Just read the NY Review of Books piece. Not surprisingly, I think that Agha and Malley do not have the facts on their side so they are resorting to insults -- "demagoguery" and the like. People who talk about the "indiscriminate [Israeli] attacks of the past months" (without any mention of the truly indiscrimate nature of the Palestinian campaign) should not be too hasty to accuse others of demagoguery imo.
Whatever one thinks of these various positions, it's fair now to say that any given interpretation and almost any given restatement of "the facts" is contested
No, Agha and Malley have a problem there, as the central fact of Barak and Morris' argument is not contested. That is that Barak made an offer at Camp David that bettered previous Israeli offers by a considerable distance, and this was upped by Clinton to net 97% of the territories, sovereignty over Arab E. Jerusalem, end of occupation, most settlements gone. Barak agreed to this but Arafat did not.
So Agha and Malley must argue around the edge. Palestinian negotiators did make counter-offers, were willing to cap refugee returns. Yes, say Barak and Morris, but Arafat didn't agree to their proposals. Agha and Malley say, the Israeli negotiators did that too, but don't offer a single instance. Then there are the various circumstantial arguments, the timing was bad, etc. Some of these may be so but it doesn't really make the case. |
