Publications by Type: Newspaper Article

A former priest, Oliver McTernan, explains why American Catholics feel betrayed by the Church

The fact that Pope John Paul II has chosen to meet only cardinals today, many of whom are themselves subject to public criticism for their mishandling of the sex abuse scandals traumatising the American Roman Catholic Church, highlights one of the real issues at the centre of this crisis.

The absence of victims, laity and priests, all of whom have been affected by the unfolding scandal, suggests that, for the Vatican, this meeting is no more than a crisis-management session aimed at damage limitation and deflecting further criticism at its moral ineptness to deal with a serious problem that has beleaguered the Catholic Church globally for decades.

If Vatican officials believe that a few pious exhortations and a new set of policy guidelines on how to handle future child-abusing clerics will allow the Church to continue with its existing style of governance, they have clearly failed to understand the depth of hurt and anger that is felt not only by the victims of abuse who have come forward, but also by conservative and progressive Catholics in America who feel equally betrayed by a church leadership that has gone to such extraordinary lengths to cover up the crimes of paedophile priests. The relentless media coverage over the past four months has exposed a culture of denial among bishops and priests that has caused as much scandal as the sex abuse itself. Many Americans are questioning not only the credibility of those responsible for the cover-ups, the buying of silence and the moving of offenders, but also the very church structures that allow bishops to act as if they are outside the law and accountable to no one for their moral decisions and their use of church funds. People and priests are openly calling for a place at the table and a voice that is heard if the broken trust between them and their bishops is to be restored. In the Boston Archdiocese, what began a few weeks ago as a small, ad hoc gathering of concerned priests now has more than 100 members who are committed to working together to promote a new style of church leadership. Six months ago, such an initiative would have been unthinkable because Cardinal Bernard Law, who is at the centre of the current crisis, would immediately have prohibited it.

The Pope's first public response to this scandal was to scapegoat the victimisers, the paedophile priests whom he accused of casting a shadow over the whole Church. The fact that he did not acknowledge, let alone condemn, the culture of denial lying at the heart of the problem makes one wonder whether those around him, including his American visitors, are capable of grasping the potential seriousness of this crisis for the Church as a whole.

The problem of paedophile priests and bishops covering their tracks for the "good of the Church" is not exclusive to the US, nor is the unfolding drama that we are witnessing now on the Vatican stage of a clash between Roman and American cultures. The cardinals sitting in conference with the Pope and his advisers are one-minded on matters of church doctrine and discipline; otherwise they would not have been appointed to the positions they now occupy.

The real clash that this present crisis exposes is one of theology. It is part of the unfinished business of the Second Vatican Council of the early 1960s, which left us with two equally valid, but competing, models or images of what the Church should be. One is a hierarchical structure governed by the Pope and his appointees, the bishops;the other the pilgrim people of God, each of equal standing as they gather around the Eucharistic table. In the immediate aftermath of the council people were encouraged to explore the wonder and mystery of being part of a Church that was not locked within the cultural and legal structures of previous centuries.

John Paul II's papacy began with a sense of renewed excitement, but it soon evaporated as the Vatican's efforts to micromanage the life of the local churches became more obvious. The Pope replaced the bishops who had spearheaded the reforms of Vatican II with men who felt more comfortable operating in an exclusively hierarchical model of Church. What we are seeing now is the unravelling of this counter-reform movement, as it is clear that some of these trusted appointees have feet of clay.

The Bush administration, like its two predecessors, has expressed strong support for democracy in the Americas. It is now time to put its money where its mouth is.

Argentina's story in the 1990s was, in many respects, exactly what the United States would like to see happen throughout the hemisphere. The country has been a democracy since 1983, its longest span of constitutional government since the 1920s.

It has undergone a major foreign policy shift. Argentina resolved territorial disputes that once brought it to the edge of war with its neighbors, dismantled programs that could have led to the development of nuclear weapons, downsized its armed forces and became one of the most reliable U.S. allies in Latin America.

