My understanding of the process is that the parties agreed that Israel would give the Palestinians land for peace, but there has never been peace.
There were long periods of time, where there were absolutely no bombings. Of course, how do you define "peace" as Clinton might ask? (Clinton tried to get Arafat and Barak together, no? LOL!).
I'm afraid the issue of "peace" has been used and abused by the Israelis exactly to stifle any progress and not give any territories back. Netanyahu was particularly egregious in this regard, and his abrogation of the Wye Agreement was outrageous. During that period of time, while Netanyahu stalled, there was almost ideal peace.
Of course, let us get back to the issue - if you define "peace" as the Israelis do when it suits them, then you can pretty much defer that forever. Here's from my previous post:
To say to Palestinians that they won't get a state unless all bombings stop, is like saying to the Israelis that they'll get to live in peace only when all Israeli extremists give up - and who shot Rabin? Israelis cannot control their own terrorists, why expect the PA, undermined by Israel, to have 100% control over every single bombing? Has any single police force in history a 100% success rate against crime? Throw into that the dynamic of daily occupation, and it is a prescription for hopelessness.
Then of course we can throw in all sorts of deliberate provocations designed to torpedoe the peace - as Sharon's armed provocation "visit" to the mosque that lit a fuse under the current intifada - even as the PA begged that Sharon be stopped. We can throw in, the continuing settlements, and provocations from settlers as "peace" was supposed to be observed - it is a wonder the Palestinians have managed to stay as peaceful as they did for long stretches of time (time used to build more settlements). |
