I know the Palestinians are really suffering, and the settlers in Gaza are nutcases (if they have ex-Phalangists there, it would explain a lot). But the Palestinian story about the negotiations is a big revisionist job of history.
What Arafat was offered was something like those fancy cheeses (from France?) that have a thousand holes in them, that was Barak's 95%. I guarantee you that if the cheese that was offered was even only 50% but without holes (read: NO SETTLEMENTS, NO ROAD BLOCKS, NO PRIVATE ROADS, blahblahblah) Arafat will jump on it.
You accurately reflect what the Palestinians now say they were offered, but not what they said they were offered last fall. Then, they said they were very close to agreement on borders; it was the refugee issue that scuttled the talks. At Taba, Barak offered to dismantle 80% of the settlements. So far from jumping on this offer, Arafat didn't even budge an inch. It wasn't that the two proposals weren't able to meet; there never was a Palestinian proposal.
Barak, whatever else you might say about him, really wanted to do a deal. He tried. Clinton tried. Arafat's behavior convinced the Israelis, and Pres. Clinton, that Arafat could not live with any negotiated settlement that left Israel existing as a Jewish state. I simply cannot believe that the negotiations failed because Barak wasn't nice enough to Arafat. Rather, they failed because accepting a deal -- any deal, in my opinion -- would have been Arafat's death sentence. |
