Syria wants Golan in return for helping US

[FernBell]

Syria is to demand American help in securing the return of the Golan Heights from Israel as the price of co-operation over Iraq. With the White House under pressure to talk to its adversary, President Bashar al-Assad has resolved that his assistance will not be cheap.

Assad has been considering how to respond to an American overture following reports that the Iraq Study Group will recommend that the United States engage Syria and Iran in talks on Iraq, a position backed by Tony Blair last week.

The Syrian president wants America and Britain to use their influence with Israel to raise the return of the Golan Heights, seized by the Israelis in the 1967 war. “It will be the top demand,” said Ayman Abdel Nour, a leading reformer in the ruling Ba’ath party.

Assad has ruled out co-operating with the Americans in return for the promise of unspecified benefits. “The Syrian leadership is fed up with the Americans and does not trust their word when it comes to future aid for Syria,” Abdel Nour said.

“Syria will not do anything unless it has secured guarantees from Washington and London that every action Damascus takes to help them will be reciprocated. It will be a step by step scenario: these actions for those actions,” he added. Assad also insists that any help must be dependent on a timetable for US troop withdrawals, a move resisted by President George W Bush.



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2460033,00.html

[Boston Critic]

1. Assad is dreaming

The only way Syria EVER gets the Golan back is by negotiating a full and real peace agreement with Israel. Syria thinks they can do so without making peace with Israel. They are deluding themselves. It will not happen any other way.

[sam sarrha]

2. this is typical of the sort of shit Dubya can stir up...

[papau]

3. Israel offered the Golan for peace years ago - but Syria wanted "waters edge"

so as to be able to choke Israel's water coming from the Golan. Israel wanted to keep a strip a few hundred yards wide deep along the shore.

So this is not about land - it is about being able to hurt Israel post the "peace" with Syria - a peace that will be broken by Syria rather quickly as they help the resident Hamas group in their objective to destroy the Jewish State of Israel.

[breakaleg]

4. Is the water in question fully part of the Golan and what is considered

Syria's territory? If so, then why should Israel get to keep any of it? If it's not their land, then they should give all of it back, and to negotiate for a portion of it is lame.

[papau]

5. The Ottoman Empire (Turkey) held the area for 400 years - Syria has as much

claim as Greece has a claim to all of Syria based on Alexander.

Syria can assert and good luck. What is the "right solution" is in the eye of the beholder. The
Golan Heights were informally annexed with Israel's Golan Heights Law (1981), given the tradition in the mid-east that territory won in a war is not returned. Syria's plan to drain Lake Tiberias (Sea of Galilee)via access to what was their side of the lake is likely to be initiated as a humanitarian water resource development project to aid West Bank farmers - if Syria really thinks they could harm Israel by doing so.

There has also been a large infrastructure investment that would be given to Syria if Israel did not retain the area that is around the Lake's beaches - including corporations, etc. assets.

But in answer to your question - yes Syria did have waters edge control of their side of the lake prior to 73.

[breakaleg]

7. Well then, Israel has no claim on it. All the rest that you said is fluff.

[papau]

9. Israel has as much or as little claim as Syria - seems we agree -eh?

Or do I detect a preference for forcing Israel to pretend it did not win the 73 war, along with a preference for saying that the Jewish State of Israel is wrong to assert claims to the area, beginning with but not limited to the Golan, as long as it remains a Jewish State? Bet you like right of return - not for the Jews back to Baghdad where they were once 40% of the population, or for the 2 million or so "Eastern Greeks that were tossed from Turkey, Lebanon and Syria in the 1920's event called the "population exchange" - or for the like number of Armenians at that time - or for the current Exodus/murder of Christians in places like the Sudan - but certainly for the Arabs that moved from Jordan in the 1930's to take the new jobs being providing at that time by Jews in the that Western area, a former mostly uninhabited desert area, that is now Israel.

or perhaps I misunderstood your use of the word "fluff", because if you did not mean for "fluff" to be taken as a put down, then the tone of the above response is much too harsh.

[IntiRaymi]

8. By that reasoning, Israel should be handed over to Egypt. n.t.

[papau]

10. Indeed the circle has no end - perhaps Egypt and all of North Africa and the mid-east should be

given to Italy as the successor state to Rome?

