Accounts of the recent troubles between Israelis and Palestinians tend to talk in terms of two sides. In fact, each is divided along a number of lines, religious and secular, and united only in the desire for the greatest possible amount of land. PNS editor Franz Schurmann, professor emeritus of history and sociology at UC-Berkeley, has traveled widely in the Middle East and reads the Arab- and Farsi-language press.

The Arab media are filled with pictures of dead and horribly maimed children. The Israeli media show a Palestinian kid ecstatic with the blood of a murdered Israeli soldier dripping from his arms. There is no way now that the two peoples can live side by side and look at one another without fear and anger rising in their throats.

Barak and Arafat reflected this hatred by refusing to even look at each other at the recent summit at Sharm as-Sheikh. Yet, just the day before, both Israelis and Palestinians made known their four core demands -- demands that were rational and political.

The Israelis demanded that the Palestine Authority re-arrest all Hamas and Islamic Jihad members released from Palestinian prisons. Second, that all Hamas youth be disarmed. Third, that the Authority halt all violent demonstrations. Fourth, that all agitation against Israelis and Jews through the media be stopped.

The Palestinians demanded that Israelis stop shooting Palestinian civilians and police. Second, that all Israeli armed forces be withdrawn from entry points into West Bank cities and Jewish settlements. Third, that Israelis never again enter the Dome of the Rock. Fourth, that they respect all Islamic and Christian holy places.

The first two Israeli demands are informative. The first implies that the two religious organizations, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, not Arafat and his Fatah organization, lead the Intifada. The second implies that Hamas leads the rock-throwing youngsters who make up a good part of those who have been killed.

These demands were published in the Saudi newspaper As-Sharq al-Ausat. An editorial in the same issue noted that while Barak and Sharon appear to have made a tacit alliance, Arafat "does not speak for all those in the Intifada." In other words, Arafat has the loyalty of the police and intelligence services, made up of Fatah members, but not much more.

The first two Israeli demands in effect ask Arafat to break with Hamas, which rejects the peace process, and Islamic Jihad, which calls for a continuation of the Intifada. It's quite clear that if Arafat accepted these demands civil war would break out among the Palestinians.

Until the Intifada broke out, Arafat and Fatah had working relations with the Israelis. But since the Israelis still held 80 percent of Palestinian land, Hamas and the Jihad accused Arafat of getting nothing in return.

The incident that broke the truce between the two sides was Ariel Sharon's ascent onto the Dome of the Rock on Thursday, September 28. The day before, as As-Sharq al-Ausat reported, both Fatah and Hamas had warned him that such an action could lead to an "explosion."

There were fights on Thursday but no fatalities. It was different on Bloody Friday when Israeli troops stormed onto the mosque grounds where Palestinians were dropping stones on Jews worshipping at the Wailing Wall below. The deaths on Friday sparked the Intifada that spread to the Occupied Territories and within Israel itself.

Who gave Israeli soldiers the orders to shoot? Since he wasn't in the government it couldn't have been Sharon. That leaves only Barak, who had been talking increasingly tougher as he kept repeating his offers to Sharon for a secular coalition government. The As-Sharq al-Ausat believes that a big power shift to the right has taken place in Israel. It was this and the desecration of the third most sacred Muslim holy site that led to an explosion far greater than any expected.

As PNS commentator Rami Khouri wrote, the Oslo peace accords --which called for an incremental political and military disengagement between Israel and Palestine -- are dead. But at the same time a new economic engagement could grow up in the context of a larger Middle Eastern market, and improved economic conditions would mean improved prospects for peace. That process was terminated formally at Sharm as-Sheikh.

Now it's back to basics -- land and religion. Two peoples are determined to get as much of the land as they can for themselves. On the Palestinian side the main political force is Islamic. There is a similar split in Israel, but the dominant force is secular. Will it now be Barak and Sharon against Sheikh Yasin, the imam who resides in Gaza but has a big following inside and outside Palestine?