Patience with Palestine?

[Keltoi]

[and teach your children to give the bully what he wants? I would rather have my children watch me die fighting for my freedom.
/QUOTE]

So says the person in Arizona.

 

[Keltoi]

The Palestinians ultimately accept the two-state solution and have recognized on several occassions. It is Israel who has failed to recognize the peacetalks and negotiations. The Camp David talks is a prime example where Israel has broken off negotiations while they were a brick away of agreeing on a fruitful solution.

Yasser Arafat sabotaged the Camp David accords when he changed his demands to include the right of return, which to Israel is a non-starter. Which Arafat knew very well.

 

[searchingsoul]

and teach your children to give the bully what he wants? I would rather have my children watch me die fighting for my freedom.

Kidman

Maybe it would teach the kids that human life is more important than pride.

 

[kadafi]

Yasser Arafat sabotaged the Camp David accords when he changed his demands to include the right of return, which to Israel is a non-starter. Which Arafat knew very well.

Greetings

That is not true and is in fact an old-recycled myth by Israeli apologists.

It has been debunked by Ali Abunimah and Hussein Ibish based on New York Times and Los Anngeles Times:

5. Israel's generosity

"Arafat spurned Barak's generous offer at Camp David and broke off negotiations with Israel."

One of the most powerful myths propagated in the US media today is that at the Camp David summit in July 2000, then Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak made an amazingly generous offer to the Palestinians that Yasir Arafat wantonly spurned, broke off negotiations and then launched a violent uprising against Israel. No element of this, the most cherished of media myths is true. In fact, Barak's offer was anything but generous. It was Israel that broke off the negotiations, and the committee headed by former US Senator George Mitchell found no evidence to back the Israeli claim that the Palestinian Authority had planned or launched the Intifada.
This myth was given life in large part by President Clinton who immediately after the Camp David summit broke his promise to Arafat that no side would be blamed for failure, and went on Israeli television declaring that while Barak made bold compromises for peace, Arafat has missed yet another opportunity. Let's go through the evidence bit by bit.
Barak's "generous" offer

What Barak offered at Camp David was a formula for continued Israeli military occupation under the name of a "state."
The proposal would have meant:

• no territorial contiguity for the Palestinian state,
• no control of its external borders,
• limited control of its own water resources, and
• no full Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory as required by international law.

In addition, the Barak plan would have :

• included continued Israeli military control over large segments of the West Bank, including almost all of the Jordan Valley;
• codified the right of Israeli forces to be deployed in the Palestinian state at short notice;
• meant the continued presence of fortified Israeli settlements and Jewish-only roads in the heart of the Palestinian state; and
• required nearly 4 million Palestinian refugees to relinquish their fundamental human rights in exchange for compensation to be paid not by Israel but by the "international community."

At best, Palestinians could expect a kind of super-autonomy within a "Greater Israel", rather than independence, and the devolution of some municipal functions in the parts of Jerusalem inhabited by Palestinians, under continued overall Israeli control.
See maps showing what the Israeli proposals would have looked like in reality at http://electronicIntifada.net/coveragetrends/generous.html.
John Mearsheimer, professor in the department of political science at the University of Chicago, recognized the limitations of what Palestinians were being asked to accept as a final settlement, concluding that

"it is hard to imagine the Palestinians accepting such a state. Certainly no other nation in the world has such curtailed sovereignty."
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[Source: "The Impossible Partition," New York Times, January 11, 2001]
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The reality was far from the wild claims routinely made on the editorial pages of American papers that Barak had offered the Palestinians, 95, 97 or even 100% of the occupied West Bank. Barak himself wrote in a New York Times Op-ed on 24 May 2001 that his vision was for

"a gradual process of establishing secure, defensible borders, demarcated so as to encompass more than 80 percent of the Jewish settlers in several settlement blocs over about 15 percent of Judea and Samaria, and to ensure a wide security zone in the Jordan Valley."
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[Source: "Building a Wall Against Terror," New York Times, 24 May 2001].
​