My only point is that it is a pretense, not based on reality, to pretend that these land boundary questions are settled or even argued based on someone having an obvious right to an area. There is no one with a high moral ground in most disputes - and there is no such high moral ground at this time in this dispute.

[IntiRaymi]

33. The only high ground comes from natural right to the land.

Religious reasoning based on desert loonies from 4000 years ago does not count.

[Tom Joad]

20. I think it belongs to Israel in the same sense US oil is in the Middle

East. Strange, that.

[Tom Joad]

18. Israel's water is in the Golan? Who put it there?

[IntiRaymi]

34. Divine intervention!!!

[Amused Musings]

6. The problem of Iraq is that all the blunders can be causally

linked to US actions. Iraq is a disaster and will continue to be a disaster irregardless of Syrian meddling. It is unlikely such a transaction will occur.

[papau]

11. I hope a new Dem Pres in 08 restarts Taba at the point it ended, but with the Arabs no

longer attempting the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel via the right of return. What was on offer at Taba- compensation, right of return to Arab controlled land, very, very limited (less than 40,000) right of return to Israel based on agreement as to humanitarian reasons - has to be the outline of where the negotiations will end on that subject.

As Arafat said, walking out of Taba (demanding total tight of return) was the biggest mistake he made. Arafat was right to walk away from Camp David as the canton approach that was on offer was an insult. But Clinton's final effort at Taba should have ended the conflict.

[breakaleg]

12. Why is total right of return not acceptable?

Especially given Israel's policy regarding immigration of Jews.

[sabbat hunter]

13. total right of return

would destroy israel as it now exists.

also as far as returning land. syria has controlled land since 1949 that was supposed to belong to israel. why is no one crying out for that?


prior to 1967 syria used the golan heights to regularly send rockets into israel. there is a reason israel needs it.

the UN resolutions call for israel to have safe and defensible borders. giving up all the golan heights will violate that resolution.

[breakaleg]

14. That's not really an answer to my question.

The fact that Israel needs certain land is not a compelling enough reason to let them have it. It's not rightfully theirs and that's all that counts.

[papau]

16. I responded below n/t

n/t

[Tom Joad]

19. Imagine, people returning to their home, of course that would be

unthinkable!
Better to have thousands of Russian Jews, (probably none of whom can find any ancestor, even 10 generations back, who have ever lived anywhere near Israel) and they elect nice pleasant leaders like Lieberman. Yes, that is the future for Israel.
:sarcasm:

[papau]

15. Carried to the logic limit of any ancestor from the area forced out, every

person in the world has a right to every location in the world and citizenship in every country in the world because of population movement caused by winning and losing wars over the last 100 million years and the great job such wars have done in moving populations around.

The starting point for "who was here and has a right of return" is arbitrary.

The Jews start 4000 years ago, the Muslims start with their defeating the Christians to take control 800 years ago.

Many on the left just do not like Jews - yes there is bias of some on the left - and start at any point that hurts the Jews. Starting at the early 30's for the coastal strip and you have a jewish majority that is swamped by Muslim workers coming into the area, leaving work in the fertile West Bank for the new jobs Jews were providing. Start in 49, or discuss more than the coastal area, and you have a majority Muslim population that both left willingly and had many leave unwillingly.

In all the wars I am familiar with, there never has been a right of return for the losers. The UN started the idea up post the WW2 German walk back to Germany where German background folk who had been in say Poland for 400 years were kicked out and told to go "home". It was started up - in my opinion - by the Arabs as a way around the UN resolution that gave recognition to the Jewish State of Israel. They did not want to share the area with a Jewish State. The Arabs - and the left - will tell you that one state where all live together as equals must be "restored" - but that state has not existed since the Romans - and certainly not under the Arabs (the counter to this thought is the fact that Christian Europe treated Jews much worse than Arab countries and that in Arab countries beyond the usual walk on in the street giving the sidewalk to Muslim type laws and the tax on non-Muslims, the Jews were not harassed).

Right of return is another name for destruction of the Jewish State of Israel and its replacement by the Arab Muslim State of Israel.

