There is no use in crying over spilled blood, but it is sometimes useful to understand the origins of the struggles that shape our world.

Back then, both sides could have had what they are still negotiating - a permanent settlement of the Middle East conflict.

The delegates who called out "no!" were from the Islamic nations of the UN and their allies.

They had the voting power to carry out an idea that could have ended the war before it began. The idea was to take what was once a British colonial territory and divide it into two nations, one Jewish, one Muslim.

For a long time, most Jews were against that concept. But over time, more and more would come to accept partition - just as more and more Muslims would turn against it.

Israel and the Palestinian Arabs each claimed that the entire territory belonged to them on religious, historical and national grounds.

But at least among the Jews, there were more who believed that separation would be the way to end the fighting.

I was a correspondent for The New York Times covering the UN back then, and I remember a Jewish diplomat taking me aside and writing one word on a piece of paper: partition.

I was startled at his adventuresomeness, for as far as I could tell, virtually all Muslims believed then that no state but an Islamic one should exist on what they considered entirely Muslim territory.

The struggle continued. Decade after decade, it went on.

In the beginning years, only a devout Jew or Muslim could understand the complex religious and national passions that had started it.

Day in and day out, Israel faced war from terrorist organizations. This was, of course, long before 9/11 when we Americans suddenly, brutally discovered what that is like.

This year, there was a major advance for Israel: President Bush's decision to go to war against Iraq. Saddam Hussein had been for three decades one of Israel's major enemies - and will be again, if his fascistic regime ever comes back from the grave.

Meanwhile, seeking Muslim backing in the Middle East, the United States, Great Britain, Russia, the European Union and the UN have worked out what they think is a jim-dandy plan to create an independent, democratic Palestine.

The problem is that their road map to peace is already littered with broken promises - for example, the lack of Arab action against the terrorist groups that have been their comrades for years.

Specifically, the road map calls for the Palestinians to take more vigorous anti-terrorist steps, which should not be difficult, since none has been taken by them so far.

That's a gap in the road map that has escaped the attention of too many American commentators, including this one.

"In 2003, Israeli planners will have to operate under the assumption that the dismantling of the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure will be incomplete, and should a Palestinian state nonetheless be established, its complete demilitarization will not be reliable." That was the polite way Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the UN, put it in a journal of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

His statement addresses the unhappy possibility that the Israelis may make an agreement that sets up an independent Palestinian neighbor without meeting Israel's life-long and intense need for defensible borders.

There is another way of establishing secure borders. That is a fence on the Israeli side loaded down with sensors that can spot terrorists.

Somehow, that idea does not thrill either the Palestinians or the Israelis.

"The thought that a Palestinian state next to Israel would be a peaceful neighbor is ludicrous. ... The Arab world is presently comprised of 22 states of nearly 5 million square miles. ... There seems to be no need for another Muslim Arab state, especially for one that would serve as an advance base for the ultimate destruction of Israel." That statement is from an organization called Flame, which dissects Arab statements with a red-hot scalpel.