In other words, if Barak intended to keep 15 percent of "Judea and Samaria" (the West Bank), he could not have offered the Palestinians more than 85 percent.
No one can seriously talk about Israel being willing to end its settlement policy if 80 percent of its settlers would have remained in place.
Robert Malley who was Clinton's special assistant for Arab-Israeli affairs, participated in the Camp David negotiations. In an important article entitled "Fictions About the Failure At Camp David " published in the New York Times on July 8, 2001, Malley added his own, insider's challenge to the Camp David myth. Not only did he agree that Barak's offer was far from ideal, but made the additional point that Arafat had made far more concessions than anyone gave him credit for. Malley wrote:

"Many have come to believe that the Palestinians' rejection of the Camp David ideas exposed an underlying rejection of Israel's right to exist. But consider the facts: The Palestinians were arguing for the creation of a Palestinian state based on the June 4, 1967, borders, living alongside Israel. They accepted the notion of Israeli annexation of West Bank territory to accommodate settlement blocs. They accepted the principle of Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem -- neighborhoods that were not part of Israel before the Six Day War in 1967. And, while they insisted on recognition of the refugees' right of return, they agreed that it should be implemented in a manner that protected Israel's demographic and security interests by limiting the number of returnees. No other Arab party that has negotiated with Israel -- not Anwar el-Sadat's Egypt, not King Hussein's Jordan, let alone Hafez al-Assad's Syria -- ever came close to even considering such compromises."
​

Malley rightly concluded that, "If peace is to be achieved, the parties cannot afford to tolerate the growing acceptance of these myths as reality."
The negotiations continued

While it is true that the July 2000 Camp David summit ended without agreement, the negotiations did not end. They restarted and continued until Barak broke them off in January 2001. Since then Israel has refused to enter political negotiations with the Palestinians.
On 19 December 2000, six months after Camp David, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators returned to Washington and continued with negotiations. These negotiations were based on a set of proposals by President Clinton which went beyond Barak's offer of July 2000, but still fell short of minimum Palestinian expecations. Nevertheless, the Palestinians went on with the talks.
By some accounts these were proving fruitful. The Los Angeles Times reported on 22 December 2000, that:

"Amid signs that the two sides appear to be edging toward some sort of compromise on the emotional issue of Jerusalem, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators worked through the start of the Jewish Hanukkah holiday Thursday expressing a rare shared optimism."
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[Source: Los Angeles Times, December 22, 2000. "Hopeful mood fuels talks on Mideast peace; Negotiations: Israelis, Palestinians work through Jewish holiday as signs surface of a compromise."]
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In January 2001, the talks moved to Taba, Egypt, where they reportedly continued to make progress. They broke off at the end of January, and were due to resume but Barak canceled a planned meeting with Arafat. Shortly thereafter, Barak lost the election to Ariel Sharon, and the talks have never resumed.
The New York Times reported on January 28, 2001:

"Senior Israeli and Palestinian officials concluded nearly a week of stop-and-start negotiations in Taba, Egypt, tonight by saying jointly that they have "never been closer to reaching" a final peace accord but lacked sufficient time to conclude one before the Israeli elections on Feb. 6..... At a joint news conference in Taba, Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami of Israel called the two-way talks, from which the Americans were conspicuously absent, "the most fruitful, constructive, profound negotiations in this phase of the peace process." He said the two sides hoped to pick up where they left off after the elections -- although his boss, Mr. Barak, is expected to lose."
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Source: New York Times, January 28, 2001, "Mideast Talks End With Gain But No Accord."
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So how is it then that all these commentators and Israeli officials continue to deny that talks which the Israeli foreign minister at the time called "the most fruitful, constructive, profound negotiations," never took place? How is it that so many continue to claim that it was the Palestinians who walked away from the bargaining table when it was Israel that stopped the talks and refuses to resume them?
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Regards

 

[Kidman]

So says the person in Arizona.

Ya, so what? I was born and raised in Cali... and now live in AZ... what's your point?

I would do the same thing and fight by america's side if anyone came here and tried to take this land from me...

Kidman

 

[Kidman]

Maybe it would teach the kids that human life is more important than pride.

have you not seen my signature, scroll down on it...

