An Israeli Dove Mourns.

• Author: Prince-Gibson, Eetta

I have been a peace activist for nearly twenty-five years. And during these years, I have often felt frightened, revolted, unsafe, and enraged. But I have never felt as sad or as confused as I do now.

Nor have I ever been more certain that the partition of the Greater Land of Israel/Palestine into two independent states is the only solution to the 100-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I was more frightened during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when I believed that the actual, physical existence of my country was at risk, than I am now. I was more frightened in 1987 during the first Intifada (Palestinian uprising) than I am now.

When a Jewish settler in Hebron murdered twenty-nine Palestinians in 1994 as they knelt in prayer, I was more revolted than I am now. And when Palestinian terrorists responded by bombing buses and threatened our public space, I felt more unsafe than I do now.

When then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, goaded by ruthless local politicians and messianic American Jews, opened the tunnel in the Old City in 1996, unleashing a wave of violence that left nearly ninety Palestinians and Israelis dead, I was more enraged than I am now.

I am frightened, revolted, unsafe, and enraged now, too.

But as the violence continues, I feel mostly sad and confused. And very, very determined that these feelings should not deter any of us--Palestinians or Jews--from pursuing what we know is the only solution for this region.

In the faraway world of a month ago, I used to think that a resolution of the conflict was, well, maybe not imminent, but certainly close. I do not think that anymore. Battle smoke seems to have made things clearer.

I was unrealistic. At some romantic level, I believed that the peace process would lead the Arabs to accept Israel. I realize now that I had thought of peace as an emotional acceptance, and not as a political arrangement. Suddenly, I now realize that the end of the conflict means the end of the use of violence as a means for dealing with the conflict. Nothing less, but also nothing more. Not in our time.

In the heady excitement following the signing of the Oslo Agreements in 1993, we seemed to have forgotten that agreements are not peace, and that the hilltop experiences of leaders do not always translate into popular positions. So we Israelis believed that peace had arrived and acted as though we were in the post-peace period. We began to experience the economic and psychological benefits of regional and international acceptance.

But for most Palestinians, things...