- Justifying the massacre of Palestinian men, women and
children by the Israeli Defence Forces has required an extraordinary propaganda
effort from the pro-Zionist US media. Lies have become the norm in an attempt
to turn reality on its head, portraying the victims of state terror as
the guilty party, and war criminals as the victims.
-
- One myth that is central to the propaganda campaign involves
a grossly distorted presentation of the Camp David Israeli-Palestinian
summit of July, 2000. The American media endlessly repeat the assertion
that Yasser Arafat spurned a generous proposal for Palestinian statehood
offered by the then Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, thereby precipitating
the eruption of violence that has continued for more than 18 months.
-
- To cite one example, the April 15 Wall Street Journal
contains an article by Daniel Pipes and Jonathan Schanzer arguing against
an Israeli military withdrawal from the Occupied Territories. In it they
opine:
-
- "Prime Minister Ehud Barak, in July 2000, convinced
President Clinton to host a summit for Yasser Arafat and himself. At Camp
David, he offered unprecedented concessions, hoping to close the Palestinian
account like he thought he had just closed the Lebanese one. Trouble was,
both Hezbollah and the Palestinians drew the opposite lesson from this
retreat. Hezbollah crowed how Islamic forces in the ësmallest Arab
country' had caused Israel to retreat in ëdefeat and resignation.'
-
- "As for Arafat, rather than be inspired by Israeli
goodwill, he saw an Israel weak and demoralized. Inspired by Hezbollah's
success, he and the Palestinian body politic lost interest in diplomacy
and what it could bringóthe partial attainment of their goals. Instead,
they adopted the Hezbollah model of force in order to attain complete victory.
-
- "Not surprisingly, then, Arafat flatly turned down
Mr. Barak's wildly generous proposals and did not even deign to make a
counter-offer. Of course, complete victory here means the destruction of
Israel, not coexistence with it. How could Arafat aspire for less, when
he had turned down so handsome an offer at Camp David?"
-
- Such claims are made in the full knowledge of their falsity.
For since the Camp David talks in Maryland finally collapsed on July 25,
2000, a plethora of evidence has emerged disproving the efforts of the
Israelis and the US to blame the Palestinian delegation for the failure
of the summit.
-
- The propaganda unravels
-
- As US president, Clinton announced that the talks had
foundered over the future of Jerusalem, and blamed the Palestinians, stating,
"The Israelis moved more from the position they had."
-
- The Palestinians said nothing at the time, because they
were still pinning their hopes on further negotiations. This left the field
clear for the far right in Israel to portray Barak as a naÔve fool
who had failed to understand that it was impossible to compromise with
Arafat, who would stop at nothing less than the destruction of Israel.
-
- It wasn't until almost a year later that a number of
articles appeared refuting the propaganda of the Zionists, at a time when
the military conflict had been raging for ten months. The first to speak
out was Robert Malley, the US National Security Council's Middle East expert
under Clinton and a member of the American team at Camp David.
-
- He wrote an initial article for the July 8, 2001 edition
of the New York Times, "Fictions About the Failure at Camp David,"
in which he rejected a number of myths, including the assertion that Barak
had all but sacrificed Israel's security by making an offer that "met
most, if not all, of the Palestinians' legitimate aspirations."
-
- Malley wrote, "Yes, what was put on the table was
more far-reaching than anything any Israeli leader had discussed in the
pastówhether with the Palestinians or with Washington. But it was
not the dream offer it has been made out to be, at least not from a Palestinian
perspective.
-
- "To accommodate the settlers, Israel was to annex
9 percent of the West Bank; in exchange, the new Palestinian state would
be granted sovereignty over parts of Israel proper, equivalent to one-ninth
of the annexed land. A Palestinian state covering 91 percent of the West
Bank and Gaza was more than most Americans or Israelis had thought possible,
but how would Mr. Arafat explain the unfavorable 9-to-1 ratio in land swaps
to his people?
-
- "In Jerusalem, Palestine would have been given sovereignty
over many Arab neighborhoods of the eastern half and over the Muslim and
Christian quarters of the Old City. While it would enjoy custody over the
Haram al Sharif [Noble sanctuary], the location of the third-holiest Muslim
shrine [the Al Aqsa Mosque], Israel would exercise overall sovereignty
over this area, known to Jews as the Temple Mount."
-
- He also acknowledged major concessions on the part of
the Palestinians:
-
- "The Palestinians were arguing for the creation
of a Palestinian state based on the June 4, 1967, borders, living alongside
Israel. They accepted the notion of Israeli annexation of West Bank territory
to accommodate settlement blocs. They accepted the principle of Israeli
sovereignty over the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalemóneighborhoods
that were not part of Israel before the Six Day War in 1967. And, while
they insisted on recognition of the refugees' right of return, they agreed
that it should be implemented in a manner that protected Israel's demographic
and security interests by limiting the number of returnees. No other Arab
party that has negotiated with Israelónot Anwar el-Sadat's Egypt,
not King Hussein's Jordan, let alone Hafez al-Assad's Syriaóever
came close to even considering such compromises."
-
- The article was followed by further revelations, which
were denounced by the right-wing Israeli media as "Camp David revisionism".