Poster Child

Argentina also became a poster child for market-oriented economic reform in the 1990s. The 1991 Convertibility Law, which pegged the Argentine peso to the dollar at a one-to-one rate, ended a devastating period of hyperinflation and helped to reintegrate Argentina into the global economy. The first Bush administration was a key ally in this process, supporting Argentina politically and financially.

Yet today Argentina is bankrupt, and its hard-won democracy is in danger. Mass riots and looting left at least two dozen people dead and forced President Fernando de la Rúa to resign in December. After more riots last weekend, Adolfo Rodríguez Saá also resigned a week after being appointed interim president.

A nearly four-year-long recession has pushed the unemployment rate to almost 20 percent and, according to one study, more than three million people into poverty in the last year alone. Argentina now stands on the brink of a huge debt default and a political meltdown.

The causes of the current crisis are disputed, but most observers agree that the same convertibility scheme that had ended the hyperinflationary crisis a decade ago left Argentine governments without instruments to respond to the recession that hit the country in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Unable to increase the money supply or devalue the currency, governments were left only with fiscal policy instruments.

The de la Rúa government was also shackled by its $132 billion debt burden. Rather than boosting the economy through a fiscal or monetary stimulus, as governments normally do, Argentine governments did the opposite in their increasingly desperate effort to sustain international financial credibility: They cut spending in the face of recession and refused to dismantle the currency peg that once ended hyperinflation.

The recession deepened, unemployment soared, poverty widened and tax revenues plummeted.

No Easy Way Out

There is no easy way out of this crisis. Indeed, any interim government will have to undertake one or both of the two Ds that its predecessor desperately sought to avoid: default and devaluation. Both options will entail massive economic and political costs.

This is where the Bush administration can help. Argentina's successful economic adjustment requires approximately $50 billion in international support for its evolving international-debt and exchange-rate policies, consistent with its economic realities and its international financial obligations.

That large sum can be assembled only with the direct, active and immediate support of the Bush administration, working with the International Monetary Fund and other governments and public and private financial institutions. One reason to assemble the large sum is to deter a worse panic.

Why should the U.S. government help soften Argentina's difficult landing? During the 1990s, Republican and Democratic administrations actively pursued the twin goals of democracy and economic integration in the Americas. Those goals are now imperiled. Argentina's further collapse would directly or indirectly damage other South American economies, provoking cumulative financial panics. And the breakdown of one of the region's largest democracies would undermine two decades of gains across the hemisphere.

Only two decades ago, dictatorship, not democracy, dominated much of Latin America. Argentina suffered six military coups between 1930 and 1976.

Since 1983, Argentines have put political violence and instability behind them. Presidents are now regularly and freely elected, and power has passed peacefully several times from government to opposition. Civil liberties are now widely respected, and the country possesses a vibrant free press and civil society.

Losing Hope

The current crisis threatens to undo these democratic gains. After four years of recession, Argentines are beginning to lose hope. Trust in government has eroded. Many citizens no longer believe their elected leaders are able to address their most pressing problems.

The de la Rúa 2-year-old government suffered such a dramatic loss of support because it was increasingly perceived to be sacrificing its citizens' well-being to meet the demands of financial markets. In his wake, Rodríguez Saá's grace period lasted only a week.

The danger today is that frustration has spread to include the entire political elite, and perhaps even Argentina's political institutions—patterns similar to those that gave rise to Alberto Fujimori in Peru and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. If that occurs, the prospects for democracy will dim considerably.

It has not come to that yet. Neither de la Rúa's or Rodríguez Saá's resignation was a military coup, and no Argentine Hugo Chávez has yet emerged. No one doubts that the election to choose de la Rúa's successor will be free and fair. But if Argentina is to steer clear of a Venezuela-like fate, its new government must deliver economic solutions to Argentines. To do so, it will require external assistance.

A successful model of such U.S.-backed support was tested in Mexico. The U.S. government's decision to organize a financial assistance package to help Mexico address the 1994-95 financial panic was bold and politically risky. But it clearly worked. A worse panic was deterred, economic growth was soon restored and Mexico made an impressive transition to democracy.

