problem. Occupation, destruction of Palestinian houses, increasing the number of Jewish settlements, and so many other forms of persecution of the Palestinian people, were going on before the wave of suicide-bombing attacks. They were perceived as acts of state terrorism committed by the state of Israel.

I too would like to stop those suicide-bombings. This cannot be done just by arresting some members of organizations like HAMAS. It is a popular organization which has a large constituency. However many of their members we would arrest, its constituency will provide an almost infinite source of new volunteers to become suicide bombers.

Suicide bombings can be stopped only if HAMAS either loses its constituency or, in accord with its constituency, directs its efforts and energy in other of its fields of action. other than suicide-bombings.

As long as the Palestinian people will not be allowed to see the light at the end of the tunnel, as long as the Palestinian people will be deprived of the hope for freedom, security and prosperity, HAMAS will always have a strong Palestinian constituency supporting its policies of suicide-bombings in the Israeli territories proper.

Yes, an essential step towards a rapprochement between the two populations is the ceasing of the suicide bomb-attacks and any other form of attack against innocent Israeli civilians. But this cannot be accomplished unless credible reasons for hope are given to the Palestinians people.

In this respect, I mourn all the victims of the Israeli occupation, I mourn the Palestinians killed by the Israeli army, I mourn the Israeli victims of the suicide-bombers, and I mourn the death of the suicide-bombers, themselves victim of the Israeli occupation. Were it not for the occupation, the suicide-bombers would have been peaceful valuable citizens of a free Palestine country. There were no suicide-bombings before 1967.

Give hope to the Palestinian people and I can promise that the following will occur. The Palestinian constituency supporting HAMAS suicide-bombings will evaporate, along with a change of Hamas' policies.

Now, if hope and dignity are restored to the Palestinian people, and if against the will of the Palestinian people, and in the absence of a strong constituency, some Palestinians want to go on with their suicide-bonmbings attacks against the Israeli civil population on the Israeli territory, I would then implement the most stringent measures against those involved in such attacks. However, your government, by removing all credible hope from the Palestinians, is tying my hands, and makes it impossible for me to implement such measures. Would I try, and I would rightly be considered as a puppet in the hand of a pityless conqueror bent more and more on depriving the Palestinians of what remains to them of land property, liberty and dignity.

If you want me to successfully fight the suicide bombings and stop it, you must give me the tools which are the restoration of the dignity and hope to the Palestinian people.

How would you feel if your territory was occupied by a foreign army, if it was divided into Islands which can communicate only through checkpoints controlled by the occupier? How would you feel if your villages had been destroyed, if your land had been confiscated in the name of security, and then given to foreigners to settle on it? How would you feel if your right to resist occupation was confronted by a severe repression inflicting ten times more victims on Israelis than on the occupier of your Israeli land? How would you feel if the occupier had ordered the bones of your children to be broken if they throw stones at the occupier?

It is useless to demand from the whole Palestinian people to suffer without resisting, to suffer without retaliation. No Palestinian leader can be heard and followed if he asks his people to endure occupation in silence.

All I can do is to say to my people that the fight for liberation is not directed against the Israeli people. It is directed against the occupation of our territory as delimited by the pre-1967 boundaries. Give back hope and dignity to the Palestinian people, and I will order all Palestinians to absolutely refrain from any violent action on Israeli territories. Resisting the occupier should be directed against the occupier on occupied territory.

Any Palestinian who would then resort to violence on the Israeli territory would be acting against the Palestinian cause. The Palestinian authority would deal with him as with a criminal. I also think that in a situation in which hope and dignity is restored to the Palestinians, HAMAS too will oppose the policy of suicide-bombings and would condemn those who resort to it against the will of the Palestinian population.

Still, in order to encourage a start of either an unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, or a negotiated one, we hereby proclaim a unilateral cessation of hostilities for three months. To make it more clear, hostilities on the Israeli territories are hereby declared as being directed against the Palestinian people and therefore forbidden for ever. The hostilities on the occupied territories, against the occupier are suspended for three months, a period that can either be extended, or even be followed by a permanent stop of hostilities, depending on the reaction of the Israeli government and its willingness to prove that it is considering the evacuation of the occupied territories.

I would like to make it clear that once the territories are evacuated, and the Palestinian state is proclaimed with East Jerusalem as its Capital, it will be our aim to realize the dream of the two states living side by side as good neighbors and even brotherly neighbors. This is only possible if each of the two states treats the other as an equal. We will never accept that the boundaries of our state be under Israeli control, that our sky and our harbors be under Israeli control. We cannot accept what the Israeli would not have accepted for themselves. What we can solemnly promise is that our policies will be so designed as to make the Israeli people feel more and more secure, more and more friendly towards us.

