In dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict, there seems to be a major problem in deciding what the time reference is. Listening to the US Secretary of state Colin Powel on Friday one gets the impression that for America, history begins and ends with the last suicide bombing against Israelis. Attacks against civilians anywhere is reprehensible and must be condemned.

The Middle East conflict needs to be seen in the larger context of a people wishing to end the 21 century’s only remaining foreign military occupation of a civilian population.

In 1967 Israel occupied Arab territories in a flagrant contravention of international norms. At the time, the United Nations Security Council had called that occupation "inadmissible," and called on Israel to withdrew from these occupied territories

Not only do we need to take into consideration this 35-year old Israeli occupation but the US and others must also note the illegal Jewish settlements that have been planted in occupied Palestinian territories in contradiction to the fourth Geneva convention.

Contextualizing the present situation can also be seen in a much closer time frame. Let us take the past week only. First, the Israelis refused to allow the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, from participating in the Arab summit that was scheduled to take place in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. Humiliating conditions were imposed on the Palestinian leader if he were to leave and even more humiliating conditions were placed on him before if he would be allowed to return. The Arab summit, which Arafat was denied from attending, was not a war council against the state of Israel, but rather a conference that was scheduled to give unanimous Arab backing to a Saudi peace initiative.

Arafat was not the only Palestinian besieged and humiliated. Three million Palestinians have been similarly besieged and humiliated for nearly a year-and-a half. International efforts to permit Arafat to attend this conference failed. Even a public plea from the United States didn’t persuade the Israelis to change their mind. They were trying to blackmail Arafat into making political concessions in return for this permission to attend the Arab summit. Everyone warned of the consequence of this humiliation to Palestinians and Arabs. The mass-circulating Israeli daily Ma’Ariv quoted the hawkish Israeli defense Minister, Benyamin Ben Eliezer as predicting that Palestinians will respond violently to this grave humiliation of their democratically elected leader. But despite these warning the Israelis insisted to deny Arafat permission to leave.

Arab leaders and the Arab public were angry but the Arab summit went on as planned. Arafat who spoke by video from under the Israeli siege publicly supporting the Saudi peace initiative. He even used the occasion to call Israel to positively respond to the plea for a comprehensive peace for the sake of "our children and your children."

The opposite happened after the Arab leaders unanimously approved a peace plan. A plan which provided a historic opportunity for Israel to become a normal part of the Middle East. All the state of Israel needed was to agree to withdraw to its internationally recognized borders in order to be accepted as a "normal" state in the region. Israelis should have been dancing in the streets, but instead a low-level spokesman said his country accepts the "normal" phrase but are not ready to provide the "withdrawal" price.

True, a terrible explosion occurred during this period that caused the death of 20 Israelis and the injury of many who were attending a Passover meal. The Palestinian Authority immediately condemned this act of terrorism committed by a hard-line Islamic group. A few weeks earlier the US administration had dispatched a special envoy. They had said that they were committed to reaching a cease-fire and knew that many radicals on both sides would try to derail this process. Before the latest escalation in the violence, US envoy General Zinni was quoted as saying that progress was made in trying to find such a cease-fire agreement.

When the late Yitshaq Rabin found himself in a similar position, he stated that Israel will spend a week mourning the dead and on the eighth day they will be back to the negotiations. He knew that radicals on both sides don’t want peace. He has paid for his search for this elusive peace with his life.

The current cycle of violence is destructive. Each side can point to this or that date or this or that massacre as the reason for their actions. There has to be courage to break this cycle. The United States has an obligation not to take sides or to "understand Israel’s needs." It’s responsibilities as the sponsor of the peace process requires it to look at the larger picture.

Instead of dealing with the history of this conflict based on the latest suicide bombing, the US needs to focus on the words of President Bush calling for an end of the occupation and the creation of the state of Palestine alongside of Israel.

The Arab peace plan that was approved in Beirut provides a perfect vehicle to reach a comprehensive solution to this decade-long conflict. A free and independent Palestine alongside a safe and secure Israel is not an impossible dream.

As the world entered the 21 century with the goal of ending occupation, colonization and military rule, it is important to give these goals a practical application and not just lip service.

Today these are the goals of the Palestinian people wishing to end the Israeli occupation of their land and to establish a free Palestinian state. And while US President George W. Bush and his administration publicly support this call, the time has come to implement these universal rights in Palestine. This is the only way to end the present tragedy that has affected so many innocent people.

