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Israel/Palestine
We'll choose our leaders It is important to understand how we reached this bloody impasse. I took part in the Camp David talks in the summer of 2000 and was one of those who fought hardest to reach an agreement - indeed, I had to put up with accusations from others in the Palestinian delegation that I was too keen to reach a deal. But I was the first to refuse what had apparently been offered (apparently, because nothing was in writing). Contrary to subsequent claims, there was no serious offer made at Camp David, no solution floated that we would have regretted passing up. The talks at Taba four months later, where there was a serious dialogue, were a different matter. If we had been offered at Camp David the kind of outline package we reached at Taba, we could have had a deal. But Ehud Barak, the Israeli prime minister, blocked the attempts to reach agreement because Israeli elections were two weeks down the line.
The errors go back further. There was a strategic mistake built into the 1993 Oslo agreement: to go for an interim, transitional deal, when the two peoples were ready for a comprehensive peace. The interim period allowed the Israelis to carry on as they had before, pressing ahead with settlements, closures and land expropriation, behaving like a classic occupier. There were also constant changes of leadership on the Israeli side, which led to the cancellation of agreements and understandings. ---------- Bush's Mideast Vision is a Myopic Fantasy Bush's message to Palestinians: basically, no state until you kick out Yasser Arafat, stop resisting Israeli occupation, develop true democracy, do what Israel tells you, create capitalism, eliminate corruption and stop causing trouble. Then, some day, the U.S. might consider an "interim" Palestinian state whose borders and sovereignty would be "provisional," provided Israel agrees. Bush might as well have told Palestinians they won't get their freedom and homeland until they can recite the U.S. Tax Code in Apache. Bush, a man untroubled by deep thought or irony, had the chutzpah, as we New Yorkers say, to urge Palestinians to adopt Scandinavian-style democracy, while telling them they cannot re-elect Arafat, who was elected in a fair vote by over 80% of his people - rather better than President Bush, who slid into office thanks to court orders and voter exclusions in Florida.
As for corruption, Arafat's thieving PLO cronies look like the homeless compared to Bush's mega-crook pals at Enron who helped finance his elections. ----------
Fencing in Arafat ----------
Young icons of death who warn the world of the rise of Hamas ---------- ----------
The new Palestinian elite |