Concerning the right of return of the Palestinian refugees we offer the following considerations:

1) We recognize that we cannot but respect the subjective perception of the Israeli people of their need for security. For the Israeli people, their subjective perception, is their reality. We recognize that, today, that subjective perception is in conflict with the return of the Palestinian refugees. Therefore, today, the only rhetorical possibility for the return of the refugees is to implement policies of violence or of pressure.

We categorically reject the recourse of such means, we want to resolve the problem in a manner that brings the two people closer, and not in a manner that increases their distance. But you cannot prevent us to have faith in the decency of the Israeli people. After all, in 1982, before the success of Sharon in so much increasing the distance between our two peoples, 300,000 Israelis took to the streets in Tel Aviv to protest the massacres of Sabra and Shatiilla. We therefore are certain that the Israeli people is essentially a decent people. Only the fear of the Palestinians, induced by policies designed to increase the distance between our two people, and induced by mistakes and incomprehension of some Palestinian political leaders, prevent the adoption of principled solutions which would be easy to implement, had there been complete trust between the two peoples.

2) The Palestinian state adopts a constitution which should be the most democratic, the most tolerant, the most humane in the world. It should be like a shining beacon announcing a new era of inter-ethnical relations, of respect of human rights, of transparency in the works of the government

It should be a secular constitution. No ethnicity should feel favored by the state. In particular, the Christians who form a sizable minority should not feel like second class citizens. As to the Jews, they could become citizen of the Palestinian state, like any other foreigner who is already on the Palestinian territory or whose request for immigration has been granted. A jew, whether a Palestinian citizen or a visitor on business or tourism, should feel himself welcomed, secure and, so to say, at home. The traditional Palestinian hospitality should be extended to him, as long as he is on our territory with friendly intentions. He will enjoy the protection of the Palestinian laws. The strict implementation of the constitution, the fight against corruption, the respect of all persons to request and obtain the protection of his constitutional rights will spread the respect and the trust in the Palestinian state

3) The question of the Palestinian refugees should be tackled as soon as possible. No Palestinian should be asked to relinquish his right of return. However, the whole world, by doing nothing to enforce the UN decisions concerning the Palestinian refugees, having thus been the accomplices of Israel in allowing this blatant injustice to last for so long, have the duty to offer a program of generous compensations for those refugees willing to settle outside Israel.

4) The remaining refugees will have their problem solved when, through our policies, it will become clear to the Israeli Jewish population that, we are two brotherly people whose languages are so close, whose histories are intertwined, and who both recognized that Ismail and Jacob are both descendants of Abraham. A Palestinian and an Hebrew speaking Israeli, have much less difficulty learning each other's language than a Palestinian and a new Jewish immigrant coming from Russia or Poland.

5) Palestinians must adopt a system of education that underlines the historic closeness between Arabs and Jews. It must mention the tremendous contributions made by the two people to civilization, art, and science. It must embed the notion that in view of that closeness, and in view of their common interests, the most friendly relations should exist between the two states, and between the two people. The Israeli could reciprocate.

In return, the mere fact of the evacuation will reduce to a large degree the amount of violence against Israeli. I do not deny that some residual violence could remain, implemented by irresponsible elements which we will treat as criminals. But a PA strengthened by the evacuation, will be able to mobilize the whole Palestinian population against all the violent elements. It is only when the Palestinian population will abandon its support for the violent individuals, that the PA will be able to succeed in its fight against terrorism.

In short the program I am proposing to the People of Israel is as follows:

1) Israel evacuates the occupied territories

2) The Palestinians succeed in their fight against terrorism and develop a most democratic, secular and humane society with a bent towards friendship between our two people

3) Starting from then, and particularly after the success of step 2, the problem of the refugees will be totally solved, in an atmosphere devoid of fear, based on the developed friendship between the two people. No policy of return of the refugee will be applied unless accepted by the Israeli people.

I consider myself accountable to history in solemnly declaring that these four points represent the totality of our agenda. Even if at a later stage the possibility of some sort of unification between the two states will be raised, it would make sense only if such concept is very welcome by the vast majority of Israelis and that of Palestinians. However, in reality, reaching a state of relation between the two people which make it possible to thing realistically of a reunion, is in itself such a great achievement that the reunification itself may become unnecessary.

Just to demonstrate our faith in the future of friendly relations between the two people, I am ordering the creation of a committee of educational scholars. They will be charged to rewrite the history textbooks for all school grades starting from 1st up to last grade. In this rewriting, nothing had to be hidden. While the Israeli persecutions will be mentioned and denounced, while the suicide-bombings will be described as mistaken acts of despair, a great effort will be displayed in those books to underline that the two people are destined to live in peace and have brotherly relations. It will be underlined that the people having the common interests of peace, security and prosperity, have to work side by side in friendship bordering brotherhood. I challenge the Israeli authorities to modify the Israeli school textbooks in that same spirit.