For months, the world media have focused on the imprisonment of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in his Ramallah office by the Israeli military. The humiliating conditions Israel imposed on the democratically elected leader of the Palestinian people reflect an occupier’s mentality. Unfortunately, the US has done little to rein in the Israelis. How could it do so? Only a few weeks earlier, the US vice president, Dick Cheney, who was on a tour of the Middle East, met all Arab and Israeli leaders except Arafat.

While Arafat’s house arrest has received a lot of attention, less consideration was given to a much more appalling ordeal that the Israeli army has forced three million Palestinians to go through for a year and a half. This collective punishment has gone on with little world outcry. The Israelis seem to acknowledge that they are holding the Palestinian people hostage when they state publicly that they would lift the siege if the Palestinian National Authority carries out some actions or makes certain political concessions.

Collective punishment is illegal, according to the Fourth Geneva Convention. This particular piece of international law was drawn up after World War II specifically to deal with situations of prolonged occupation.

Movement of people and goods has been hampered to such a degree that the World Bank is sounding alarm bells about the economic situation in the Palestinian territories.

The Israelis insist that they are in a defensive posture and that their offensive acts are only to prevent potential suicide bombers. This fact is not supported by the reality on the ground: medical staff, ambulances, UN personnel and journalists have been injured and killed by the Israeli army.

Suicide bombings and attacks against civilians are wrong and must end. They are the product of a frustrated Palestinian population that sees no hope or political solution on the horizon. Nobody can stop a person whose sense of helplessness has made him willing to give up his life for the cause of his people’s freedom.

An immediate relief of the situation would stipulate that Israel end its illegal siege on the Palestinian population, end its policy of assassinations and immediately begin political negotiations. A third party, possibly a US-led monitoring force, must be deployed to ensure that both parties respect such a ceasefire agreement.

In the biblical Passover story about the plight of Jews in Egypt, the pharaoh’s heart is said to have hardened after every plague that had hit his people. This went on for nine plagues until the first-born of every Egyptian family was killed. The pharaoh finally gave in and allowed the enslaved people to leave. Since then, the slogan "let my people go" has become a calling cry for oppressed people the world over.

The cycle of violence of the previous 18 months has caused grief and hardships for both Palestinians and Israelis. What is needed now is a bold decision to allow the Palestinian people to be free. This freedom is not only to enjoy the basic right of any human being to live and move about; Palestinians must be able to enjoy the collective freedom of creating their own independent, sovereign and viable state.

The week-long Jewish Passover holiday will most certainly suspend the current efforts by the US envoy Anthony Zinni. Let us pray that the Israelis and their friends around the world will focus on the real meaning of this holiday and allow the Palestinian people "to go and come" within their own independent state alongside Israel.

One of the more popular Palestinian songs asks travelers where they are going and the answer is Ramallah. This town, built on a hill north of Jerusalem, has always been known as a Palestinian resort. Married couples from various Arab countries used to spend their honeymoon in this city. As a child, I remember fondly our regular visits to this city. Riding the swings in the Ramallah municipal park, renting bikes and eating Rukab’s ice cream, with its distinctive taste, are among the happy memories I have of this town.

Ramallah this week is certainly not the destination of honeymooners or picnic goers. Israeli tanks and soldiers armed to the teeth turned this happy town into hell on earth.

Israeli incursions, contrary to what they say, have more to do with an attempt to demoralize Palestinians than to "root out terrorism". How else can one explain Israel’s exaggerated use of force that has provoked angry responses from Israel’s only remaining ally, the United States? How else can the shooting of foreign journalists, which Wednesday caused the death of an Italian photographer, be explained? What has a hospital providing needed humanitarian and emergency services have to do with the declared Israeli claim of wanting to root out Palestinian terrorism? Shooting outside the Ramallah hospital was obvious to all television observers. Television news spoke of hospital doctors and staff prevented from reaching their work destination.

The family and friends of a friend who died after a long battle with cancer were unable to get to the hospital to take her corpse from the morgue and give her a proper burial.

When I called my friend Ayman in Ramallah, he told me that he had been stuck in the house for three days. Essential food items are quickly running out. He told me that the local shops opened only for a few hours on the second day of Israeli reoccupation, and everything available was quickly bought out. With no supplies coming to the city to replenish the shelves, store owners had to close shops and sit at home, waiting for the Israelis to allow the entry of basic food items and other essentials.

Electricity was out during the first day of the second Israeli occupation of Ramallah. When power was back, little of life in Ramallah returned to normal. At Al Quds Educational Television, three members of the staff who got stuck in the office when the occupation began, had no choice but to sleep at the station and try their best to keep the station running, giving basic information to the population. I was told by the station’s director, Ayman Bardawil, that the staff spent most of the time rebroadcasting news reports and short service announcements from the governor of the city. He told me that they played over and over again the 13 television spots created with UNESCO with the aim of helping parents and children cope with times of extreme stress and instability.

