(Fathom-BICOM) Benny Morris interviewed by Gabriel Noah Brahm - When Yasser Arafat walked away from Israeli peace offers in 2000 and 2001, Israeli historian Benny Morris started to examine the possibility that the Palestinians weren't serious about wanting a two-state deal. Morris: When Arafat "was offered a two-state solution in 2000 by Barak, and then got an even better offer from Clinton at the end of 2000, Arafat said 'no.' And I think this was the defining moment for me. He was simply unable to reach a compromise with Israelis." "From that point on I lost a lot of sympathy for the Palestinians - which I had had before - and I came to understand that they are not willing to reach a two-state solution. And then there was Mahmoud Abbas' rejection in 2008 of the Ehud Olmert proposals, which were fairly similar to the Clinton proposals of December 2000. Abbas was offered a state with 95 to 96% of the West Bank, east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, and he too said 'no.'" "I understood that it wasn't really a question of a bit of territory here or there - it was a matter of the Palestinians' non-acceptance of the legitimacy of the Jewish state. That was what lay behind Abbas' inability to accept any Jewish state next to a Palestinian state. This is really what it has always been about." "I came to the conclusion...that the Palestinian Arabs were not willing to reach a compromise....Even if there were some Palestinians who were genuinely moderate and conciliatory, and willing to live with a two-state solution, they would always be out-flanked, or crushed, by the much larger segment of the Palestinians who would be completely rejectionist....There are simply too many extremists; the moderates end up bowing to their will." "A lot of Arabs believe that...the West has been aggressing against them. They don't see it as a resurgent Islam attacking the West, but as a resurgent Islam defending itself against what they see as a Western incursion. And Israel is seen as the front line of the incursion. This is our problem.... Unfortunately we are at the forefront of this battle line of the clash of civilizations." Benny Morris is a professor of history at Ben-Gurion University.
2015-11-13 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive