(UPI/Washington Times) Alon Ben-Meir - In the summer of 2000, Israel offered the Palestinians 97% of the West Bank and all of GazBa (under the Barak-Clinton plan at Camp David), an offer Arafat flatly rejected. He then green-lighted the unprecedented violence that subsequently shattered every vestige of civility between the two peoples. Instead of removing the causes for Israel's security barrier, Palestinians use it as an excuse for doing absolutely nothing to end the senseless violence, while even encouraging it. Ending the occupation is not the Palestinian Authority's real goal. Its end by whatever means, preferably violent ones, and then the obliteration of Israel "as a Jewish state" through demographic means, via repatriation of millions of refugees, is precisely what Arafat demanded at Camp David; and it remains the demand of most Palestinian leaders and their supporters throughout the Arab world. The writer is Middle East Project Director at the World Policy Institute, New York.
2004-07-29 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive