Reply #63: Get specific [View All]

[jplawne]

1. My mistake, thanks for pointing it out. More than a million is what I found

2. Again if you are going to address something I said, at least refer to what I said so I can address it specifically. I do not believe atrocities justify atrocities and never wrote that. I do have issue with people who only seem to think the Palestinian deaths are important and explain away all Jewish deaths. So my intent is not to excuse Palestinian deaths wholesale, but to point out the hypocrisy, false compassion and intellectual dishonesty in continuing to cry those poor Palestinians. POOR EVERYONE and the hatred towards Israel DOES NOT HELP PALESTINIANS.

I do object to your equivocation of iDF attacks and Palestinian terrorism. A attack that seeks to kill Palestinian terrorists operating in civilian areas is not an atrocity by any internationally accepted definition. An attack on a cafe or school bus is.

Israel has a right to defend itself against attacks on their civilians. If the terrorists put down their weapons tomorrow, Israel could negotiate a peace with the Palestinians and the Palestinians would have statehood. If Israel put down their weapons tomorrow the terrorists would continue to attack

Barak left: Which negotiations? I assume you mean Camp David. Barak left? I can't even decipher what this means. Logically, it would mean that Barak left and Arafat didn't (for some time). Did Arafat leave 5 minutes, 5 days or 5 years after Barak. Regardless, it only matters what happened at the negotiating table. Here are some observations that are not disputed by anyone, including Palestinians, other than Arafat.

the three leaders met at the White House in December and a final settlement proposal was offered. The U.S. plan offered by Clinton and endorsed by Barak would have given the Palestinians 97 percent of the West Bank, with no cantons, and full control of the Gaza Strip, with a land-link between the two; Israel would have withdrawn from 63 settlements as a result. In exchange for the three percent annexation of the West Bank, Israel would increase the size of the Gaza territory by roughly a third. Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem would become the capital of the new state, and refugees would have the right of return to the Palestinian state, and would receive reparations from a $30 billion international fund collected to compensate them. The Palestinians would maintain control over their holy places, and would be given desalinization plants to ensure them adequate water. The only concessions Arafat had to make was Israeli sovereignty over the parts of the Western Wall religiously significant to Jews (i.e., not the entire Temple Mount), and three early warning stations in the Jordan valley, which Israel would withdraw from after six years. <7>

The offer, it is true, was never written down. The reason for this, according to Ross, was the recognition by both the U.S. and Israel of Arafat’s fundamental negotiating tactic of using all concessions as a starting point for future negotiations. Afraid that the leader might once again revert to violence, and expect future settlement offers to be based on the generous concessions offered to him now, President Clinton gave him no written version. Instead, he read it to the Palestinian delegation at dictation speed, “to be sure that it couldn’t be a floor for negotiations... It couldn’t be a ceiling. It was the roof.” The Palestinian negotiators wanted to accept the deal, and Arafat initially said that he would accept it as well. But, on January 2, “he added reservations that basically meant he rejected every single one of the things he was supposed to give.” <8> He could not countenance Israeli control over Jewish holy spots, nor would he agree to the security arrangements; he wouldn’t even allow the Israelis to fly through Palestinian airspace. He rejected the refugee formula as well.

The reason for Arafat’s rejection of the settlement, according to Ross, was the critical clause in the agreement specifying that the agreement meant the end of the conflict. Arafat, whose life has been governed by that conflict, simply could not end it. “For him to end the conflict is to end himself,” said Ross. <9> Ben-Ami agreed with this characterization: “I certainly believe that Arafat is a problem if what we are trying to achieve is a permanent agreement. I doubt that it will be possible to reach an agreement with him.” <10>

Instead, Arafat pursued the path of terror in hope of repositioning the Palestinians as victims in the eyes of the world. “There’s no doubt in my mind,” Ross said, “that he thought the violence would create pressure on the Israelis and on us and maybe the rest of the world.” <11> That judgment proved to be correct.

Clinton’s term in office soon ended, and with Barak’s premiership waning, he agreed to a meeting with the Palestinians in Taba, Egypt. That meeting ended with an optimistic joint communiqué being issued, but with no actual settlement or agreements. Barak was replaced by Ariel Sharon, and, as the violence and Palestinian terrorism intensified, negotiations were put on hold in favor of security arrangements.

Barak has since condemned his “peace partner,” and publicly supported Sharon’s tougher security tactics. <12> Clinton, too, did an about face on Arafat at the conclusion of his presidency. In his last conversation with Clinton, three days before his term ended, the PA Chairman told Clinton that he was “a great man.”

“The hell I am,” Clinton said he responded. “I’m a colossal failure, and you made me one.” <13>

Interview with Israeli negotiator:
Question: So it was over this that Camp David collapsed, the Palestinian rejection of an American proposal on Jerusalem that you found inadequate?

Answer: "No. Camp David collapsed over the fact that they refused to get into the game. They refused to make a counterproposal. No one demanded that they give a positive response to that particular proposal of Clinton's. Contrary to all the nonsense spouted by the knights of the left, there was no ultimatum. What was being asked of the Palestinians was far more elementary: that they put forward, at least once, their own counterproposal. That they not just say all the time `That's not good enough' and wait for us to make more concessions. That's why the president sent Tenet to Arafat that night - in order to tell him that it would be worth his while to think it over one more time and not give an answer until the morning. But Arafat couldn't take it anymore. He missed the applause of the masses in Gaza."

...

"But when all is said and done, Camp David failed because Arafat refused to put forward proposals of his own and didn't succeed in conveying to us the feeling that at some point his demands would have an end. One of the important things we did at Camp David was to define our vital interests in the most concise way. We didn't expect to meet the Palestinians halfway and not even two-thirds of the way. But we did expect to meet them at some point. The whole time we waited to see them make some sort of movement in the face of our far-reaching movement. But they didn't. The feeling was that they were constantly trying to drag us into some sort of black hole of more and more concessions without it being at all clear where all the concessions were leading, what the finish line was."

... I remember that at a certain point, I proposed to Arafat that we delay the discussion on Jerusalem for two years. `Not even for two hours,' Arafat said, waving two of his fingers."