Argentina deserves similar help. Few, if any, Latin American countries combined democracy and market reforms as successfully as Argentina did in the 1990s.

Argentine democracy has proven remarkably resilient, weathering hyperinflation and radical economic reform. But if something is not done soon to give Argentines a realistic expectation that their politicians and democratic institutions can provide solutions to their problems, someone else will try to convince them that those politicians and those institutions are themselves the problem.

If that happens, U.S. interests will suffer badly in Argentina and elsewhere in the Americas.

Israel and the Palestinian territories are on the brink of an all-out war with disastrous consequences for these two traumatized nations.

The Israeli government and the Palestinian street are controlled by elements that see such a war as an opportunity to achieve their maximalist goals. Under the circumstances, there is a compelling need for vigorous intervention by outside powers—the Arab League, the European Union, the United Nations, and, perhaps most important, the United States—to pull the parties away from the brink and back to the negotiating table.

Outside intervention, however, cannot by itself restore the working trust required for negotiating an agreement conducive to the stable peace and mutually enhancing relationship between the two nations on which their survival in the small land they share ultimately depends. To succeed, the outside intervention must be accompanied by creative, courageous acts of leadership emanating from the two societies themselves.

The most likely candidates to perform such leadership roles are the two surviving members of the triad that received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994: Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and Israel's Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. Both men have suffered losses in power and prestige. Both have been criticized for their roles in legitimizing the extremes of violence in their respective communities.

And yet they are probably the only leaders with the authority and the domestic and international standing to take the initiative proposed here.

The scenario I envisage calls for a meeting or a series of meetings between the two men (and a small number of close advisers) in Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah. Refusal by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to authorize such an initiative would provide the appropriate moment for Peres to resign from the government: He would be resigning in pursuit of an initiative with the potential for achieving a dramatic breakthrough.

The meetings between the two leaders would aim to produce a joint manifesto with the following components: First, a call for an end to the violence and for the resumption of negotiations designed to achieve a just solution to the conflict, addressing the fundamental needs of both parties.

Second, a commitment to the final outcome of the negotiations: an agreement that would end the conflict on the basis of a historic compromise in the form of a two-state solution.

Third, a delineation of the broad outlines of the historic compromise, including: establishment of a viable, independent, and sovereign Palestinian state consisting of the West Bank and Gaza, with contiguous territory within each of these two units and safe passage between them; acceptance of the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish-majority state with the proviso that it assure full democratic rights for its Arab minority; designation of Jerusalem, including the Old City and the holy sites, as a shared city, containing the capitals of both states; and development of a comprehensive, multifaceted solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees, including resettlement and compensation, which would satisfy Palestinians' sense of justice and Israelis' concern about the stability of their state.

Fourth, a specification of the issues that remain to be negotiated within the framework of the historic compromise, such as border adjustments and territorial exchange, arrangements for governance and security of a shared Jerusalem, and procedures for addressing both the symbolic and the practical aspects of a solution for the refugee problem. Finally, an unambiguous and honest account of the costs that a historic compromise would entail for both peoples, stressing, in particular, the need to recognize that Israeli dreams of settling Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, and Palestinian dreams of returning in large numbers to the homes they lost in 1948 cannot be realized.

A manifesto along these lines would demonstrate to the Israeli and Palestinian publics that there are courageous leaders who are prepared to commit themselves to a historic compromise and honestly spell out its implications. It would help revive the belief in each community that there is a credible negotiating partner on the other side and that there is a mutually acceptable formula for a final agreement.

The manifesto would gain symbolic strength if Arafat and Peres dedicated it to the memory of their fellow Nobelist, Yitzhak Rabin, who paid with his life for the pursuit of a historic compromise and whose assassination was a major contributing factor to deterioration of the peace process.

Five years ago, with James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, I headed a government study that found a lack of preparedness to face catastrophic terrorism. Our warnings and those of similar groups went largely unheeded. On Sept. 11, complacency was wiped away, but the fragmented bureaucratic structure and procedures of our government remain a barrier to action, despite President Bush's decision to name Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania to head a new Office of Homeland Defense.

