'The Missing Peace': Exhausted Are the Peacemakers...

[cantwealljustgetalong]

...

To the question of what went wrong, Ross offers two answers, one simple and one messy but no less true or important. The simple answer is that in the end Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, was the principal cause of the failure. Ross illustrates this in numerous ways. The most important and dramatic is an account of late December 2000, when, with only a few weeks left in his administration, President Clinton suggested a set of guidelines to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israeli cabinet accepted the framework with several reservations that were within the guidelines laid out by the president. Arafat did not. Ross recounts watching Clinton tell Arafat that by not responding to the American ideas, ''he was killing Barak and the peace camp in Israel.'' Arafat did not budge. As Ross puts it: ''A comprehensive deal was not possible with Arafat. . . . He could live with a process, but not with a conclusion.''

The second explanation, the messier one, is that neither side had taken sufficient steps to grasp the needs and neuroses of the other. Ross says ''the Israelis acted as if all decisions should be informed by their needs, not by possible Palestinian needs or reactions.'' Regarding the Arabs, he writes, ''The kind of transformation that would make it possible for the Arab world to acknowledge that Israel has needs has yet to take place.'' As for the American role, Ross puts it this way: ''Our great failing was not in misreading Arafat. Our great failing was in not creating the earlier tests that would have either exposed Arafat's inability to ultimately make peace or forced him to prepare his people for compromise.''

...

Ross's analysis of the peace process is astute, but the real service he performs in this book is less in explaining the meaning of events than in setting the record straight. There has been much dispute over what was offered to the Palestinians in the 2000 Camp David meeting and in the months that followed. This book should end that discussion. The final deal, made orally to the Palestinians and Israelis by Clinton, is laid out in the appendix. Broadly, the ideas were these:

Territory: The Palestinians would get all of Gaza and between 94 and 96 percent of the West Bank. In exchange for what they would not get of the West Bank, Israel would be required to give up between 1 percent and 3 percent of its own land.

Security: Israel would withdraw from the West Bank over 36 months with an international force gradually introduced into the area. A small Israeli presence in fixed locations would remain in the Jordan Valley under the authority of the international force for another 36 months. Palestine would be defined as a ''nonmilitarized state'' with a strong internal security force and an international presence for border and deterrence purposes.

Jerusalem: What is Arab in the city would be Palestinian and what is Jewish Israeli. Palestinians would have sovereignty over the plaza of the mosques and Israelis over the Western Wall.

Refugees: Palestinian refugees would either move to the new state of Palestine, be rehabilitated in their host country, resettle in a third country or be admitted to Israel if Israel so chose. None would have the right to return to Israel against Israel's will.

...

There is also one exceptionally poignant and prescient moment near the book's end. It is Dec. 29, 2000, and Arafat still will not say yes. Ahmed Qurei, known as Abu Ala, a top Palestinian negotiator (later he became prime minister), has come to see Ross, who tells him the new president, George W. Bush, will want to have nothing to do with Arafat after Clinton's experience.

''Mark my words,'' Ross reports telling Abu Ala, ''they will disengage from the issue and . . . you will have Sharon as prime minister. He will be elected for sure if there is no deal, and your 97 percent will become 40 to 45 percent; your capital in East Jerusalem will be gone. . . .

''He looked at me sadly and with a note of complete resignation, replied, 'I am afraid it may take another 50 years to settle this now.' ''

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/08/books/review/08BRONNER.html?pagewanted=2

[Gimel]

1. Absolutely fascinating reading and MUST reading for I/P

Thanks for hunting this up and posting, CWAJGA.

[Jack Rabbit]

2. Very interesting article. I recommend reading the entire piece

Both deals failed, of course, the victims of numerous missteps on all sides. Explaining the collapse of Middle East peace efforts of recent years is the focus of a small and growing library. But no one has the broad perspective of Dennis Ross, who began his service under the first George Bush and continued it through eight years of Clinton and several Israeli governments. For that reason alone, this is a work of historical significance.

The piece does not indicate what Arafat's objections to the offer were. That would be critical in making any judgment.

Nevertheless, the stakes were too high for Arafat to have simply walked away as he did. Bush wasn't going pick up on the Middle East where Clinton left off; in fact, he wasn't going to pick it up at all. For that if no other reason, and whether one agrees with Araft's reasons for turning down the "generous offer" or not, Arafat should have countered Barak's offer with something and kept talking.

[Proudlib]

3. Gee, I Wonder

"The piece does not indicate what Arafat's objections to the offer were. That would be critical in making any judgment."

Are you serious? What have been Arafat's objections since 1964? For the life of me, I can't see how a "progressive" can look at Arafat's 40 year career as a guerilla terrorist/cold blooded murderer and give him any benefit of the doubt.

Bottom line is that Arafat failed his people-again. If Arafat put what was best for his people ahead of anything else, there would be an independent state of Palestine as a I type this. Trying to destroy a nation (Israel) has always been more important to Arafat than creating one. Nation building would have required his regime to perform the functions of a modern civil government. That isn't nearly as much fun as stealing money earmarked to feed people and funneling money to suicide bombers.