In my Joe's School posts of March 22 and April 23, I wrote about the clear connection between the terrorism that resurrected a moribund Bush presidency and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which the Bush Administration apparently has no intention of doing anything about (except making it worse):
"Now we have reports (click here and here) about the rage among Arabs over the American decision to back Ariel Sharon in his desire to keep some settlements in the Palestinian
West Bank, and, perhaps more significantly, as the Reuters article said, 'that Palestinian refugees should not expect to reclaim their homes in what is now Israel.' In other words, Bush has flip-flopped on the Palestinian right of return."
The death of Yasser Arafat has returned the issue to center stage in the ongoing drama/tragedy of American intervention into the Arab-Islamic world. Those who viewed Arafat as the primary obstacle to peace, including Bush and most of the American press, now see opportunities for finally resolving the conflict. But the question remains: On whose terms, and to whose benefit? The answer to both parts of the question, of course, at least from the American perspective, is Israel. That bias towards Israel is the reason that Arafat has been described relentlessly as a "terrorist, a tyrant, a murderer, and a thief."
Charles Krauthammer, with whom I never agree, may have nevertheless provided a more accurate assessment of Arafat in his latest column. Here's the essence of what he says:
"Yasser Arafat was supremely decisive and single-minded. He was not complex and, regarding Israel's fate, never conflicted. Indeed the reason for his success, such as it was -- creating the Palestinian movement from which he derived fortune, fame and reverence -- was precisely his single-mindedness. Not about Palestinian statehood -- if that was his objective, he could have had his state years ago -- but about the elimination of Jewish statehood."
One may argue that Arafat's position on Israel had changed after his acceptance of the Oslo Accords in 1993, but one also has to accept the possibility that Krauthammer is right. On the other hand, one can, and should, disagree with his characterization of the 2000 Camp David proposal, worked out with Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak, which Arafat rejected, as "the deal of the century." In fact, it's become CW--conventional wisdom-- in the American media that the arrangement brokered by Clinton was the "best deal" Arafat could ever get, and that turning it down revealed the true Arafat-- a terrorist opposed to peace, or a coward, afraid of assassination at the hands of Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
Here's an example: On MSNBC's (pretty much right-wing) Scarborough Country, host Joe Scarborough says this:
"During the Clinton administration and the first Bush administration, nine specific proposals were given to him. In each case, it got closer to the ultimate of what anyone could have expected from Israel. And each was rejected. And we just concluded four years of an intifada which has been the bloodiest of all. And it could not be in the interests of anyone who seeks peace in this world and social justice to be behind terrorists."
So Scarborough follows the CW and calls Arafat a terrorist. Fortunately Pat Buchanan is on the show and he attempts to set the record straight:
"I think you‘re mistaken, Joe. In the Middle East, the beginning of terrorism occurred in 1946, when Menachem Begin blew up the King David Hotel which killed a lot of British nurses. It began even earlier when Yitzhak Shamir, a future prime minister of Israel, shot to death Lord Edward Moyne in Cairo in 1944 and then murdered Count Bernadotte. .....
"I think every single national liberation movement of post-World War II has at one time or another used terrorism, which is the murder of the innocents for political ends. ......
"Arafat is clearly this. He is the embodiment of a Palestinian cause for nationhood and statehood for the stateless Palestinian people, who, in the 35 or 40 years, recent years, has put that cause on the map, and who, if a Palestinian state comes into being, which even President Bush now supports—and America did not used to—he will be the man given historic credit for moving that out of the shadows on to the national and global agenda."
So what about the so-called "best deal" offered by Clinton and Barak at Camp David? Here are the details as explained by Sylvia Shihadeh and Robert Jensen:
"To understand that requires clearing away the obfuscation around the so-called 'generous offer' of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak that Arafat refused at Camp David in 2000. That offer included Israeli withdrawal from Gaza but would have allowed Israel to annex valuable and strategically crucial sections of the West Bank and retain 'security control' over other parts, including all Palestinian borders. The net effect would have been to institutionalize some of the worst aspects of the occupation. Arafat could not, and should not, have accepted it."
Baruch Himmerling of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem goes further in this detailed analysis, accusing Clinton and Barak of conspiring beforehand to advance Israeli causes:
"Prior to the Camp David talks, Barak and Clinton had agreed that every move would be coordinated in advance between the United States and Israel; and that if the summit failed, Israel would not take the blame. Clinton stood by this, as did most of his subordinates."
He also describes clearly the Israeli strategy of creating a Palestinian state consisting of, in effect, separate "cantons", or "bantustans", as Palestinians called them after the South African model.
It's no wonder that Arafat rejected this "95% solution."
The departure of Colin Powell as Secretary of State will only further entrench the hardline pro-Ariel Sharon, anti Palestinian policies of the Bush Administration.
That does not bode well for peace in the Middle East. Nor for success in the war on terrorism.
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