--By Zhu Mengkui

On November 8, the Palestinians and Israel inaugurated their final-status negotiations. In the first round of talks, the two sides tried not to speak about their respective stand on substantive issues that need practical solutions. Some success has however been made to some extent. One, the Palestinian side and Israel are of the view that the first round of negotiations has been conducted in an "honest air" and a "down-to-earth" manner; Two, an agreement reached is that further negotiations are to be held two to three times a week thereafter. The startup negotiation shows that there has at long last begun a historic Palestinian-Israeli talk on the final status of Palestine.

The Palestinian-Israeli final-status negotiation is practically a tie-breaking tussle over solutions to substantive issues within a deadline set. Issues include such thorny problems as Jewish settlements on Israeli-captured Palestinian territory, the fate of three million Palestinian refugees dislocated, the scale of Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian lands, status of Jerusalem, future arrangements of water resources, territorial security and others that have to be resolved. What is more these are problems involving the whole of Palestinian-Israeli disputes. When new solutions should be sought they have to be acceptable to both sides and these have been solved within a three months' time. It is by no means easy to tackle various unexpected difficulties involved in the final-status talks. In the first round of talks, the two sides just read out a written policy statement, each hanging on its own tone. Views expressed by each side are opposing to each other, needless to say.

Differences found between the Palestinians and Israel are mainly in the principles directing talks and how their disputes are to be solved. The Palestinian side stressed that according to the principle set on "land for peace" in 1991, UN Decision 242 in 1967 and Decision 338 in 1973 should be made the basis for Israel's pullout from the Palestinian land. That Israel should pull out its forces to the Palestinian-Israeli border prior to June 4, 1967. But for its part, Israel stressed that negotiations should be conducted in the way Israeli short- and long-term security is to be guaranteed. In the meantime, Israel still insists on its four "don'ts" stand: Future Palestinian statehood should keep no forces of its own. No Palestinian refugees will go back home or are to be compensated. No change will be made of the status of Jerusalem "as the eternal and inseparable capital of Israel". Furthermore, there will be no dismantling of 144 Jewish settlements built on the West Bank and Gaza. This is to say a wide range of thorny issues to decide the fate of the Palestinians and that of the Israelis and Middle East peace will have to be above board on the final-status negotiation table. Since negotiations have been held the two sides must face up to reality. When fruitful negotiations are expected they must adopt a practical attitude and compromises are unavoidable. The Palestinians and Israel both need to make a sensible historical choice is compellingly demanded.

Prior to upstart final-status negotiations, US President Bill Clinton, Israeli Premier Barak and Yasser Arafat had held a tripartite summit to have an Osle accord reached. Since the final-status negotiations began, French President Chirac and Egyptian President Mubarak had respectively held talks with Israeli Premier Barak and Palestinian leader Arafat, calling on leaders of related parties in the Middle East to seize on the chance and make it a success to strike a peace deal.

The international community will be happy to see that just, all-round lasting peace is to be translated into practice in the Middle East. On November 10, the Israeli cabinet approved its second-phase pullout plan according to Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum. This is a positive step made on the part of Israel. It is hoped that the Palestinians and Israel both lose no time to continue their final-status negotiations and reach an accord to further the interest of peoples of the two sides: Peace is going to be realized in the Middle East.