-
- On July 23, Ahmed Qureia, the Palestinians' top negotiator
at Camp David, gave a press conference echoing Malley's remarks and describing
the claim that "Barak offered everything [and] the Palestinians refused
everything" as "The biggest lie of the last three decades."
The New York Review of Books, New York Times and the Palestinian negotiating
team all published accounts of Camp David that contained material contradicting
the claims of the Zionist myth-makers.
-
- What happened at Camp David?
-
- Barak had come to office in July 1999 and pledged to
carry out final-status talks with the Palestinians. Negotiations began
secretly in late March 2000, during which Barak made a number of initial
promises. In mid-May, however, the substance of the talks was leaked to
Israeli newspapers and was met with a hostile campaign by Likud, other
right-wing parties and the Israeli media. In response, Barak pressed for
a US-sponsored summit, against the advice of Arafat and the Palestinians,
who feared that insufficient preparation had been made. Clinton persuaded
Arafat to attend, despite Arafat's reservations, and Camp David began.
-
- The New York Review of Books of August 9, 2000 ran a
comprehensive account of events, "Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors",
co-authored by Malley and Hussein Agha, who has played an active part in
Israeli-Palestinian relations.
-
- According to their account, Barak refused to implement
a number of interim steps to which Israel was formally committed by various
agreements, "including a third partial redeployment of troops from
the West Bank, the transfer to Palestinian control of three villages abutting
Jerusalem, and the release of Palestinians imprisoned for acts committed
before the Oslo agreement."
-
- Though the authors are exceedingly diplomatic in their
own formulations, they make it clear that Barak did so in order to present
the Palestinians with an all-or-nothing offer: Either peace on Israeli
terms or the implicit threat of renewed violence. Central to Barak's plan
was the enlistment of the Clinton administration and Europe to isolate
Arafat and place enormous pressure on him. According to the account of
Malley and Agha, the Western powers were asked "to threaten Arafat
with the consequences of his obstinacy: the blame would be laid on the
Palestinians and relations with them would be downgraded." The article
continues: "Likewise, and throughout Camp David, Barak repeatedly
urged the US to avoid mention of any fall-back options or of the possibility
of continued negotiations in the event the summit failed."
-
- This left Arafat in an untenable political position,
under conditions of rising anger amongst the Palestinians and disillusionment
over the failure of the Oslo Accords to improve their social position.
As the two authors write, "Seen from Gaza and the West Bank, Oslo's
legacy read like a litany of promises deferred or unfulfilled. Six years
after the agreement, there were more Israeli settlements, less freedom
of movement, and worse economic conditions."
-
- They conclude from this, "Camp David seemed to Arafat
to encapsulate his worst nightmares. It was high-wire summitry, designed
to increase the pressure on the Palestinians to reach a quick agreement
while heightening the political and symbolic costs if they did not....
That the US issued the invitations despite Israel's refusal to carry out
its earlier commitments and despite Arafat's plea for additional time to
prepare only reinforced in his mind the sense of a US-Israeli conspiracy."
-
- The one thing Clinton did promise Arafat in order to
get him to Camp David was that the Palestinians would not be blamed for
a failure of the summitóa promise that proved to be worthless.
-
- As to what was offered by Barak, the authors note that
he never put anything in writing. The Palestinians were in fact asked to
endorse a vague series of promises that could have been amended at any
time. They write, "Strictly speaking, there never was an Israeli offer.
Determined to preserve Israel's position in the event of failure, and resolved
not to let the Palestinians take advantage of one-sided compromises, the
Israelis always stopped one, if not several, steps short of a proposal.
The ideas put forward at Camp David were never stated in writing, but orally
conveyed... Nor were the proposals detailed. If written down, the American
ideas at Camp David would have covered no more than a few pages. Barak
and the Americans insisted that Arafat accept them as general ëbases
for negotiations' before launching into more rigorous negotiations."
-
- Barak's proposals
-
- Barak's proposals were a far cry from "wildly generous"
concessions to Palestinian aspirations. His offer would not have provided
a viable basis for a Palestinian state, but rather the framework for an
Arab ghetto dependent on and subordinate to Israel.
-
- The Oslo Accords were based on the Palestinians having
recognised Israeli sovereignty over 78 percent of historic Palestine on
the assumption that the Palestinians would be able to exercise sovereignty
over the remaining 22 percent. In contrast, Barak's supposed generosity
at Camp David amounted to a rejection of United Nations Resolutions 242
and 338, which had been accepted as the basis for the Oslo Accords of 1993.
-
- Amongst the most pertinent facts regarding his offer
are the following:
-
- * Barak's proposal divided Palestine into four separate
cantons surrounded by Israel: the Northern West Bank, the Central West
Bank, the Southern West Bank and Gaza. A network of Israeli-controlled
highways and military posts would in turn, divide these cantons. It would
make no part of Palestine contiguous and put Israelis in charge of both
the movement of people and goods, internally and externally, thus ensuring
the subordination of the Palestinian economy to its more powerful neighbour.
-
- * Israel sought to annex almost nine percent of the Occupied
Palestinian Territories, and in exchange offered only one percent of Israel's
own territory.