Local radio and television stations were used by the local government to help deal with the difficulties on the ground. On a television station in Bethlehem, I noticed that an announcement by the local civil defense department listed only a mobile phone number. This showed that the Israelis had bombed the civil defense premises, where land lines are located, and left those in charge no choice but to give out their numbers as a reference point for the public. On another station, I noticed a flash announcement informing the Palestinian public: "Israeli snipers located on top of the Orphanage Home in Beit Jala".

This latest incursion into Ramallah has been described as one of the largest Israeli military operations for some time. Sending tanks into a populated area, cutting supplies and shooting at journalists are actions no military would like to have listed as accomplishments.

Palestinians, however, understand the Israeli game and feel that US envoy General Anthony Zinni’s visit and the Security Council resolutions will ensure that Israel leaves the Palestinian territories permanently.

The determination and will of the Palestinians has not been shaken by the Israeli actions. They know that the days of the Israeli occupation are numbered. They are just as certain that the lyrics of the Ramallah song will soon be heard in the restaurants and parks in and around Ramallah.

Six-year old Nadeen Khayyat woke up in the middle of the night terrified. Clutching to her grandmother this Palestinian child was petrified that the Israelis will shell her home. I had been staying at the Khayyat home Tuesday night in the center of Ramallah. My house on the edge of Ramallah was deemed by all my friends too dangerous.

Nadeen had good reason to be afraid. A few hours earlier all of us were live witnesses to a criminal assassination of three Palestinians. The three whose charred bodies were splattered over all the television stations belonged to members of the Fatah tanzim. At the time we didn’t know the targets but the rockets that hit the car had lit the skyline of Ramallah twice leaving an eerie feeling throughout the city. A few hours earlier the city had participated in a huge funeral for two families made up of women and children. Even that morning news had brought news of three explosives having been discovered on the grounds of an elementary school in East Jerusalem.

The news on television did little to overshadow the most popular story in almost every Palestinian home. The story is that of the Palestinian sniper who picked off 10 Israelis soldiers using no more than 25 bullets from an old gun. While the basic facts as had been reported in the press are repeated in all versions, everything else is different as versions of heroics reach an exaggerated level. Some talked about him being an older man who has been hiding for years waiting for this once-in-a-life time opportunity.

Palestinian roads and the checkpoints on them also occupy a major part of daily discussions. This includes movie-type stories of people braving the weather and the elements in order to get from one place to another using their cars. Of course the more colorful stories are the stories of people using various animals and other primitive means of transportation to get from one city to the other or from one village to a nearby city.

Perhaps the Qalandia checkpoint connecting Jerusalem with Ramallah wins the race for the most talked about crossing point. The situation there has deteriorated from one in which cars line up for long long waits to people in long lines waiting to be allowed to enter in groups almost like herds of sheep. Things have deteriorated even worse with the main checkpoint closed to all- under the threat of live bullets- thus forcing people to use alternative roads. These alternative roads seem like nature paths that would fit a group of hikers rather than men and women with children and luggage.

Of course the amazing thing is the speed in which these alternate roads become alive. Taxis quickly find an empty lot nearby to organize their business. Boys with small cars also jump into business helping travelers with bags make this two kilometer journey easier for a small payment for the equivalent of three US dollars. Salespeople also set up their mobile products just as quickly and for those interested in hot coffee or tea, for a few shekels they can have a warm drink.

The ‘situation’ overshadows all conversations in Palestine as everyone sits by their television sets waiting and hoping to hear some good news out of the bulletins that seems to apply the media slogan: if it bleeds it leads. While the bleeding fills the newscasts, Palestinians seem to have taken a fatalistic attitude. This attitude has introduced a dose of humor to most conversations as people discover that laughing is the best medicine in such a situation. Naturally jokes and laughter are all connected to the ‘situation,’ and no leader or issue, on either side is immune. The new found sense of humor among adults often coupled with an increase in the consumption of alcohol has few ethical limits as people seem to go for dirty jokes in such a difficult situation. For an unknown reason quality foreign wines from Italy and France are available for unbelievably low prices. Maybe they were bought by Israeli hoteliers and restaurant owners expecting large numbers of tourists in the third millennium.

Whatever the means, it seems that Palestinians have united behind a simple goal of surviving this madness with the hope and the prayer that this bad dream will soon end and children like Nadeen Khayyat and others will no longer have to deal with these nightmares anymore.