Heaven only knows whether the Geneva Accords have any chance of bringing peace to the Middle East.

Neither side's leaders right now seem willing to shed their bullheadedness and ritualized violence.

Enter the accords, which seek to stoke public pressure on the stubborn.

The proposal, coauthored by former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and former Palestinian information minister Yasir Abed Rabbo, builds upon previous peace plans, including the stalled, U.S.-backed road map.

But the accords go much further, by addressing the prickliest issues and offering one version of the concessions both sides would have to make.

As in earlier plans, the desired end is a sovereign Jewish state and a sovereign Palestinian state coexisting side-by-side. But this proposal looks directly into the white-hot issues of Jerusalem's status, of borders, Israeli settlements and security, and Palestinian refugees' desire to return to their old homes inside Israel.

Palestinian Authority President Yasir Arafat has been his slippery self regarding this unofficial plan, though his Fatah party's Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade has called it "traitorous." Ironically, that echoes the displeasure of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government, whose adjective was "subversive." Beilin and Abed Rabbo have been called traitors.

If it is treason to imagine peace, then this region truly is a hopeless case.

But the wider public on both sides is not so harsh toward the idea. A poll late last month by Rice University and the International Crisis Group showed that 53.3 percent of Israelis and 55.6 percent of Palestinians would support a proposal that covered the same general points as does the Geneva Accords.

The plan is by no means perfect, and for now has no official weight. But Beilin and Abed Rabbo did not duck the issues that must be tackled to win peace - and showed that one test group of Israelis and Palestinians, at least, managed to wrestle them to the ground. Their bet is that appealing to a public weary of bloodshed is the best way to sway stubborn leaders. They deserve praise, not scorn, for that wager.