(October 7)
  The modern desire for immediate gratification has affected both war and peace-making. Just as nations are today less willing to sustain the casualties of extended military conflict, peace has developed a
"sign and run" mentality.

People expect that after a few handshakes, a few speeches, a few photos, it will be possible to move on to the next "crisis." Unfortunately, real life is not so simple.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has lasted generations. Reconciliation is a slow and painful process, requiring a fundamental transformation of deeply ingrained attitudes and beliefs.

The alternative is, at best, a temporary respite from war and terrorism, with renewed violence simmering just beneath the surface.

Israel has made such a transformation. In the wake of the Oslo Agreement, the mainstream Israeli body politic has abandoned one of its oldest and most cherished ideologies - the belief in a Greater Land of Israel, even at the expense of controlling another people.

For centuries, returning to our ancient homeland shaped the dreams and aspirations of the Jewish people. But the reality of Oslo could not accommodate this vision. Ideas of settling the land, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, proved incompatible with acceptance of Palestinian national rights.

Perhaps the stalled peace process has distracted us from this historic transformation. But make no mistake. Israel's sincere desire to no longer rule another people wrought a change in our practical attitude to the Jewish people's historical homeland.

We ourselves could not have foreseen the pain this change would entail; a nation torn apart, widespread civil disobedience, and the almost unthinkable tragedy of a Jew assassinating his own prime minister.

Rather than impede this transformation, the election of Binyamin Netanyahu completed it. With only one-half of the public feeling itself a part of the process, a fundamental shift in Israeli attitudes would have remained in doubt.

The critical moment came when Prime Minister Netanyahu led an overwhelming majority of Knesset members to vote to redeploy from the ancient city of Hebron. This represented a sea change in Israeli attitudes in the span of only three years.

Today, we demand from our former adversary only what we have demanded from ourselves - the genuine transformation in attitudes that is the foundation of real peace. For Israelis, that required a national consensus against ruling another people. For Palestinians, it means expunging from the public consciousness the desire to eradicate the Jewish state.

After Oslo, Yasser Arafat was given a territorial base, international recognition and a presidential pulpit. The moment of truth arrived.

Would Arafat use his power to fight for the transformation of Palestinian society?

Would he use his political capital to convince opinion makers, journalists, teachers and other influential Palestinians to end their decades-long struggle against the very existence of the Jewish state?

Thus far, the reality has been sorely disappointing.

Arafat pays lip service to peace in the English-speaking press, while his speeches in Arabic are laced with calls for a holy war to reconquer Palestine and Jerusalem. Far from promoting national reconciliation, official Palestinian TV broadcasts programs with schoolchildren praising jihad and idolizing suicide bombers.

I am certainly not naive as to believe that changing Palestinian attitudes will be easy for Arafat and the Palestinian leadership. But peace between peoples engaged in a violent struggle for nearly a century is not as simple as a handshake on the White House lawn. Genuine peace is something for which Arafat must fight.

In the area that is most important - preparing his people for genuine peace with Israel - Arafat hasn't even tried.

In the current negotiations with the Palestinians, the context in which this issue arises is the PLO Covenant, which calls for Israel's destruction. That the PLO Covenant has not been changed, despite Arafat's commitment to do so, calls into question the Palestinians' willingness to make the transformation from war to peace.

I am aware that with each passing day of the Oslo process, after endless negotiating sessions and technical issues, the importance of which are lost on the public, any attempt to focus attention on the Palestinian Covenant risks bringing ridicule.

With the next redeployment and the continuation of a long-stalled process seemingly within reach, calling for a change in the covenant may seem a meaningless obstacle. And so I am asked about my willingness to stop the entire peace process because of a piece of paper.

This question misses the point. If Arafat and the Palestinian leadership were taking other steps that mark the transformation from war to peace, the covenant might truly be "a piece of paper."

Whether by inculcating the value of peace in their children's educational curricula and TV programs, championing peace in Arabic speeches on Palestinian TV, or publicly denouncing extremism, there are countless ways to promote reconciliation. But so far, we have witnessed only the opposite.

As it now stands, demanding that the Palestinians fulfill their obligation to change their covenant is the only instrument that Israel has to insist that the Palestinian people begin a genuine transformation.

That is also why the Israeli government must continue to insist that it be changed by the supreme governing body, the Palestinian National Council, and not by means of a technical formality. Only this body can generate the type of national, open debate that can bring the message of change to every Palestinian household.

If Arafat were to wage this battle to change the Palestinian Covenant and promote reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis, he would find a much more amenable Israeli government and Israeli nation.