At Taba on offer was money - compensation for property inside Israel that someone has proof they owned prior to 49 - plus a limited by size of group right of return for a small group with relatives now living in Israel - plus unlimited right of return to the new Arab state to be of Palestine - - - A good solution in my opinion.

[breakaleg]

21. I'm with Tom Joad. If Jews who've never lived in the land that is now

Israel are welcome to move there, then certainly the people who had homes there in 1947 and were forced out should be allowed to return. If that changes the nature of Israel being a Jewish state, then too bad. The policy is racist, nothing less.

[papau]

22. different opinions are always welcome - I disagree since"never lived there" means no relative

ever lived there - and for both sides - in general - the original person or relative of that person that gives claim to the land is dead (while there are a few still alive on the Palestinian side of course, and the Jewish claim goes back much father in time than one lifespan, in general neither side has living folks wanting to go home).

The other problems include the historic "fact" (meaning a claim I find reasonable) that between 400,000 and 500,000 arabs fled or were moved out in 49 - but that as soon as the UN announced refugee camps (welfare if you want to claim it in a land where folks went hungry or died because there were no social services) the size of the crowd grew to well over a million by 51 - and last I heard was north of 5 million on aid plus God knows how many more would pop up at the chance of anything free. The Palestinians as a group have had a lousy life and deserve our aid and sympathy - but the fact is that very few of them can document a need to return to Israel as their homeland, if homeland means a place where the family lived for 20 or more years and not just an abode for transient labor for those new jobs the Jews began to provide in the 30's along the coast - this only applies to the coastal areas, of course, as the West bank area was and is Palestinian and the jewish settlers have no claim to it beyond the spoils of war).

I do like immigration "policy is racist" - A cry heard yelled about US immigration policy - personally I think the bias in America against short fat people that causes the observed 10 to 20 % less income over a lifetime than those of similar work ability who are tall and thin is a racist policy. Makes as much logical sense, even ignoring the fact that race as a scientific distinction does not exist.

[breakaleg]

23. I don't buy that ancestral home crap of the Jews. I mean my family's roots are in

Ireland but I have no claim on any land there and never will. And I don't believe I qualify for citizenship in Ireland based on my ancestry.

From what I've read, the number of Arabs that would actually choose to return is a lot smaller than those who qualify for that right, even if you include their offspring.

They specifically state they want to maintain higher numbers of Jews in Israel and their immigration policy is geared towards maintaing those numbers and keeping the number of Arabs to a minimum. If that's not racist, I don't know what is.

[papau]

24. it is called biased - not racist. Same policy as Iceland and indeed as the US for most of the 20th

century.

The problem with the word racist is that it is both a hot button because of its use to describe the crap thrown at those of darker skin (you may want to read N. Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White (New York and London, 1995 for some discussion on bias), and it refers to a concept that has been proven false.

A DNA race test does not exist, but everyone's DNA and body characteristics does carry the characteristics of ones ancestral village population from the days when no one traveled and everyone in the village inter-married. Those village characteristics are often incorrectly called racial characteristics. There are even some smart folks working in DNA who use the term!

It's just a pet peeve of mine! :-)

Meanwhile - if your Irish ancestors were tossed out of their home or fled their home because of an English army last year, would you not have a claim to a right of return by the UN concept? Now say your Irish ancestors were the Danes that ran the place in the way back - do you still have a claim? Now say your ancestors were the Celts that were there before the Danes - do you still have a claim? Is more recent a better claim - and if so, why are the folks currently there not the ones most entitled to stay?

I submit that right of return is an impossible concept - and is being used ONLY to cancel out the UN '49 Jewish homeland decision.

But that is just my opinion - and my opinion has no special weight. We will just have to agree to disagree on this one.

peace

:-)

[breakaleg]

25. It is a difficult concept, that's for sure.

I guess what makes this case unique is that as per the UN plan for partition, some of those Arabs that were forced to flee would have rightly had a home in the region, whether it was Israel or Palestine. But in some cases they were given neither.

peace as well.

[maalak]

26. *edit*

never mind... this place is becoming increasingly disgusting and not worth the time.

[IntiRaymi]

36. Ever been to Gaza?

I am sure that frank discussions in this forum are far less disgusting than the life of someone there.

[Englander]

17. Really?

Arafat 'walked out of Taba'? You sure about that?