By using the rhetoric of war to frame our response to the terror attacks, President Bush has marshaled the public's patriotism and persuaded Congress to provide financing. But the danger in the rhetoric is that the new office may be structured like a military organization.

There are many types of terrorism and many kinds of terrorist weapons. Even if we succeed in eliminating Osama bin Laden, we have to remember that Timothy McVeigh was home-grown. And as we succeed in battening down the cockpits to prevent civilian aircraft being used again as giant cruise missiles, terrorists will be exploring other vulnerabilities in our open society and investigating even more devastating weapons.

Fortunately, nuclear and biological weapons are not as easy to make as popular fiction suggests, but there have been reports that Mr. bin Laden and others have tried to purchase stolen nuclear weapons from the former Soviet inventory. We also know that a few years ago the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult killed people with both chemical and biological agents.

Suppressing terrorism is very different from a military campaign. It requires continuous, patient, undramatic civilian work and close cooperation with other countries. And it requires coordination within our government.

The C.I.A. and F.B.I. must improve their ability to work together on detection and must reconcile their different authorities and programs in intelligence and law enforcement. The F.B.I., the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Customs Service, the Defense Department and other agencies must improve their cooperation. Because of poor coordination, two suspects were able to enter this country even after their names had been placed on a watch list, and the jet fighters that scrambled after the Federal Aviation Administration notification of the hijackings arrived too late.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has to work with local governments on domestic responses. New federally funded research and development programs are needed to address each phase of a crisis, as well as to accelerate new technologies and devise special training and testing exercises.

It would be a mistake if the Office of Homeland Defense merely added another layer of bureaucracy. Instead, Governor Ridge should head a committee of deputy secretaries from the agencies with control over budgets and programs involved with terrorism defense. He should create a small staff that works closely with the Office of Management and Budget to monitor plans to be carried out by existing agencies.

His office should be supported by new research corporations created to deal with terrorism, as the RAND corporation was created in the cold war to deal with the nuclear threat. These groups should not be bound by the rigidities and inadequate salaries of the federal bureaucracy. Their independence should allow them to plan an antiterror system that can find gaps and overlaps in government agencies' antiterror efforts and examine weaknesses in private systems like computer networks.

Planners should conduct regular exercises with teams simulating terrorists and defenders, trying to outsmart each other. Had we done this for our airport security system, we might have realized that it was designed to detect guns and bombs but not to stop suicide pilots armed with knives and box cutters.

As recently as last spring, a commission on national security headed by former Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman also warned of our lack of preparedness. Sadly, the commissioners were right. Now we must organize ourselves effectively to combat terrorism.

As the international community reflects on the forms and magnitude of the assistance that can be rendered to Pakistan, it is worth pondering how a country that has been one of the world's largest recipients of foreign financial aid—nearly $58 billion from 1960-98, the third-highest of any country—still finds itself in such a beleaguered and impoverished state. In particular, the international community has to grapple with the reality that the very institution whose help is critical in efforts to break the power of terrorists groups in South Asia, the Pakistani military, is also deeply responsible for creating and nurturing these groups. The role of the Pakistani army is central not only to the well being of Pakistan's citizens, and to the region. It is also critical to stopping the global spread of terrorism.

Pakistan's current economic, political and social fragility is primarily the result of the country's history as a beneficiary of geostrategic rents—from the U.S. during the 1950s and `60s, and again in the '80s; from the Middle East, especially in the '70s and '80s; and from China in the '90s. These substantial rents have shaped the country's political economy and its institutions. And they have underpinned the continued preeminence of the Pakistani military even as militaries in most other developing countries have gone back to the barracks.

The consequences have been devastating. Internally, Pakistan's institutions have atrophied, which has in turn provided the justification for the military to maintain its monopoly on power. Gen. Pervez Musharraf has promised to return the country to full democracy with provincial and federal elections in October 2002. And yet there is ample evidence to suggest that the proposed power devolution, carried out via constitutional reforms, will actually marginalize secular political parties and the civilian bureaucracy, thereby allowing the army an even wider role in the country's political future.