In the measure in which your leader Sharon is respected and loved by the majority of Israelis, We wish him a recovery followed by many more years to live.

Israeli neighbors! We will do our part in letting you realize that we could be friends, that we bear no hostile feelings against the Israeli people. Our hostility is against the occupation. Cease the occupation, and your security is increased by leaps and bounds. In fact the security on your northern borders has greatly increased after the evacuation of Lebanon.

A last point, that of the settlers on our territories. The settlements are contravening the Geneva conventions and the UN decisions. There is no possibility of a status of equality between a Palestinian State and Israel, if Israel arrogates to itself the right of protecting them. The ideal solution would be to dismantle the settlements. I am afraid it is the only practical solution.

Suppose for instance we would have accepted that the settlers stay in Palestine as Palestinian citizen. They would have to conform to the Palestinian laws that would certainly demand the disarming of all the population, the settlers included. What if the settlers refused to be disarmed? What if it leads to incidents. Would not this be a cause of friction between the two states? Will it not hinder the development of friendly relations between the two people? What if some settler builds a new house besides his, without getting a permit? Will we not be entitled to take the measures provided by the law and which could include the destruction of the illegal house?

We know too well from our own experience how much such actions can poison our relations. Therefore, for the sake of a future friendship between our two people, for the sake of a long term security for each of the two people, it is necessary that the settlements be dismantled.

For a long time, the French and German people hated each other. Today they have friendly relations, there are no troops guarding their borders and citizen of both countries can cross the border without going through customs and without showing their passports.

I do not want to minimize the difficulties, but in reality, they are as great or as small as we make them to be.

I know that the Israeli people, like the Palestinian people, yearns for peace, security and prosperity. In fact, and though Israel is quite secure on the short term, no country, not even Israel, can enjoy long-term security while surrounded by hostile countries. Obviously Israel's long term security lies in peaceful and friendly relation with its neighbors and, most importantly, with the Palestinian people.

Now, those Israeli aspirations are similar to the Palestinian aspirations. The Palestinians too want to live in peace, security and prosperity. Like the Israeli, they want to have their independent state, like the Israeli they refuse to accept that their country be occupied by a foreign army.

It is therefore natural that the Palestinians do not want to be less free in their land than the Israeli are in theirs.

We believe that there is no gene in the Israeli people that predispose them to persecute the Palestinian people. We do remember that from the Jewish people sprang inspirational and humanist personalities that had, and still have a momentous influence on our civilization or on our artistic life such as Karl Marx, Henry Bergen. Martin Buber, Sigmund Freud, Amadeo Modigliani, Marc Chagall, Albert Einstein, Mendelsohn, and Shalom Aleikhem, whose contributions are now the heritage of all humanity, Arabs included. All those creative people had nothing to do with a spirit of oppression.

Likewise, the Israeli people should remember the immense arab contribution to science in mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, literature and poetry

The actual oppression of the Palestinian people by the Israeli state, is therefore not willed as such by the Israeli people. It is just wrongly perceived as a necessity dictated by the security of Israel.

Still, in the measure in which they influence the opinion and the stands of people, perceptions that do not correspond to reality, are still part of reality We cannot therefore ignore them. It is enough that they do exist, and therefore have to be taken into account.

It is also true that wrong perceptions about the Israelis do exist among the Palestine people. However wrong, these perceptions are part of the reality. A "rapprochment" between our two peoples therefore requires that efforts be made on two fronts.

Can't we be as wise as the French and the German people? It takes men of vision to realise such a dream, that of a rapprochement. I have here considered practical steps that could result in such a rapprochement.

With this speech, I am not only offering peace and security to the Israeli people, I am also offering friendship between our two people. I know it is not just a question of words, it is a question of demonstrating an honest determination.

And let us remember that long term security cannot be based on an imposed peace which could be challenged by next generations. It must be a peace which imbeds enough elements of Justice to never be challenged again.

My dream is peace, security and friendship between our two people. At first between our two neighbouring states, and then, by nmutual acceptance, within a single state.

I know that pointing to that single state can led Israeli extremists to raise the fear of a coercive union between the two states. Nothing of the kind will ever be considered. A coercive union would be a criminal act which is bound to have catastrophic results. It is not the way for peace and security. It does not lead to friendship.

With my best wishes for a fraternal relation between the state of Israel and the state of Palestine

This speech should be one of many other acts to be followed and directed at reducing the distance between the two people. Only thus can the subjective Israeli perception for security needs, become closer to the objective needs.