They already have one.
Posted on 06/15/2009 1:28:23 PM PDT by Polarik
There was little enthusiasm when the Annapolis talks were launched in late 2007. Their goal - to produce at least the outline of an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians by the time president Bush left office - was widely regarded as completely unrealistic, and quite a few commentators dismissed the initiative as just more "peace processing." But when Israel's new foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman recently declared quite undiplomatically that the Annapolis process was over and done with, commentators united in a chorus of indignation - apparently, they didn't like to hear that Lieberman thought they were right all along.
The media are now full with reports and commentary about the urgent need to pressure Israel's new government to declare its commitment to the two-state solution and its resolve to energetically pursue peace with the Palestinians. It's a curious contrast to the lack of interest shown by the media while the Annapolis talks were going on. Few in the media seemed interested enough to note that Israel made an offer to the Palestinians that came very close to meeting the central demand that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas had spelled out in the run-up to the Annapolis meeting when he indicated that the Palestinians were open to border adjustments as long as they ended up with an equivalent of the "6,205 square kilometers" of territory that made up the Jordanian-controlled West Bank and the Egyptian-ruled Gaza Strip before the Six Day War in 1967.
According to reports in the Israeli press, the proposal presented by Israel would have given the Palestinians 98.5 % of this territory: all of the Gaza Strip, 93% of the West Bank and 5.5% of territory as a land swap that would enlarge Gaza to compensate for the West Bank land Israel intended to annex; in addition, a connecting route between Gaza and the West Bank would be made available.
The Palestinians were quick to reject the Israeli proposal - again an event that apparently went largely unnoticed. Not long afterwards, with new elections already scheduled in Israel, there were rumors that prime minister Olmert and foreign minister Livni intended to make a last-ditch effort to clinch a deal. These rumors have now been confirmed by the long-time Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat during a recent appearance on Al-Jazeera TV.
Erekat acknowledged that Israel had presented the Palestinians with a proposal in November 2008 which "talked about Jerusalem and almost 100% of the West Bank," and he noted that Mahmoud Abbas could have accepted this proposal, just as the "Palestinian negotiators could have given in in 1994, 1998, or 2000." Intriguingly, Erekat then proceeded to reveal what he considered a "secret": he explained why the Palestinians had rejected the recent proposals just like the ones offered in 2000/01 during the negotiations in Camp David and Taba. What prevented an agreement every time - at least according to Erekat - was the Israeli request that the Palestinians acknowledge the central importance of the Temple Mount for Jewish history and religion.
It is worthwhile to quote Erekat's description of a scene at Camp David, when Bill Clinton tried to convince Yassir Arafat to come to an agreement: "You will be the first president of a Palestinian state, within the 1967 borders - give or take, considering the land swap - and East Jerusalem will be the capital of the Palestinian state, but we want you, as a religious man, to acknowledge that the Temple of Solomon is located underneath the Haram Al-Sharif." According to Erekat, Arafat responded "defiantly" to Clinton: "I will not be a traitor. Someone will come to liberate it after 10, 50, or 100 years. Jerusalem will be nothing but the capital of the Palestinian state, and there is nothing underneath or above the Haram Al-Sharif except for Allah."
It may be debatable if Erekat is really revealing a "secret" here, but it is certainly surprising that the long-time Palestinian chief negotiator chose to emphasize an entirely symbolic issue and to present the repeated Palestinian refusal to compromise on this issue as a demonstration of proud defiance that is ultimately more important than the achievement of a peace agreement that would allow for the creation of a Palestinian state.
If this is indeed the message the Palestinians wanted to convey, they apparently succeeded if the recollections of former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami are anything to go by. Describing talks held in November and December of 2000 on the division of Jerusalem in an interview with Haaretz in September 2001, Ben-Ami explained that the Israeli negotiators had agreed to the division of the city and to full Palestinian sovereignty on the Temple Mount, but asked that the Palestinians acknowledge that the site was sacred to the Jews. When the Palestinians refused categorically, the ultra-dovish Ben-Ami concluded: "At that moment I grasped they are really not Sadat ... they were not willing to move toward our position even at the emotional and symbolic level. At the deepest level, they are not ready to recognize that we have any kind of title here."
When the media report on attempts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the underlying theme is usually that it is up to Israel to present proposals for a viable Palestinian state, and that the conflict hasn't been resolved yet because Israel has failed to do so.
The unsuccessful negotiations at Camp David and Taba elicited a flood of commentary seeking to explain and justify why the Palestinians did not seize the opportunity to get their own state. In view of Saeb Erekat’s recent remarks, much of this commentary would seem misguided, because the "secret" Erekat revealed recently points to Shlomo Ben-Ami's perspective as the correct one.
If the details that have become known about the proposals Israel presented during the Annapolis talks in 2008 are accurate, the Palestinians were once again offered a viable state that in terms of the size of territory would not have required any compromise on their part. Critics will point to the fact that Israel wanted to annex some six percent of West Bank territory (i.e. the so-called settlement blocks). But there is nothing in the "Green Line" that separated Israel and the Jordanian-controlled West Bank before the Six Day War that makes a Palestinian state particularly viable. By contrast, enlarging the crowded Gaza Strip, which has considerable economic potential as the Palestinian state's outlet to the sea, would arguably greatly enhance the viability of a Palestinian state.
None of this matters, however, if Saeb Erekat's description of the Palestinian position is right - then it is the politics of symbolism that has prevented the resolution of the conflict and the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Erekat's statements on Al-Jazeera indicate that it is time to ask if the Palestinians really want a state. As Shmuel Rosner has pointed out, there has been already some debate about this question, and Israelis have been wondering about it for quite some time. But the "secret" Erekat revealed to his Al-Jazeera audience illustrates that it's a question that deserves some wider debate, even if the valiant "blame-Israel" brigades will denounce this debate as "politically incorrect."
Josephus, the Roman writer who chronicalled the history of the Jews under Roman occupation, their perpetual existence in Israel, and the destruction of Solomon's Temple in 70 CE and the diaspora of Jews.
Arafat rewrote history. He created the myth of the Palestinians. He created the myth of an anciant Palestine. He claimed that "Palestinians are the descendants of Canaan. He redacted everything that was sacred to Jews and made it holy to Muslims.
The great irony is that Arafat was NOT a Musim: he was a coptic Christian. But, he transformed himself into a champion of the "Palestinian" people. Or, should I ay that it was Bubba Blohme Clinton who made him into the occult figure he was.
The Palestinians want it all, and they deserve none.
Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in the Torah, while thee isn't a single reference to Jerusalem. Muslims pray towards Mecca with their backs towards Jerusalem.
Ping
They already have one.
Ping!
What agreement hath Christ (Messiah) with Sheol (Baal)?
"Peace" with the Manson Family?Peace was achieved in post-Nazi Germany after the Allies crushed the German war machine, its leader having sucked a bullet in his bunker blaming everyone but himself.
In the Pacific the fanatics resisted until the second nuclear bomb.
Hussein demands the people he despises submit to the people he admires.
Welcome to Bizarro World where DICK (Doper Islamo-Commie Kenyan) thinks he runs the universe.
"Two-State"--I heard Netanyahu say he would approve right after water is no longer wet and fire is no longer hot--in other words when a demilitarized de-Hamas-ized Israel-accepting people appears.
Special instruments detect no desire for such a peace on the part of Arafat's legacy mob.
On to Natanz.
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