 

[Keltoi]

http://www.mafhoum.com/press/53P2.htm

A link from an article that describes the Camp David negotiations and President Clinton's feeling that Arafat sabotaged the negotations because of the so-called "right of return". If you want to label all media outlets except "electronicintifada" as false, then there isn't much point in disussing the issue. If you have read Clinton's personal memoirs, you will remember his feelings on the matter. Perhaps everyone is lying and an "apologist" for Israel, but Bill Clinton staked alot of his political reputation on the mid-east peace deal, and never forgave Arafat for what happened.

 

[kadafi]

http://www.mafhoum.com/press/53P2.htm

A link from an article that describes the Camp David negotiations and President Clinton's feeling that Arafat sabotaged the negotations because of the so-called "right of return". If you want to label all media outlets except "electronicintifada" as false, then there isn't much point in disussing the issue. If you have read Clinton's personal memoirs, you will remember his feelings on the matter. Perhaps everyone is lying and an "apologist" for Israel, but Bill Clinton staked alot of his political reputation on the mid-east peace deal, and never forgave Arafat for what happened.

Keltoi

I still that you have completely disregarded refutation to this myth and went on searching for some 'alternate view'.

Clinton has popularised this myth while he promised prior to the peace talks that no side would be blamed for the failure of the talks.

Robert Marley (Clinton's assistant in the Middle East Affairs) comments:

"Many have come to believe that the Palestinians' rejection of the Camp David ideas exposed an underlying rejection of Israel's right to exist. But consider the facts: The Palestinians were arguing for the creation of a Palestinian state based on the June 4, 1967, borders, living alongside Israel. They accepted the notion of Israeli annexation of West Bank territory to accommodate settlement blocs. They accepted the principle of Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem -- neighborhoods that were not part of Israel before the Six Day War in 1967. And, while they insisted on recognition of the refugees' right of return, they agreed that it should be implemented in a manner that protected Israel's demographic and security interests by limiting the number of returnees. No other Arab party that has negotiated with Israel -- not Anwar el-Sadat's Egypt, not King Hussein's Jordan, let alone Hafez al-Assad's Syria -- ever came close to even considering such compromises."

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Further, the negotiations continued. Refer to my previous post about the NewYork/LosAngeles times comments.


Ewen MacAskill from Guardian UK writes:

Israel's view that Arafat missed a chance for peace under Barak is dangerously deluded
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,473066,00.html

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More sources:

Barak shares blame for Camp David failure, says Clinton aide
http://www.mideastjournal.com/campdavid2000fisk.html

Regards

 

[lavikor201]

What makes your sources so much more credible than his sources...

Both parties were equaly responsible. Your sources don't exactly have unbiased reputations either.

 

[afriend]

Why are palestinians still in refugee camps?

Why don't they leave and join other Arab nations?

It's not easy to leave your homeland....especially when it's such a blessed land

 

[kadafi]

What makes your sources so much more credible than his sources...

Both parties were equaly responsible. Your sources don't exactly have unbiased reputations either.

His article is merely a news article from years ago that merely states the views of Clinton. It is not an analysis.

Clinton's views have been refuted in several 'myths and realities' analysis of the Camp David.

Guardian UK provides an excellent coverage about this view and New York times were also baffled by Clinton's view for blaming Arafat.

Regards

 

[Dawud_uk]

So the Palestinians just need to keep fighting and waiting for allah? I'm sorry, I don't buy that. The rest of the world doesn't buy it either.

I think your religious claim is just as valid as the jewish claim that they are the chosen people. Maybe it's true. No one will know until they die.

Allah does not change the position of a people until they change themselves, when the muslims return to the deen and return to jihad then the muslim lands will be liberated.

we are patient because we have trust in Allah and in his promise, we know when we are true to the deen of islam we will be helped more and more by Allah.

mock if you want, but our trust in Allah is total.

Daw'ud

 

[searchingsoul]

Allah does not change the position of a people until they change themselves, when the muslims return to the deen and return to jihad then the muslim lands will be liberated.

we are patient because we have trust in Allah and in his promise, we know when we are true to the deen of islam we will be helped more and more by Allah.

mock if you want, but our trust in Allah is total.

Daw'ud

I admire your trust in allah as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others. And no, I wasn't mocking your faith or religion. If I offended you, I apologize.