TB,
I don't think it's at all accurate to draw an equivalence between Israeli and Palestinian "maximalist" visions. The Israelis had come around to an acknowledgement of Palestinian nationalism and a willingness to share the land. Whatever else you call it, Barak's offer of 95% of the territories was not "maximalist".
The Palestinian response convinced the Israelis that the Palestinians had never given up their maximalist vision that someday they would wake up, and Israel would just be gone. This discovery, not unnaturally, caused Israeli support for a Palestinian state to dissipate. What makes this situation so dire is not two sides sitting on their maximalist positions, but one side having offered about as much as it could at that point, and having received a guerilla war as a counteroffer.
As a result, the Israelis have withdrawn to maximalist positions (Likud recently changed its platform to oppose creation of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan), but there's still latent support for Camp David, if the Israelis could be persuaded they had a peace partner. But for that, the Palestinians need new management with some stock of credibility left.
I don't think there's much support at all for Greater Israel among the Israeli public. But while the Arabs are sending suicide bombers, the guys arguing for transfer as the only true moral solution have their work half done for them.
In short, I think the Israelis have the necessary pessimism. But the Palestinians don't, and have been educated not for peace, but for a terrible hatred.
I haven't seen Sontag's article yet. She wrote an article on Camp David last year that was a real hatchet job -- she presented the opinions of Robert Mallery, Yossi Beilin, and the Palestinian negotiating team as the whole story, carefully ignoring the opinions of President Clinton, Ehud Barak, Dennis Ross, and Shlomo Ben Ami, and previously held Palestinian positions (their story evolved quite a bit in the year following the breakdown of the talks). Needless to say, when you added in everybody's opinions, things looked quite different! |