'Monday, 22 January, 2001, 11:47 GMT
Middle East talks go on

Intensive peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have resumed in the Egyptian resort of Taba, although expectations of a breakthrough are low.

Delegations headed by the Israeli foreign minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, and the speaker of the Palestinian parliament, Ahmed Qureia, met late into the night.

The talks could last as long as ten days in an effort to reach a deal before elections in Israel next month.

The office of the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, said the negotiators would form two committees -- one to discuss future borders, Jerusalem, and security issues, and the other the question of Palestinian refugees.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1129480.stm

_______________________


'snip

THE TABA TALKS January 21-27, 2001

In a desperate attempt to salvage the peace effort before Israel's election (hard-liner Ariel Sharon was forecast to defeat Barak) negotiators met in the Egyptian resort of Taba, focusing on new parameters for an agreement which had been developed by Clinton the previous month. The new terms went further than what Israel and the U.S. had offered at Camp David.

In contrast to Camp David, the Palestinians this time made counter-offers. After a week of off-and-on negotiations, senior Palestinian and Israeli negotiators announced they had never been more close to reaching agreement on final-status issues. But they had run out of political time. They couldn't conclude an agreement with Clinton now out of office and Barak standing for reelection in two weeks. "We made progress, substantial progress. We are closer than ever to the possibility of stiriking a final deal," said Shlomo Ben-Ami, Israel's negotiator. Saeb Erekat, Palestinian chief negotiator, said, "My heart aches because I know we were so close. We need six more weeks to conclude the drafting of the agreement."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/oslo/negotiations/

_______________


Statement on Taba;

Taba Statement (27 January 2001)
The following is the official text of the joint statement released yesterday by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators as published in the Jerusalem Post on 28 Janruary 2001.

Israeli-Palestinian Joint Statement, 27 January 2001

"The Israeli and Palestinian delegations conducted during the last six days serious, deep and practical talks with the aim of reaching a permanent and stable agreement between the two parties.

"The Taba talks were unprecedented in their positive atmosphere and expression of mutual willingness to meet the national, security and existential needs of each side.

"Given the circumstances and time constraints, it proved impossible to reach understandings on all issues, despite the substantial progress that was achieved in each of the issues discussed.

"The sides declare that they have never been closer to reaching an agreement and it is thus our shared belief that the remaining gaps could be bridged with the resumption of negotiations following the Israeli elections.

"The two sides take upon themselves to return to normalcy and to establish a security situation on the ground through the observation of their mutual commitments in the spirit of the Sharm e-Sheikh memorandum.

"The negotiation teams discussed four main themes: refugees, security, borders and Jerusalem, with a goal to reach a permanent agreement that will bring an end to the conflict between them and provide peace to both people.

"The two sides took into account the ideas suggested by President Clinton together with their respective qualifications and reservations.

"On all these issues there was substantial progress in the understanding of the other side's positions and in some of them the two sides grew closer.

"As stated above, the political timetable prevented reaching an agreement on all the issues.

"However, in light of the significant progress in narrowing the differences between the sides, the two sides are convinced that in a short period of time and given an intensive effort and the acknowledgment of the essential and urgent nature of reaching an agreement, it will be possible to bridge the differences remaining and attain a permanent settlement of peace between them.

"In this respect, the two sides are confident that they can begin and move forward in this process at the earliest practical opportunity.

"The Taba talks conclude an extensive phase in the Israeli-Palestinian permanent status negotiations with a sense of having succeeded in rebuilding trust between the sides and with the notion that they were never closer in reaching an agreement between them than today.

"We leave Taba in a spirit of hope and mutual achievement, acknowledging that the foundations have been laid both in reestablishing mutual confidence and in having progressed in a substantive engagement on all core issues.

"The two sides express their gratitude to President Hosni Mubarak for hosting and facilitating these talks.

"They also express their thanks to the European Union for its role in supporting the talks."

http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/historicaldocuments/70.shtml


Map of Israeli proposal;



http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/photos/maps/taba_proposals_is2_1.html

[papau]

27. Yes - I am sure of it. There is a bit more written about that fact. The nothing is

decided until everything is decided rule allows all to pretend nothing was decided - even when much was decided.

