No good options available

To the editor:

In "Few Alternatives to Palestinian State," Dan Perry completely misreads the current situation and the options. For most practical, although not legal, purposes, there are already four Palestinian states: Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Gaza, with the United Nations General Assembly pretending the Palestinian Authority is actually a real state. The problem is that the Palestinian Authority and Gaza remain unwilling to live in peace with Israel.

It will take a sea change in Palestinian Arab society, a change that likely will take generations once a serious effort is finally made, before it will be ready for peace.

Once that day comes, it should be relatively easy to come up with way to distribute the currently disputed territory (the largely uninhabited portions of "Area C" outside the settlement blocks) between the Palestinian Arabs and the Palestinian Jews and decide on a political configuration for the territory given to the Palestinian Arabs.

Until that day comes, it's not that there are "few alternatives to [a] Palestinian state;" rather, there are no options yet available for a real peace agreement.

Sincerely,

Alan Stein