-
- * Israel sought control over an additional ten percent
of the Occupied Territories in the form of a "long-term lease",
of unspecified duration.
-
- * The Palestinians were asked to give up any claim to
East Jerusalem, which they had designated as the future capital of a Palestinian
state. The Palestinian negotiating team accept that this was amended in
subsequent talks, with a proposal to allow Palestinians sovereignty over
isolated Arab neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem. But these neighbourhoods
would be surrounded by Israeli-controlled neighbourhoods and separated
not only from each other, but also from the rest of the Palestinian state.
In a calculated insult, the Israelis offered to build tunnels so that Arafat
could visit Palestinian neighbourhoods without setting foot on Israeli
territory.
-
- * Israel would retain control of 69 Zionist settlements
on the West Bank, where 85 percent of the settlers live. The building of
illegal settlements had increased by 52 percent since Oslo was signed,
and the settler population, including those in East Jerusalem, had more
than doubled.
-
- * The Palestinians would abandon any right of return
to Israel for those displaced since its creation in 1948.
-
- And all of this was offered as a threat, rather than
a proposal. As the Palestinian negotiators note, "Prior to entering
into the first negotiations on permanent status issues, Prime Minister
Barak publicly and repeatedly threatened Palestinians that his ëoffer'
would be Israel's best and final offer, and if not accepted, Israel would
seriously consider ëunilateral separation' (a euphemism for imposing
a settlement rather than negotiating one)."
-
- In their account, Malley and Agha portray the Palestinians
as only having a perception of being set up, and this creating problems
for the US in its posture of "honest broker." But the episodes
they cite show instead that Clinton worked with Barak in an attempt to
force the Palestinians to accept an arrangement equivalent to the tribal
Bantustans in Apartheid South Africa.
-
- They write, for example, that when Abu Ala'a, a leading
Palestinian negotiator, balked at Barak's proposals, "the President
stormed out: ëThis is a fraud. It is not a summit. I won't have the
United States covering for negotiations in bad faith. Let's quit!' Toward
the end of the summit, an irate Clinton would tell Arafat: ëIf the
Israelis can make compromises and you can't, I should go home. You have
been here fourteen days and said no to everything. These things have consequences;
failure will mean the end of the peace process.... Let's let hell break
loose and live with the consequences.'"
-
- This was the ultimate threat hanging over the heads of
the Palestiniansóeither sign up to Barak's offer and sign away any
possibility of achieving a viable state, or incur not only Israel's wrath,
but that of the United States.
-
- Sharon implements the military option
-
- The New York Times of July 26, 2001 ran an extended article
by Deborah Sontag entitled, "And Yet so Far", which contains
interesting additions on Camp David, but is more important for its detailing
of what happened subsequently. She writes of the events following Camp
David:
-
- "Few Israelis, Palestinians or Americans realize
how much diplomatic activity continued after the Camp David meeting appeared
to produce nothing. Building on what turned out to be a useful base, Israeli
and Palestinian negotiators conducted more than 50 negotiating sessions
in August and September, most of them clandestine, and most at the King
David Hotel in Jerusalem....
-
- "During August and September, [chief Palestinian
negotiator Saeb] Erekat and Gilad Sher, a senior Israeli negotiator, drafted
two chapters of a permanent peace accord that were kept secret from everyone
but the leadersóeven from other negotiators, Mr. Erekat said.
-
- "At the same time, American mediators were pulling
together Mr. Clinton's permanent peace proposal. It appeared in December,
but Martin Indyk, the former American ambassador to Israel, disclosed recently
that they were already prepared to put it before the parties in August
or September."
-
- Sontag's article is important in that it not only exposes
the myth of Palestinian intransigenceóeven after the Camp David
ultimatum failed, intense negotiations continuedóbut also draws
attention to the great unmentionable as far as the pro-Zionist media is
concerned: that Ariel Sharon, not Arafat, deliberately blew up any possibility
of achieving a negotiated settlement.
-
- She notes that it was "Sharon's heavily guarded
visit to the plaza outside Al Aqsa Mosque to demonstrate Jewish sovereignty
over the Temple Mount [that] set off angry Palestinian demonstrations.
The Israelis used lethal force to put them down. The cycle of violence
started...."
-
- Even then, discussions continued into December. However,
"The negotiations were suspended by Israel because elections were
imminent and ëthe pressure of Israeli public opinion against the talks
could not be resisted,' said Shlomo Ben-Ami, who was Israel's foreign minister
at the time."
-
- Sontag concludes, "In the Israeli elections in February
[2001], Barak lost resoundingly to Sharon. It was then that peace moves
frozeónot six months earlier at Camp David."
-
- One can question the extent to which any of the negotiations
following Camp David were conducted in good faith on Barak's part. The
Clinton administration summoned negotiators to Washington on September
27, 2000. On September 28, Sharon made his deliberately provocative visit.
Barak never once criticised Sharon's actions, and Arafat insists that Barak
was conspiring directly with Sharon "to destroy the peace process",
choosing Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif as "a vehicle for what they
had decided on: the military plan."
-
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