"We need to propose such a generous offer that the world will say to the Palestinians, `You cannot reject this,'" veteran commentator Ehud Yaari said.
Such an enticement might be a new arrangement in the walled Old City of Jerusalem, a key issue which to date has been tethered to the final settlement idea. It might instead agree even within an interim deal to joint custody of the area with its Christian, Jewish and Muslim holy sites, possibly with the inclusion other Muslim countries and outside powers - a sort of Vatican of the Holy Land. That would be a big symbolic prize - even if it still leaves open the question of the rest of east Jerusalem, adjacent to the ancient area, which the Palestinians also seek as a capital.
"It might be a very interesting way to deal with the matter," Beilin said. "The question is whether there is a government in Israel that is ready to think this way."
UNILATERAL PULLOUT - WITH MILITARY OCCUPATION?
There are plenty of Israelis who cannot envision a peace deal of any kind yet still fear the demographic issue enough to want a pullout.
Ariel Sharon, prime minister from 2001-2006, was a longtime hawk but eventually concluded the occupation was bad for Israel. He shocked everyone by ordering all Israeli soldiers out of the Gaza Strip and evicting the almost 10,000 Jewish settlers living there. Israel thus unburdened itself of ruling Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians at a meager territorial cost.
Sharon was incapacitated by a stroke in early 2006. His successor Ehud Olmert won elections a few months later on the promise of repeating the move in the West Bank, which has some 2.5 million Palestinians.
But the West Bank - its borders formed by the armistice lines of the 1948-49 war that created Israel - is more valuable than Gaza. Its highland juts into Israel enough to leave Israel a few miles (kilometers) wide at its narrowest point, surrounds Jerusalem on three sides and is packed with biblical sites. Moreover, the Gaza pullout didn't bring peace on that border. In 2007, the Islamic militants of Hamas seized control there, and since then Israel has faced periodic rocket barrages and fought two mini-wars with Hamas.
But the unilateral pullout idea lives on: Set a border that would likely incorporate some West Bank land into Israel to include some settlements, and then dismantle the rest, without waiting for Palestinian agreement or recompense.
"Israel has to take its fate into its own hands (and) declare what our borders are," said Michael Oren, Israel's former ambassador to Washington. It's needed, he said, "to preserve our identity as a democratic and Jewish state."
Labor Party lawmaker Omer Bar Lev said Israel should "evacuate settlements from beyond those borders. ... As far as I am concerned let them establish a state there."
But what about the rocket threat? Israel may decide to keep the military in place even on the "Palestinian" side of the border, figuring a military occupation is quickly reversible should the risk equation change.
The settler lobby would reject a withdrawal and kick up a fuss that would bring turmoil for a time. As for the Palestinians, they sharply oppose a unilateral Israeli drawing of the border - but they would be happy to see settlers go, and would need to give nothing in return.
ONE STATE?
If there is no separation, the logical long-term default seems to be a single state of Israelis and Palestinians, in which neither has superior rights. Most Israelis dismiss this as not plausible - but history may not ask Israel its view.
How long can Israelis continue to insist that beyond the 1967 lines - which they hardly themselves respect, considering the settlement construction - there must be a different regime than in Israel proper, one in which Palestinians are denied full democratic rights, unlike their brethren within the country's official borders?
Even many Israelis now see a single democratic state as inevitable. Some are leftists who always disliked the nationalism inherent in establishing a Jewish state; others cannot bring themselves to abandon the land, often for religious reasons; and then there are others who have simply despaired of a way out.
Abbas alluded to this in a meeting several days ago with Israeli lawmakers, threatening to "hand over the keys" of the Palestinians' autonomy government, saddle Israel with direct control of millions of Palestinians, and let it fend for itself.
"The only realistic solutions are the two states or one state," Tirawi said. "If Israel keeps building in our land, the Palestinian Authority would collapse and then we are going to end up with one state for two peoples. And I think this has become the more realistic."
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Associated Press writer Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.
