Colt
Well-Known Member
2002 The Guardian
LoL!----->This article is more than 21 years old
Written by Benny Morris
Ever since the start of the second Palestinian intifada, a row has raged over who was responsible for the breakdown of the peace process. Now, for the first time, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak has weighed in, accusing Yasser Arafat of being a liar who talked peace while secretly plotting the destruction of Israel.
Interview by Benny Morris
Wed 22 May 2002 21.25 EDT
"The call from Bill Clinton came hours after the publication in the New York Times of a "revisionist" article on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. On holiday, Ehud Barak, Israel's former prime minister, was swimming in a cove in Sardinia. According to Barak, Clinton said: "What the hell is this? Why is she turning the mistakes we [ie, the US and Israel] made into the essence? The true story of Camp David was that for the first time in the history of the conflict the American president put on the table a proposal, based on UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, very close to the Palestinian demands, and Arafat refused even to accept it as a basis for negotiations, walked out of the room, and deliberately turned to terrorism."
Clinton was speaking of the two-week-long Camp David conference in July 2000 which he had organised and mediated and its failure, and the eruption at the end of September of the Palestinian intifada which has continued since. Halfway through the conference, apparently on July 18, Clinton had "slowly" - to avoid misunderstanding - read out to Arafat a document, endorsed in advance by Barak, outlining the main points of a future settlement. The proposals included the establishment of a demilitarised Palestinian state on some 92% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip, with some territorial compensation for the Palestinians from pre-1967 Israeli territory; the dismantling of most of the settlements and the concentration of the bulk of the settlers inside the 8% of the West Bank to be annexed by Israel; the establishment of the Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem, in which some Arab neighborhoods would become sovereign Palestinian territory and others would enjoy "functional autonomy"; Palestinian sovereignty over half the Old City of Jerusalem (the Muslim and Christian quarters) and "custodianship," though not sovereignty, over the Temple Mount; a return of refugees to the prospective Palestinian state though with no "right of return" to Israel proper; and the organisation by the international community of a massive aid programme to facilitate the refugees' rehabilitation.
Arafat said no. Enraged, Clinton banged on the table and said: "You are leading your people and the region to a catastrophe." A formal Palestinian rejection of the proposals reached the Americans the next day. The summit sputtered on for a few days more but to all intents and purposes it was over.
Today Barak portrays Arafat's behaviour at Camp David as a "performance" geared to exacting from the Israelis as many concessions as possible without ever seriously intending to reach a peace settlement or sign an "end to the conflict".
"He did not negotiate in good faith; indeed, he did not negotiate at all. He just kept saying no to every offer, never making any counterproposals of his own," he says. Barak shifts between charging Arafat with "lacking the character or will" to make a historic compromise (as did the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1977-79, when he made peace with Israel) to accusing him of secretly planning Israel's demise while he strings along a succession of Israeli and Western leaders and, on the way, hoodwinks "naive journalists".
"What they [Arafat and his colleagues] want is a Palestinian state in all of Palestine," says Barak. "What we see as self-evident, [the need for] two states for two peoples, they reject. Israel is too strong at the moment to defeat, so they formally recognise it. But their game plan is to establish a Palestinian state while always leaving an opening for further 'legitimate' demands down the road. They will exploit the tolerance and democracy of Israel first to turn it into 'a state for all its citizens', as demanded by the extreme nationalist wing of Israel's Arabs and extremist leftwing Jewish Israelis. Then they will push for a binational state and then demography and attrition will lead to a state with a Muslim majority and a Jewish minority. This would not necessarily involve kicking out all the Jews. But it would mean the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. This, I believe, is their vision. Arafat sees himself as a reborn Saladin - the Kurdish Muslim general who defeated the Crusaders in the 12th century - and Israel as just another, ephemeral Crusader state."
CONT> Arafat didn't negotiate - he just kept saying no
LoL!----->This article is more than 21 years old
Arafat didn't negotiate - he just kept saying no
Written by Benny Morris
Ever since the start of the second Palestinian intifada, a row has raged over who was responsible for the breakdown of the peace process. Now, for the first time, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak has weighed in, accusing Yasser Arafat of being a liar who talked peace while secretly plotting the destruction of Israel.
Interview by Benny Morris
Wed 22 May 2002 21.25 EDT
"The call from Bill Clinton came hours after the publication in the New York Times of a "revisionist" article on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. On holiday, Ehud Barak, Israel's former prime minister, was swimming in a cove in Sardinia. According to Barak, Clinton said: "What the hell is this? Why is she turning the mistakes we [ie, the US and Israel] made into the essence? The true story of Camp David was that for the first time in the history of the conflict the American president put on the table a proposal, based on UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, very close to the Palestinian demands, and Arafat refused even to accept it as a basis for negotiations, walked out of the room, and deliberately turned to terrorism."
Clinton was speaking of the two-week-long Camp David conference in July 2000 which he had organised and mediated and its failure, and the eruption at the end of September of the Palestinian intifada which has continued since. Halfway through the conference, apparently on July 18, Clinton had "slowly" - to avoid misunderstanding - read out to Arafat a document, endorsed in advance by Barak, outlining the main points of a future settlement. The proposals included the establishment of a demilitarised Palestinian state on some 92% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip, with some territorial compensation for the Palestinians from pre-1967 Israeli territory; the dismantling of most of the settlements and the concentration of the bulk of the settlers inside the 8% of the West Bank to be annexed by Israel; the establishment of the Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem, in which some Arab neighborhoods would become sovereign Palestinian territory and others would enjoy "functional autonomy"; Palestinian sovereignty over half the Old City of Jerusalem (the Muslim and Christian quarters) and "custodianship," though not sovereignty, over the Temple Mount; a return of refugees to the prospective Palestinian state though with no "right of return" to Israel proper; and the organisation by the international community of a massive aid programme to facilitate the refugees' rehabilitation.
Arafat said no. Enraged, Clinton banged on the table and said: "You are leading your people and the region to a catastrophe." A formal Palestinian rejection of the proposals reached the Americans the next day. The summit sputtered on for a few days more but to all intents and purposes it was over.
Today Barak portrays Arafat's behaviour at Camp David as a "performance" geared to exacting from the Israelis as many concessions as possible without ever seriously intending to reach a peace settlement or sign an "end to the conflict".
"He did not negotiate in good faith; indeed, he did not negotiate at all. He just kept saying no to every offer, never making any counterproposals of his own," he says. Barak shifts between charging Arafat with "lacking the character or will" to make a historic compromise (as did the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1977-79, when he made peace with Israel) to accusing him of secretly planning Israel's demise while he strings along a succession of Israeli and Western leaders and, on the way, hoodwinks "naive journalists".
"What they [Arafat and his colleagues] want is a Palestinian state in all of Palestine," says Barak. "What we see as self-evident, [the need for] two states for two peoples, they reject. Israel is too strong at the moment to defeat, so they formally recognise it. But their game plan is to establish a Palestinian state while always leaving an opening for further 'legitimate' demands down the road. They will exploit the tolerance and democracy of Israel first to turn it into 'a state for all its citizens', as demanded by the extreme nationalist wing of Israel's Arabs and extremist leftwing Jewish Israelis. Then they will push for a binational state and then demography and attrition will lead to a state with a Muslim majority and a Jewish minority. This would not necessarily involve kicking out all the Jews. But it would mean the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. This, I believe, is their vision. Arafat sees himself as a reborn Saladin - the Kurdish Muslim general who defeated the Crusaders in the 12th century - and Israel as just another, ephemeral Crusader state."
CONT> Arafat didn't negotiate - he just kept saying no
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