PALESTINIANS WHO worry about the fate of their people are asking themselves where all this is leading to.

Their situation has reached its lowest point in over 20 years. They are politically almost isolated throughout the world. Israeli public opinion has become indifferent and united around the mendacious mantra: "We have no partner". In the peace camp, many are dispirited. And, most importantly, the Palestinian national movement has split into two factions, and it seems that the hatred between them is growing from day to day.

Splits are not uncommon in national liberation movements. Actually, there has hardly been one liberation movement that did not undergo such a crisis. But a situation where two warring factions control two different territories, both under foreign occupation, is almost unknown.

IT MAY be interesting to compare this situation with that of our own underground organizations before the foundation of the State of Israel.

There is some similarity (not ideological, of course): Fatah is a little bit like the large Haganah organization that was controlled by the official Zionist leadership; Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which reject the PLO leadership, are like the Irgun and Stern group. Fatah's al-Aqsa Battalions can be compared to the Palmach, the regular fighting force of the Haganah.

Between these Hebrew organizations, a burning hatred developed. Haganah members considered the Irgunists as fascists, the Irgun fighters considered the Haganah men as collaborators with the British occupation authorities. The national leadership called the Irgun and Stern group "secessionists", the official Irgun designation for the Haganah was "shits".

Matters reached a climax in the "saison" (hunting season), when the Haganah abducted Irgun members and turned them over to the British police, who interrogated them under torture and then deported them to internment camps in Africa. But there was also a short period when all three organizations coordinated their actions under the umbrella of the "Hebrew Rebellion Movement".

Israeli politicians like to recall the Altalena incident, when Ben-Gurion gave the order to shell an Irgun ship loaded with arms off the shore of Tel-Aviv. (Menachem Begin, who had come on deck, was narrowly saved when his men shoved him into the water). Why doesn't Abbas dare to do the same to Hamas?

This question ignores a salient point: Ben-Gurion used the "sacred cannon" (as he called it) only after the State of Israel had already come into being. That makes all the difference.

The bitter hatred between the Haganah and the Irgun, and to some extent also between the Irgun and the Stern group, simmered down only gradually, during the first years of the State of Israel. Nowadays streets in Tel-Aviv are named after the commanders of all three organizations.

More importantly: historians now tend to view the struggle of all three as a single campaign, as if it had been coordinated. The "terrorist" actions of the Irgun and the Stern group complemented the illegal immigration campaign of the Haganah. The growing popularity of the Irgun and the Stern Group convinced the British that they should reach a modus vivendi with the official Zionist leadership, lest the "extremists" take over the entire Hebrew community.

This analogy has, of course, its limitations. Ben-Gurion was a strong and authoritative leader, like Arafat, while the position of Abbas is much weaker. Menachem Begin was resolved to prevent a fratricidal war at any cost, even when his men where abducted and turned over to the British. I don't believe the Hamas leaders would react like this in a similar situation. Unlike the Irgun and its supporting political party, Hamas has won the majority in democratic elections.

But it is possible that in the future, after the state of Palestine comes into being, historians will say that Fatah, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad really complemented each other. President Bush is pressuring Ehud Olmert into making concessions to Mahmoud Abbas, in order to prevent the complete takeover of the West Bank by Hamas. Perhaps it is precisely the turning of Gaza into Hamastan that will enable Abbas to utilize his weakness to achieve things that he could not get any other way.

ANYWAY, in order to accommodate President Bush's request, Olmert is now ready to cooperate with Abbas in writing something like a "framework agreement" that will lay down the principles of an agreement that may be achieved later on - but without details or a time-table.

According to the leaks, the agreement will repeat more or less Ehud Barak's proposals at Camp David, including some of the bizarre ones, such as Israeli sovereignty "beneath" the Temple Mount. The Palestinian state will have "temporary" borders, with the "permanent" borders to be fixed some time in the future. Olmert demands that the Separation Wall will serve as the "temporary" border. This, by the way, confirms what we have been saying from the very first moment, and what was violently denied even before the Supreme Court: that the path of the Wall does not reflect security considerations, but was designed to annex 8% of the West Bank to Israel. In this area, the "settlement blocs" were set up, those that President Bush has generously promised to attach to Israel.

The whole exercise is very dangerous for the Palestinians. True, if such a document is indeed completed, it will officially fix the minimum that the Israeli government is ready to give, but it can be interpreted as setting down the maximum that the Palestinians will be allowed to demand. In political life, not much is more permanent than the "temporary".

It is also dangerous for the Israelis. It may encourage the illusion that such a "solution" would put an end to the conflict. In fact, no Palestinian will see this as a real solution, and the conflict will go on.

How will public opinion treat this plan? Olmert is certainly commissioning polls to find out. We don't know the results. Like Sharon, he keeps his polls secret.

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