<HTML><BODY BGCOLOR="#80ffff">Ian Murray forwarded an article by AIJAZ AHMAD from < http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline > <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Israel has of course always had the choice of dismantling its own racist character and accepting the creation of a secular, democratic bi-national state in which Israelis and Palestinians could live as equal citizens, as the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) began proposing soon after the 1967 war.</BLOCKQUOTE> The National Charter or Covenant of the PLO stated "The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians." The PLO did not advocate a "binational" state since according to the charter "Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong." What the PLO offered was a "secular, democratic" state with only a handful of Jews.  In his letter of September 9, 1993 to Prime Minister Rabin, Fatah leader and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat stated that those articles which deny Israel's right to exist or are inconsistent with the PLO's new commitments to Israel following their mutual recognition.  Under the leadership of the PNA and the Fatah, and under extreme pressure from Israel and the U.S.,  the PLO in fact held several meetings in which the offending articles were repealed. see: http://www.mideastweb.org/plocha.htm Stuart Elliott </HTML>