As to borders, by 1/27 situation had moved from the map offered by Israel on the 22nd to the Palestinians offering a border adjustment of 3 to 4% beyond the 67 "border" - and the Israeli side wanting 6 to 7% - with a land trade also being discussed.

a couple more days and it would have been a done deal - but right of return and Arafat's walk out - meaning nothing was agreed to if no right of return - killed it. The offer I stated above was on the table but Arafat would have none of it.

Arafat had said he would never make a real peace - that the peace agreements were only to get closer to the day that he could destroy Israel as a Jewish State - and he was true to his word.

It is amusing to see one map presented as the Israeli offer - when reports at the time discussed and complained about the confusion all the maps each side offered each other was causing. But such is the nature of propaganda.

[Englander]

28. Yes, I have no doubt about that.

That you're absolutely sure that the only guilty party in all of this was Arafat, & the bad faith
that was also shown by Barak & later Sharon either never existed, or isn't significant.


Barak halts talks until election

Staff in agencies
Monday January 29, 2001
The Guardian

The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, broke off peacemaking relations with the Palestinians yesterday in preparation for the prime ministerial election on February 6, which the polls predict he will lose to the hardline Likud leader, Ariel Sharon.

The Palestinian Authority president, Yasser Arafat, delivered a blistering attack on Mr Barak's decision to halt "diplomatic contacts with Arafat and his people" until the country has voted.

Israeli officials said Mr Barak would not have the meeting with Mr Arafat which had been expected to take place in Sweden this week, or any other meeting, until the election was over

Mr Arafat said at the Davos economic summit that Mr Barak's government had waged "a savage and barbaric war" against the Palestinian people for the past four months.

At least 312 Palestinians have been killed in the four months since their intifada erupted. Forty-eight Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have been killed in the violence.

>snip

Mr Sharon, who opposes the territorial concessions offered by Mr Barak, dismissed the joint statement as a danger to the state, and said it would not help Mr Barak to win re-election. He accused Mr Barak of trying to boost his election chances with a piece of paper.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,430313,00.html

[papau]

29. "guilty party"? - at Taba there was the first real compromising by both sides

One side - Arafat - wanted an impossible return - and knew it was impossible.

One side wanted too much in retained settlements - but under pressure would have folded - and Arafat knew they would have folded - and for that week Clinton still had some influence.

After the Arafat ultimatum, Barak "breaking off talks" for the election cycle may not have been wise, and indeed may have been as unwise as Arafat's ultimatum.

At the end of the week Bush was now the US President for a Week, and all knew that there would be no pressure on Israel. So the Palestinians opted to continue their four months old intifada, as Israel defended against it, and time moved on.

Peace would have been much better. Even Arafat later said he should have taken the deal on offer (with a border decision worked out over the next few days). His comments made the Arab press I believe - granted they did not make the left, or right, wing media in the US or the EU, except third hand "as recalled by others" in news articles later written.

[papau]

30. Somes sources for what I wrote that are easy to reach on the internet

usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/11248

What about 2000? What about the "offer" Arafat "rejected?" Can an offer be in good faith when it is not reduced to writing? Of course not. Should Arafat have accepted the "final offer" in Taba? A good case can be made he should have. Arafat was a great leader, but a lousy negotiator, and even worse administrator. Charismatic personalities usually are.

Israeli propaganda has created the myth that Arafat "rejected" a "dream offer" that is never to return. No one really believes that. The tragedy of Israel and Palestine is that they shed blood, and waste years, only to return eventually to Taba as the starting point.
===========================================================
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/middle_east/2001/israel_and_the_palestinians/issues/1099279.stm

The former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak recently offered a token repatriation, allowing small scale "family reunifications" in the interests of peace.
============================================================
http://members.cox.net/indepundit/2002/06/to-victor-go-spoils-yasser-arafat-and.html

2001: Taba - Israel proposal includes Palestinian state on 94% of the West Bank and Gaza. Talks break down without agreement
============================================================
http://www.iht.com/articles/2001/02/05/edignatius.2.t.php

