You're the first person I've seen who called Barak a member of the "Israeli right-wing".
I never actually called Barak explicitly "right-wing" - show me where? No doubt some of his policies were, but he's not the Netanyahu/Sharon type - for one he has more brains than those two jokers.
Barak simply made a miscalculation - not surprising... he was a great general, but a poor politician. He was very poor when it came to domestic political games. And he was poor when it came to international negotiations. He thought he's solve the Palestinian/Syrian/Lebanese problem all at once. Good ambition, not enough information.
He made the right move in Lebanon. He could do nothing about Syria - really here it was/is Syria's fault - and a rare occasion when one can hold Israel entirely blameless. I think Barak tried his best with Syria, but the myopic and stupid regime there was simply not up to a deal. Shame on them.
Where Barak really miscalculated was the PA. This is not surprising for almost all Israeli politicians and most of the Israeli public is similarly deluded.
Here's the simple fact: ONLY ONE THING CAN SATISFY THE PALESTINIANS - TOTAL, COMPLETE, UNCONDITIONAL, 100% retreat by Israel from post-67 territories. Not 99.99999999% or any other number. The correct answer is 100%.
You have to understand why - the Palestinians see themselves as ALREADY losing an incredible amount of land by agreeing to pre-67 Israel. Large parts of their society have claims of return, deeds to land, houses and the whole nine yards in Israel pre-67. To give up all that, is an immensely wrenching thing, emotionally and politically. To ask for even one inch MORE of them is to simply explode the whole thing. It is not possible. It is not even about the land as such (pieces of stone dirt someone called it here) - but the symbolism, the honor and the political reality. To give up even one inch more, after having been robbed so badly, would be seen as "frier supreme", and so completely unacceptable. That's what the Israelis don't understand - they keep thinking "what's a few yards" - that's not the point.
And so, here comes Barak, and says in essence TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT. That's exactly what he did at CD - and if you wish to dispute that, we can get into a war of links - but these are matters of historical fact, and as such ascertainable, not a matter of opinion.
Barak did not offer 100% pre-67, rather there were many unaccpetable elements, including the situation in Jerusalem. But that's not what mattered. For the Palestinian people could only accept 100% pre-67. So to come to Arafat, and say - take this, or it is nothing - well, it was bound to fail. Arafat simply could not have taken that - for the very good reason that it would be meaningless and illegitimate in the eyes of his people. It was suggested he feared assasintion - perhaps, but that's not what was important - it was NOT sellable to the Palestinian street.
Then Taba and the rest was pointless after the level of violence and frustration reached a point where the societies were too polarized for any deal to work.
Truth be known, I think by the time Netanyahu got through, it was too late anyhow - the Palestinian society had become too radicalized. The best chance was Oslo. And that chance died with Rabin.
Now we are in uncharted waters. Getting rid of Arafat is not only bad - it is stupid. You gain nothing - for Arafat at this point, rendered helpless by Israel, controls little, so what do you gain? Instead of doing that, Israel should have LEGITIMIZED him, and shored him up by treating him as a serious partner, so the Palestinians could feel he could deliver. Now they don't anymore. So whom do you have left to negotiate with, who has the stature, the legitimacy and the power to sign a meaningful agreement the majority of Palestinian society would feel is legitimate? Nobody. Maybe that's the Israeli plan - thinking "wow, now for sure there will be no Palestinian state" - but they are sadly mistaken, for the power vacuum will be filled by extremist, by factions, by a thousand anonymous faces of hate. It solves nothing. It multiplies probles. It is not just bad, but worse, it is stupid. |
