THE HISTORY of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be glimpsed through a series of maps.
First is the sepia-toned map of Palestine under the British Mandate, circa 1936. On its surface it suggests one unified country where Arab and Jew can live together between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. This is the map that some Palestinians still place on their walls: A whole Palestine, representing the dream of an independent, secular, democratic and Arab-majority state. Many Israelis still see this map as representing their dreams too: \o7Eretz Yisrael\f7, the whole Jewish homeland.
Second is the United Nations partition map of November 1947, which divided Palestine into two states -- one for Arabs (who were to get 44% of the territory) and one for Jews (who were given 54.5%), with Jerusalem and Bethlehem under international stewardship. For Zionists, it was a triumph born of the Holocaust and the belief in much of the world that Jews needed and deserved a haven.
For Arabs, who were the majority population, it was a disaster. Why, they asked, should their homeland become the solution to the Jewish tragedy in Europe? They fought the partition, and in the 1948 war that followed, 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out and became refugees.
After Israel's 1948 War of Independence, a third map emerged, based on additional territory captured by Israel. Palestinians lived in the West Bank and Gaza, under Jordanian and Egyptian rule, on 22% of old Palestine -- or outside of the historic territory entirely, often in U.N. refugee camps set up in neighboring Arab countries.
The fourth map was drawn after Israel's stunning victory in the 1967 Middle East War. It showed yet more territory -- the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Sinai peninsula -- under Israeli occupation. Soon dozens of little dots, representing Israeli settlements, would be added to each of these areas. (In the early 1980s, Israel withdrew from the Sinai, and last year from Gaza.)
Now comes the new Israeli prime minister to Washington, carrying yet another map. When Ehud Olmert meets with President Bush on Tuesday, he will present a new page for the Middle East atlas, in which, according to recent reports, Israel will have pulled up stakes from some of the occupied West Bank but will still control large portions of it. Palestinians would end up with less than 20% of their original dream for the whole of Palestine.