Moreover, the military's hegemonic role has had a negative effect on the nation's economy. The military has claimed a disproportionate fraction of the country's modest resources while expenditures on health, education and business development programs have suffered. Even today, military expenditures are twice that of the latter, in a country that has one of the weakest indicators of human development.

Another consequence stems from the chronic quest for legitimacy that authoritarian regimes need to retain power. Pakistan's military has used two instruments to shore up its domestic support. First, beginning with President Muhammad Zia ul-Haq in the early '80s, the military cultivated the Islamic religious establishment using religious parties to outflank their mainstream counterparts. This Faustian bargain resulted in the rapid growth of Islamic schools, the madraasas, with financial support from Saudi Arabia, which was eager to enlarge the influence of Wahabist Islam and the Islamicization of the Pakistani military and society. The weakening of secular political parties further justified the military establishment's grip on political power.

The second instrument of the military government's legitimacy comes from the perennial tension with India. The need to "protect the integrity of Pakistan" against the alleged wily machinations of India has always been a handy tool to whip up nationalist sentiment and justify the military's hold on power. The May 1999 Kargil invasion, engineered by Gen. Musharraf even as the country's own civilian government was engaged in a dialogue with its Indian counterpart, ensured that dialogue was still-born and the military's hegemony unchallenged.

But even if the Pakistani security establishment's bleeding of India in Kashmir can be justified by India's actions, it is Afghanistan, much more than India, that has suffered egregiously from the Pakistani military's actions. Driven by its obsession with India, the Pakistani military sought to create a client state in Afghanistan in its quest for "strategic depth," and thereby build a staging area from which to infiltrate Kashmir.

From funding, logistics and indirect military support, the Pakistani military intervened in Afghanistan's affairs to a degree that even the superpowers rarely managed during the Cold War. Although the ultimate rationale of the Pakistani security establishment's involvement in Afghanistan has been India, the net result was to further hasten the destruction of the country begun by the Soviets.

A third instrument of control has been the military's contention that it is a protector of Muslims throughout South Asia. This claim is made by an institution that was responsible for one of the world's worst slaughters of Muslims in the last century—at least half a million people in what was then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, in 1971.

Western, and in particular American policy makers and media, have long been apologists for the Pakistani army. Nevertheless, though the strategic calculations of the Cold War have given way to the tactical imperatives of the current Afghan campaign, this alone cannot justify blind support for the military, nor glossing over the long-term consequences of that support for Pakistan and the region, and the West itself.

There can be no doubt that given Pakistan's importance on the global stage and its current weaknesses, the country both needs and deserves considerable and sustained international financial assistance. But in doing so, there should be a clear target for the aid: a country and its people. The international community must ensure that, unlike the foreign assistance offered to Pakistan in the 1980s, new resources don't simply help to further strengthen the very institution that has been at the root of the country's—and increasingly the region's—problems.

Proposals to cut Pakistan's debt servicing and reschedule the debt are basically steps in the right direction. However, unless the resulting savings are channeled toward sharply increasing social expenditures on human capital development and poverty-oriented programs, they will serve little more than to further entrench the military regime. It is not surprising that during his recent visit to Washington, Gen. Musharraf was more interested in securing the release of a package of F-16 fighter jets from the Bush administration than in obtaining aid for his country's devastated education system.

External assistance should therefore be contingent on curbing military expenditures (which continue to be one of the highest in the world) as well as funding for the madraasas that serve as jihadi prep schools (although it should be emphasized that many madraasas are simply parochial schools and not training grounds for zealots). However, these initiatives will also require the cooperation of "moderate" Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, whose citizens are an important source of funds not only in Pakistan, but also in other parts of South and Southeast Asia.