While Arafat Waits for Bush, Sharon Could Scrap Barak's Terms

By David Ignatius International Herald Tribune / The Washington Post

Monday, February 5, 2001


The modern history of the Middle East is a story of missed opportunities. Against that background, the negotiations at the Egyptian border town of Taba that finally collapsed on Jan. 27 deserve at least a minor footnote. They were the last gasp of President Bill Clinton's Mideast diplomacy, and a warning of the difficulties that now face President George W. Bush.
.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met at Taba for one last try at a framework for peace. When the talks ended the two sides were near agreement on every item except one, the issue of Palestinian refugees.
.
Negotiators issued a joint statement saying they had "never been closer to reaching" a final peace deal. But then it blew up, with a rant by Yasser Arafat that is sadly typical of his career of bellicose blunders. Less than 24 hours after his negotiators had achieved nearly every demand at Taba, he delivered an anti-Israel diatribe in Davos, Switzerland, denouncing the Jewish state as "fascist."
.
That was enough for Ehud Barak, who announced a few hours later that he was suspending negotiations until after the Israeli election this Tuesday. Since he seems almost certain to lose, the Taba talks were probably his last hurrah.
.
What accounted for Mr. Arafat's tirade? The suspicion among diplomats who have followed the talks closely is that he hopes to pocket Mr. Barak's final concessions under the Clinton peace process and then sweeten the deal later with help from the Bush administration.
.
Why would Yasser wait for George? The simple answer is that the Arab world remains Bush-crazy. The name exerts an almost mystical power in the Middle East, conjuring up images of America that many princes and potentates find reassuring: big oil, Texas, the CIA, Desert Storm. The Clinton administration, in contrast, was seen in the Arab world as slavishly pro-Israel.
.
Twenty years ago, when I first met Mr. Arafat in Beirut, the Palestinians liked to say that "the road to Jerusalem passes through Washington." The events surrounding Taba show that they have not given up this wrongheaded belief. They would still rather negotiate with an American president than with an Israeli prime minister — especially if that presidentis named Bush.
.
The weird thing is that the Israelis have already offered the road to Jerusalem, if only the Palestinians would take it.
.
To illustrate how far the two sides had come by the time the Taba talks ended, an official involved in the peace process leaked me a copy of the minutes of a meeting that President Clinton held on Dec. 23 with negotiators from both sides. The text lays out the ground that remained to be covered in the four basic areas of discussion: territory, security, Jerusalem and refugees.
.
On the question of territory, Mr. Clinton advised: "I believe the solution should be in the mid-90 percent, between 94-96 percent of the West Bank territory." The Palestinians achieved that at Taba.
.
On settlements, the Israelis agreed to cluster them around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and to incorporate 80 percent of the settlers into Israel.
.
On security, Mr. Clinton said that "the key lies in an international presence that can only be withdrawn by mutual consent." Both sides agreed to accept an international force, along with three Israeli "early warning stations" in the West Bank.
.
On Jerusalem, the two sides embraced Mr. Clinton's approach. He advised: "The general principle is that Arab areas are Palestinian and Jewish ones are Israeli. This would apply to the Old City as well." Both sides agreed that Jerusalem would become the capital for Israel and Palestine alike. And they worked out a tentative formula that would provide, in Mr. Clinton's words, "Palestinian sovereignty over the Haram , and Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall."
.
It was only on the right of return for Palestinian refugees that the two sides failed to reach a consensus. Mr. Clinton noted "how hard it will be for the Palestinian leadership to appear to be abandoning this principle." But he also cautioned: "The Israeli side could not accept any reference to a right of return that would imply a right to immigrate to Israel ... that would threaten the Jewish character of the state."
.
Mr. Clinton suggested two deliberately vague formulas — "the right of Palestinian refugees to return to Historic Palestine" or "the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland" — and five possible final homes for the refugees. But this ambiguity failed to coax an agreement.
.
"These are my ideas," reads the haunting conclusion of Mr. Clinton's Dec. 23 minutes. "If they are not accepted, they are not just off the table, they also go with me when I leave office."
.
Mr. Arafat hopes to start the bargaining anew, with the Bush administration's help, at the point where Taba left off. In this he has probably made a tragic misjudgment, for it is doubtful that a Sharon government will offer the same terms.
.
The burden now shifts to Mr. Bush. The magic of the Bush name gives him some leverage with the Palestinians. One can only hope that, by confounding Arabs' hopes that he will be their ally, he can put sense in Mr. Arafat's head and persuade him to take "yes" for an answer. The modern history of the Middle East is a story of missed opportunities. Against that background, the negotiations at the Egyptian border town of Taba that finally collapsed on Jan. 27 deserve at least a minor footnote. They were the last gasp of President Bill Clinton's Mideast diplomacy, and a warning of the difficulties that now face President George W. Bush.
.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met at Taba for one last try at a framework for peace. When the talks ended the two sides were near agreement on every item except one, the issue of Palestinian refugees.
.
================================================
The National Interest—Spring 2003

