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The Mideast Peace Process' Biggest Myth

(National Interest) Benny Morris - Did the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin on Nov. 4, 1995, reverse the course of history and definitively halt the Israeli-Palestinian peace process? In September 1993, Israel and the PLO exchanged letters of mutual recognition, with Arafat stating that the PLO "recognize[s] the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security" and committing to renunciation of terrorism and "a peaceful resolution of the conflict." He added that the clauses of the PLO Charter denying Israel's right to exist were "now inoperative." But a week later, Arafat, unaware that he was being recorded, told a Muslim audience in Johannesburg that the agreements the PLO had just signed were like the pact Mohammed had signed with a Jewish tribe in Hijaz in the year 628, a tactical move the Muslims abrogated unilaterally a few years later. Arafat also called for "Jihad" to recover Jerusalem. He seemed to be saying that he would renege upon the agreements as soon as it suited his purposes. In July 2000 at Camp David, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Arafat a sovereign, albeit largely demilitarized, Palestinian state in 91% of the West Bank and 100% of Gaza, with administrative control over parts of Jerusalem - and Arafat said "no." In December 2000, President Clinton upped the ante, offering Arafat - in the so-called "Clinton Parameters" - 94-96% of the West Bank, Gaza, and sovereignty over the Arab-speaking neighborhoods of east Jerusalem, including the bulk of the Old City, and Palestinian sovereignty over the surface area of the Temple Mount. The Palestinians not only said "no," but proceeded to launch the Second Intifada. Some 1,400 Israelis were blown up, knifed and shot to death, and many more were wounded, during the following three years. In 2005, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon unilaterally pulled Israel's troops and settlements out of the Gaza Strip. In 2008, Ehud Olmert offered Mahmoud Abbas 97% of the West Bank and 100% of Gaza, with a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem. But Abbas rejected the offer. If one believes that the Palestinian national movement, represented by Hamas and Fatah respectively, has never reconciled itself to sharing Palestine with a Jewish state, whatever the exact territorial configuration, then the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin probably made very little difference. As they had rejected a two-state solution back in 1937 and 1947, so they would have rejected such solutions after 1995. There was nothing that Rabin could conceivably have done or offered that would have persuaded Arafat or his successors to acquiesce in a two-state solution and to sharing Palestine with a Jewish state. The multiple issues dividing the two peoples are of such depth, weight and consequence - most prominently, the Palestinian Arab refugee problem and the problem of Jerusalem and its Temple Mount - that no reasonable amount of good will by Rabin could conceivably overcome them. The writer is a professor of history in the Middle East Studies Department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
2016-03-01 00:00:00
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