Perhaps you didn't see the whole article. It's content was brought to my attention by a Danish-Israeli journalist(retired chief editor of a Danish newspaper Hurbert Pundik) in that paper. He mentions another intelligence officer, Efraim Lavie, who supports this view.
Here is the complete article that I found which supports Pundik's article:
"In an interview with Akiva Eldar (Haaretz Week's End, June 11), the former head of IDF's Military Intelligence, Major General (res.) Amos Malka stated that were Israel to offer Yasser Arafat today a state on 97 percent of the territories whose capital is Jerusalem, with land swaps and the return of 20,000-30,000 Palestinian refugees to Israel, the Palestinian leader would sign the deal, and order his countrymen to put down their arms.
In other words, in Malka's view, there is a peace partner, and his name is Arafat. Malka's categorical view comes as the complete opposite to that at the heart of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan.
Sharon's view is that there is today no Palestinian negotiation partner (certainly Arafat is no such partner); this being the case, Israel should carry out unilateral steps.
An argument about these contrasting views did not ensue in Military Intelligence when Malka headed it, and when his subordinate Brigadier General Amos Gilad headed MI's research department. In those days, Israel's political leadership concluded that the country had a negotiation partner - Arafat.
This decision found expression in then prime minister/defense minister Ehud Barak's participation at the Camp David summit, which was mediated by then president Bill Clinton. Barak, who won the full support of his foreign minister, Shlomo Ben Ami, pushed for the summit at Camp David due to his belief that there was a chance of forging a compromise agreement with Arafat.
Clinging to this view, Barak basically shoved aside doubts held by his intelligence advisers that Arafat's terms would not be acceptable to Israel, and that a military conflict with the Palestinians would come eventually. While Barak believed there was a Palestinian partner, the IDF, basing its actions on predictions and warnings relayed by MI research division chief Gilad, prepared for a military confrontation.
The claim that there is no negotiation partner was born in the aftermath of Camp David. It was fully expressed by the political leadership in retrospective statements made by Barak, and also in comments made by former foreign minister Ben Ami in an interview with Haaretz's Ari Shavit (September 14, 2001). Ben Ami stated in the interview that "Arafat is no partner. Worse: he is a strategic threat. He endangers peace in the Middle East, and world peace." This thesis was adopted in full by Prime Minister Sharon, and Sharon is trying to translate it today into policy, in his disengagement plan.
Now former MI chief Malka claims that despite everything, and assuming that Israel accepts some conditions, there is a negotiation partner. After the ongoing bloodshed, which has resulted in some 1,000 Israeli fatalities and some 3,000 Palestinian deaths, Israel's public feels the burden of proof rests with the Palestinian leadership. That leadership must prove that it seeks an arrangement based on the Clinton outline - essentially the same arrangement that Major General (res.) Malka brings up in the Haaretz interview. Such a demonstration of intent could create a new opportunity to resuscitate the negotiation process between two potential partners to a peace agreement, one in which there would be a large-scale Israeli withdrawal, and which would bring an end to the occupation and to Israel's control of another people."
siliconinvestor.com
As far as what Arafat thinks, I wouldn't presume to know that as I haven't access to the resources that Malka, Lavie, and Pundik have.
You may be correct in your remark about what most Israelis "know" but if that "knowledge" is based on a falsehood then it has to be revised. |