The diplomatic advisor to Saudi Arabia’s Crown
Prince Abdallah, Adel Al-Jubeir, claims
that at Taba “the Israelis and the
Palestinians came very close to an agree-
ment.”*1 Egyptian President HosniMubarak says that
the talkscould have led to a settlement, had an
additional chance of a few more months been
made available for negotiations.

*t.1 “Meet the Press”, NBC,
April 21, 2002. Makovsky 119-129 3/3/03 15:36

These pro-posals only needed some clarifications and Taba
some mutual concessions in order to crystal-
lize a final settlement had the Israeli govern-
ment had the intention to start serious negoti-
ations with the Palestinian Authority.

France’s former Foreign Minister,
Hubert Védrine, notes that a viable
Palestinian state needs to be created “not
on the basis of the Camp David accords,
which were not specific enough, but by
using the terms of the subsequent nego-
tiations at Sharm al-Sheikh and Taba.But
no deal was ever in prospect.Palestinian negotiators made only condi-
tional and tactical concessions at Taba, and
even these were never agreed to by the
Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat. While
some key Palestinian negotiators wanted a
deal, no evidence suggests that Arafat him-
self was willing to make any concessions of
real significance. Even the diplomat who
has put forth the rosiest assessment of the
Taba negotiations—EUMiddle East peace envoy
Miguel Moratinos—wrote in a doc-ument summarizing
those talks (published in the February 14, 2001 Ha‘aretz) that
“serious gaps remain.”

[Englander]

31. Right.

Spot the contradiction;

Previous statement-
Arafat had said he would never make a real peace - that the peace agreements were only to get closer to the day that he could destroy Israel as a Jewish State - and he was true to his word.

compare with-
Peace would have been much better. Even Arafat later said he should have taken the deal on offer (with a border decision worked out over the next few days). His comments made the Arab press I believe - granted they did not make the left, or right, wing media in the US or the EU, except third hand "as recalled by others" in news articles later written.

[papau]

32. What is the contradiction - Arafat did say he would never make peace - google is your

friend - use it. When the peace pressure began back in the 70's their are many speeches - always to Arab groups explaining that any peace agreement would a a con in the sense he would work it as a way to get closer to day the PLO could strike and remove the Jews.

The second quote is also true - I gave the sources for you to chase. Good grief - what does it take for you to start reflecting at the least the history correctly. The history need not change your opinion and indeed I would not expect it too. You will always see my comments as coming from a bias against the Palestinians. Fine, Your are entitled to your opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts.

Getting back to the topic - I found it interesting that Arafat actually said he made a mistake walking away from Taba I wonder of it was a response to all those Arab sources that I sourced for you that said he had made a mistake - or did he really regret the decision? This is the fellow that took the democratic institutions that were being built in the early 70's inside the PLO and destroyed them, replacing them with the Saudi tribal form of government with himself in the role of king - most people seem to feel he did this because it is much easier to keep power in that form of an organization. Could this type of person really regret blowing a chance at a real peace - a peace that was likely to lead to a return to a democratic, non-militia based, form of politics that he might not be able to control?

[Englander]

35. You didn't spot it?

I thought it was pretty obvious, myself. The first quote was indicative of an attitude that Yasir was
a super-terrorist, or a strategic threat to the existance of Israel, or not really a credible partner
for peace, & the second quote was a complete inversion of that attitude, that the super-terrorist
is, actually, interested in peace & would honour any agreements.

Also, it's somewhat ironical to complain about someone not accurately reflecting history, whilst not
accurately reflecting history.