ABSTRACT
De facto statehood grew up in Palestine in the short period between 1993 and 2000. However, in the even shorter period separating the dawn of the twenty-first century from today (December 2002), the viability of that de facto Palestinian state has been seriously called into question. In part, the intellectual problem at this point is whether what seemed (in the long ago days of 2000) to be so tantalizingly close – the conversion of Palestinian statehood to a de jure status – has now been removed from the realm of practical alternatives in the Middle East. In part, it inevitably also entails the problem of discerning what, if any, lessons Palestine’s frustratingly sad recent history implies for the dynamics, obstacles and prospects of success surrounding such potential conversions.