The manner in which the international community helps Pakistan will have broader implications as it grapples to assist other weak, undemocratic states. Unfortunately, for much of the past half-century, foreign aid has too often served as the palatable cover for what were essentially bribes to friendly regimes to secure their cooperation than as resources whose intent was the long term political and economic development of a country and its people. In the process, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent with little to show for it; regimes that have caused untold misery to their people in a variety of contexts have been entrenched; donor institutions have been seriously discredited. This is a lesson American policy makers should heed in helping Pakistan to secure a promising future for its 140 million people.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The America of six decades ago now seems achingly familiar. The attack on Pearl Harbor, like the attacks of Sept. 11, evoked feelings of pride and citizenship - as well as anxiety and helplessness - in every American. In the days and weeks following Dec. 7, 1941, Americans sought meaning and comfort in their communities, just as we do now. And we can find inspiration in the very institutions and practices they created 60 years ago.

A durable community cannot be built on mere images of disaster, however vivid or memorable. It arises from countless individual acts of concern and solidarity. Television images of ash-covered firefighters cannot create community bonds any more than radio reports of burning battleships could.

What created the civic community in the United States in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor? The victory gardens in nearly everyone's backyard, the Boy Scouts at filling stations collecting floor mats for scrap rubber, the affordable war bonds, the practice of giving rides to hitchhiking soldiers and war workers - all these taught "the greatest generation" an enduring lesson in civic involvement.

Their involvement was as varied as it was deep. The Civilian Defense Corps grew to 12 million Americans in mid-1943, from 1.2 million in 1942. In Chicago, 16,000 block captains in the corps took an oath of allegiance in a mass ceremony; they practiced first aid, supervised blackouts and planned gas decontamination. Nationwide, Red Cross volunteers swelled to 7.5 million in 1945, from 1.1 million in 1940. By 1943, volunteers at 4,300 civilian-defense volunteer offices were fixing school lunches, providing day care and organizing scrap drives.

All these endeavors represented cooperation between the federal government and civic society. Sometimes the government merely offered encouragement and approval, as it did with the victory gardens. Often it played an active role, or even the prime role. The United States financed the war effort in part through small-denomination war bonds sold to the general public, not because it was economically efficient - Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau conceded it wasn't - but because of the importance of weaving the actions of millions of Americans together in pursuit of larger national goals.

America's young people, especially, were taught practical civic lessons. Over a two-year period, the historian Richard Lingeman writes in his book "Don't You Know There's a War On?" eighth graders in Gary, Ind., were especially busy. They sold an average of $40,000 worth of war stamps a month. They campaigned against buying black-market goods. They took auxiliary fire- and police-training courses. They held tin-can drives. And this was just in one medium-sized Midwestern city.

Such sacrifice was reinforced by popular culture from radio shows to comic strips. All Americans felt they had to do their share, thereby enhancing each American's sense that her commitment and contribution mattered. As one said later in an oral history of the home front: "You just felt that the stranger sitting next to you in a restaurant, or someplace, felt the same way you did about the basic issues."

Society is different now, of course, as is the war we are fighting. Americans have become more transient, and involvement in civic institutions is in decline. The war itself involves far fewer Americans in battle; it creates few material hardships; the enemy is largely invisible. Nonetheless, we can take action to ensure that this resurgence of community involvement continues.

Since Sept. 11, we Americans have surprised ourselves in our solidarity. Roughly a quarter of all Americans, and more than a third of all New Yorkers, report giving blood in the aftermath of the attacks. Financial donations for the victims and their rescuers have reached almost $1 billion. Attendance at places of worship has increased.

Still, underneath all this mutual concern lies an unsettling question: Will this new mood last?

I believe it can. Even 60 years ago, civic involvement took hold and flourished only with government support. It was not all spontaneous. This is both instructive and reassuring; instructive because it shows that the most selfless civic duties cannot be performed without government help, reassuring because it shows us a path toward a more civil society today.

President Bush's recent call to America's children and teenagers to wash cars or rake yards to earn money to benefit the children of Afghanistan was well-intentioned. But government can do more. It should urge America's religious congregations to plan interfaith services over Thanksgiving weekend. It should also expand national service programs like AmeriCorps. And just as those Boy Scouts at filling stations learned firsthand the value of civic life, this new period of crisis can make real to us and our children the value of deeper community connections.

