Judy Evans has provided some information on Immanuel Wallerstein; I didn't know who he was and posted it just because it looked like a good article. Of course, we know that Israel negotiated with Arafat during the Oslo process (though against persistent opposition of the Likud and the other right-wing parties) but it had refused to negotiate with him for many years before that and it ceased to negotiate as soon as the Likud came into power again. As to Camp David negotiations, I don't think that we really know what happened behind more or less closed doors there. The chief contentious issues besides territory were the control of East Jerusalem, the guardianship of the Temple Mount, and the right of return of refugees. Here is a brief account: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_2000_Summit Barak was later saying that he was making Arafat a 'generous offer', but this source indicates otherwise: http://www.tau.ac.il/~reinhart/books_ME/Camp_David_Negotiations.html ...................................... Barak's proposal in Camp-David was based on a document known as the Beilin-Abu-Mazen understandings. It was concluded, following intensive negotiations 'behind the screens', in november 11, 1995 (three days before Rabin's assassination). In fact, the Beilin-Abu Mazen Plan is a shameful document that leaves all the settlements untouched. On the eve of the Camp David Summit June 21, 2000 then Justice Minister Yossi Beilin presented the document to the cabinet meeting of the Israeli government. Its content was that Israel will withdraw from 90%-95% of the West Bank, "about 130 settlements will remain under Israeli sovereignty, 50 will stay within the Palestinian state. In the Jordan valley, which will be under Palestinian sovereignty, Israeli military forces will be posted. The Palestinian state will recognize Western Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, while Israel will recognize that the [portion of the] area defined as 'El Kuds' prior to the six days war which exceeds the area annexed to Israel in 1967 will be the capital of the Palestinian state... Temple Mount [Al Aksa complex] will be given to Palestinian Sovereignty..." (Ha'aretz, main headline, June 23, 2000, MT). Read briefly, the text may seem to include some Israeli concessions. What gives this impression is the statement that Israel will recognize Palestinian sovereignty over 90%-95% of the West Bank, from which it will withdraw. But a closer reading reveals a different picture. The question is what precisely Israel means by "sovereignty." Inside the Palestinian "sovereign area," 50 Israeli settlements will remain intact and the Israeli forces will remain in the Jordan valley. As we shall see directly, the complex language describing "El Quds" means that the Palestinian capital will be the remote village of Abu Dis. A better picture of the plan can be drawn from how Beilin himself described it in an interview in 1996: "As an outcome of my negotiations, I can say with certainty that we can reach a permanent agreement not under the overt conditions presented by the Palestinians, but under a significant compromise [on their side]... I discovered on their side a substantial gap between their slogans and their actual understanding of reality a much bigger gap than on our side. They are willing to accept an agreement which gives up much land, without the dismantling of settlements, with no return to the '67 border, and with an arrangement in Jerusalem which is less than municipality level." (Interview with Lili Galili, Ha'aretz, March 3, 1996) ............................................... It is also said (I can't find the source for this now) that Clinton was not impressed with Barak's diplomatic skills and reminded him that he, as a former general, was a novice in politics. In any case, when the talks did not succeed at that round, they should have been continued. Instead, the Israeli side lost patience and started the violence - Ariel Sharon's provocative visit to the Temple Mount, and Barak ordering the police to shoot at the Palestinians protestors. If you don't remember this then perhaps you need to refresh your memory as well. Barak failed in part because he wanted quick results and was not willing or able to spend a sufficient amount of time in negotiations. His later statements were an attempt to save himself from political embarrassment by blaming Arafat. The talks were indeed renewed later at Taba, but at that time Clinton was already going out of office and Barak's political authority was too undermined. I would recommend this article: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15502 Barak's central thesis is that the current Palestinian leadership wants "a Palestinian state in all of Palestine. What we see as self-evident, two states for two peoples, they reject." Arafat, he concludes, seeks Israel's "demise." Barak has made that claim repeatedly, both here and elsewhere, and indeed it forms the crux of his argument. His claim therefore should be taken up, issue by issue. On the question of the boundaries of the future state, the Palestinian position, formally adopted as early as 1988 and frequently reiterated by Palestinian negotiators