The continuing deadly escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict threatens to become an all-out war with devastating consequences for both communities. What makes this situation particularly tragic is the fact that the formula and the will for negotiating a mutually satisfactory agreement to end the conflict remain in place.

The negotiators were able to come very close to agreement in Taba last January, and the two populations are still open to a negotiated agreement if they could be convinced that the other side can be trusted.

The breakdown in negotiations and the resulting cycle of violence led to the reemergence on both sides—in classical mirror-image fashion—of the belief that there is no negotiating partner on the other side, that “they” do not want to make the compromises required for peace, and that the only language “they” understand is force. Counteracting these beliefs requires a clear endorsement by the leadership on each side of a political solution that would meet the basic needs of the other. The dynamics of escalating violence prevent the leaders from speaking the words and taking the actions that would reassure the other, lest they be seen as weak and yielding to violence. Moreover, Ariel Sharon's strategy and Yasser Arafat's tactics make it particularly difficult for them to make an unambiguous commitment, in advance, to the kind of political outcome on which the resumption of fruitful negotiations now depends.

Under the circumstances, outside parties, especially the United States, can make a unique contribution, not only by encouraging the parties to resume serious negotiations but by offering a vision of the broad outlines of the final agreement to which these negotiations must be directed. Following up on Secretary of State Colin Powell's constructive policy address, this vision should be based on the historic compromise that was implicit in the Oslo agreement.

Anchored in UN Resolutions 242 and 338, this compromise has the added advantage of international legitimacy. It is predicated on an agreement to end the conflict by sharing the land both peoples claim, through the establishment and peaceful coexistence of two states, in which the two peoples can fulfill their respective rights to national self-determination, give political expression to their national identities, and pursue independent, secure, and prosperous lives.

The vision of such a historic compromise must spell out three implications for resolving outstanding issues in the conflict. Each of these implications is painful to one or both parties, but they follow directly from the essence of the compromise.

First, the historic compromise must enable Palestinians to establish an independent, sovereign state consisting of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. To be viable and governable, the state must have contiguous territory within each of its two units and a secure corridor between them. It cannot, therefore, accommodate Israeli settlements with extraterritorial rights, a separate network of roads, and protection by Israeli forces.

Second, the historic compromise implies Palestinian acceptance of the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish-majority state (with full democratic rights for its Arab minority). Therefore, to maintain its Jewish character and its cohesion, Israel cannot accommodate an automatic, large-scale return of Palestinian refugees to the country.

Third, the historic compromise calls on the two peoples to share Jerusalem, as an open city, containing the capitals of both states and ensuring full access to the holy sites of all religious communities.

Within the broad parameters of these three principles, it is necessary and possible to negotiate mutual accommodations central to the narratives and the internal cohesion of the two societies. Thus, on the issue of settlements, negotiations need to take cognizance of the domestic turmoil that dismantling large numbers of settlements would create for Israel and consider exchanging small segments of the West Bank that have a heavy concentration of Israeli settlers for Israeli territory of equal size and value.

On the issue of refugees, recognizing its centrality to the Palestinian identity and narrative, negotiations need to agree on language whereby Israel would acknowledge its share of responsibility and express regret for the plight of the refugees and on a comprehensive program of resettlement and compensation for refugees, including return of a limited number to Israel. On the issue of Jerusalem, negotiations need to work out arrangements for sharing sovereignty and use of both holy sites and public spaces vital to both communities and for providing governance, security, and municipal services on a citywide basis.

Formulas for dealing with many of these issues in a mutually satisfactory way have already been explored in previous negotiations, although further efforts are required to shape them into a comprehensive package. That work must and can be done by the parties themselves. Where the United States can make an indispensable contribution is in bringing the parties back to the negotiating table by offering a broad vision of the historic compromise toward which the negotiations must be directed.