throughout the talks, was for a Palestinian state based on the June 4, 1967, borders, living alongside Israel. At Camp David (at which one of the present writers was a member of the US administration's team), Arafat's negotiators accepted the notion of Israeli annexation of West Bank territory to accommodate settlements, though they insisted on a one-for-one swap of land "of equal size and value." The Palestinians argued that the annexed territory should neither affect the contiguity of their own land nor lead to the incorporation of Palestinians into Israel. The ideas put forward by President Clinton at Camp David fell well short of those demands. In order to accommodate Israeli settlements, he proposed a deal by which Israel would annex 9 percent of the West Bank in exchange for turning over to the Palestinians parts of pre-1967 Israel equivalent to 1 percent of the West Bank. This proposal would have entailed the incorporation of tens of thousands of additional Palestinians into Israeli territory near the annexed settlements; and it would have meant that territory annexed by Israel would encroach deep inside the Palestinian state. In his December 23, 2000, proposals?called "parameters" by all parties?Clinton suggested an Israeli annexation of between 4 and 6 percent of the West Bank in exchange for a land swap of between 1 and 3 percent. The following month in Taba, the Palestinians put their own map on the table which showed roughly 3.1 percent of the West Bank under Israeli sovereignty, with an equivalent land swap in areas abutting the West Bank and Gaza.[*] On Jerusalem, the Palestinians accepted at Camp David the principle of Israeli sovereignty over the Wailing Wall, the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, and Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem?neighborhoods that were not part of Israel before the 1967 Six-Day War?though the Palestinians clung to the view that all of Arab East Jerusalem should be Palestinian. In contrast to the issues of territory and Jerusalem, there is no Palestinian position on how the refugee question should be dealt with as a practical matter. Rather, the Palestinians presented a set of principles. First, they insisted on the need to recognize the refugees' right of return, lest the agreement lose all legitimacy with the vast refugee constituency?roughly half the entire Palestinian population. Second, they acknowledged that Israel's demographic interests had to be recognized and taken into account. Barak draws from this the conclusion that the refugees are the "main demographic-political tool for subverting the Jewish state." The Palestinian leadership's insistence on a right of return demonstrates, in his account, that their conception of a two-state solution is one state for the Palestinians in Palestine and another in Israel. But the facts suggest that the Palestinians are trying (to date, unsuccessfully) to reconcile these two competing imperatives?the demographic imperative and the right of return. Indeed, in one of his last pre? Camp David meetings with Clinton, Arafat asked him to "give [him] a reasonable deal [on the refugee question] and then see how to present it as not betraying the right of return." See also: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1113 O.K. --- Stan Spiegel <writeforu2@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >After 1967, the Israeli governments never felt they > >had to negotiate anything with the Palestinians or > >with the Arab world. They offered one-sided > >settlements but these were always on Israeli terms. > >Israel wouldn't negotiate with Nasser. Then it > >wouldn't negotiate with Arafat. And now it won't > >negotiate with so-called terrorists. Instead, it > has > >relied on successive shows of military strength. > > I can't counter all the points this writer has made > at the moment (I'm going > to bed now), but when Wallerstein says "Then it > won't negotiate with > Arafat..." I wonder about the substance of > everything he says. > > I remember that fateful summer of 2000 when Ehud > Barak and Arafat sat down > together with Bill Clinton to negotiate. Arafat got > nearly 96% of everything > he wanted, and then suddenly instead of continuing > to negotiate -- I > remember this -- he picked himself up and left. > Clinton was puzzled. Barak > was puzzled. Then Arafat went back home and started > the Intifada. Two years > of deadly suicide bombing against Israel. > > Omar, has your memory failed you? > > Ehud Barak lost his job because he was willing to > negotiate and negotiate > and negotiate. He wanted to bring about peace. But > peace wasn't the outcome. > And Ariel Sharon won the election because Barak was > seen as too soft. If > peace had resulted from that meeting with Clinton > mediating between them, > Barak would still be Prime Minister. > > Who is Wallerstein? Where does he get his facts > from? What axe does he have > to grind that he makes such ridiculous statements? > Anyone who paid attention > to that meeting with Barak and Arafat, as I did, > knows this account is a > fraud. > > I'm tired of dealing with frauds, Omar. > > Stan Spiegel > Portland, ME __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html