Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been going on for nearly two decades now, ever since the start of the 1990s, and yet any permanent final status agreement still seems extremely far off. Worse still; at the moment what’s being argued about is not the conditions under which peace would be finalised but the conditions under which negotiations would resume. So what has been going on for twenty years that means no agreement has been reached?
Often negotiations have looked extremely promising, particularly with Oslo which set up a system where by territory was gradually transferred into Palestinian control with a timetable for final status agreements. There had been some disagreements over partitioning Jerusalem, but in 2000 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was prepared to make the painful and unpopular concession in the hope of achieving peace. Perhaps Arafat had never really expected the Israeli’s to accept this demand because during the Camp David summit a new even more seemingly unmeetable demand was made by the Palestinians. After having never previously mentioned the demand at any earlier negotiation, including Oslo, the Palestinian delegation now insisted that in return for the end of hostilities Israel must accept into its midst millions of Arabs who claimed to either have once lived in what is now Israel or to be their many descendants. Such a move would have turned the country’s demographic upside down ending Israel’s existence as the world’s only Jewish state and haven for Jewish refugees fleeing persecution. The demand took the Israeli and American negotiators totally by surprise and while they agreed to dividing Jerusalem and giving the Palestinians Israel’s disputed territories for a sovereign state the Israeli’s couldn’t agree to their own destruction.
As is now known the Intifada that raged in the first years of the new millennium, in which over 1000 Israelis were killed in terror attacks, was initially preconceived by Arafat as a means by which to put pressure on the Israelis to make ever greater concessions. Finally as Ehud Barak’s time in power approached its end and in desperation to try and stop the escalating violence in the series of negotiations around 2000/2001 Barak agreed to turning over the equivalent of 100% of the disputed territories to the Palestinians and crucially to gradually over a number of years absorbing the Palestinians claiming refugee status back into Israel. This was not what Arafat had expected, indeed he had made the demand because he’d assumed the Israelis would never agree to it. Realising that he was now in a position where he had to accept Israel’s offer and make peace he abruptly called an end to the conference and on his way out famously told the press that the Israeli’s could ‘go to hell’. There was nothing more that could be done and Israel entered its bloodiest and most threatening period since its war of independence.
For Arafat acceptance of a peace deal would have meant an end to his very reason for being; using terror to fight Israel, it was from this activity that he derived his power. A final agreement would have meant an end to Palestinian grievance, an end to terror, an end to world sympathy and an end to the large donations from supporters around the world. It would have meant the beginning of the far more serious and difficult activity of state building. For the Palestinian leadership and terrorist operatives there was never any question over which of the two scenarios they preferred.
Little has changed since then, actually hurrying into bringing the creation of a Palestinian state into being seems extremely low down the list of the Palestinian Authorities set of priorities right now. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas insisted he would not enter into any final status negotiations unless Netanyahu first accepted the creation of a Palestinian state, something he reckoned Netanyahu would never do. But with pressure from Obama and much to Abbas’ horror, a few days ago in his major policy address that’s exactly what Netanyahu did. The Palestinian spokes people quickly went into reaction and went ahead and delivered exactly the same speeches they’d prepared in the event of the Israeli Prime Minister not accepting a Palestinian state. They claimed that Netanyahu had ‘slammed shut the door’ to any peace negotiations, when clearly in reality he had fulfilled the very pre-conditions the Palestinians had laid down for such talks to begin.
The Palestinians have claimed that their grievance is over Netanyahu insisting any future Palestinian state could not be heavily militarised and that the Palestinians must accept Israel will be the Jewish state and theirs the Palestinian state. There is nothing new in this, Arafat was supposed to have recognised Israel’s right to exist before negotiations back in the early 1990s and as an obligation of Oslo was supposed to have amended the PLO charter so that it no longer called for Israel’s destruction, something they have still failed to comply with. As far as demilitarisation of the Palestinian state goes this was made clear as part of Israel’s acceptance of George Bush’s U.N backed Road Map back in 2003. Indeed there is nothing new about the games Abbas is playing, when he first became Palestinian Prime Minister during the time of the Sharon government he would often respond to Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners by cancelling his meetings with Sharon, claiming they’d expected larger numbers of terrorists to be released.
This is a reminder that Israeli good will gestures have more often than not been met by even more outrageous demands, protest and refusal to cooperate. While time and time again Israel has made difficult and dangerous concessions, offering just about everything in their power for peace, the Palestinians seem to have worked equally as tirelessly to avoid making peace at all costs. For the moment it seems that just as Israeli’s fear a Palestinian state will threaten their country’s existence the Palestinians fear a final peace agreement will weaken their campaign to destroy Israel.
Often negotiations have looked extremely promising, particularly with Oslo which set up a system where by territory was gradually transferred into Palestinian control with a timetable for final status agreements. There had been some disagreements over partitioning Jerusalem, but in 2000 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was prepared to make the painful and unpopular concession in the hope of achieving peace. Perhaps Arafat had never really expected the Israeli’s to accept this demand because during the Camp David summit a new even more seemingly unmeetable demand was made by the Palestinians. After having never previously mentioned the demand at any earlier negotiation, including Oslo, the Palestinian delegation now insisted that in return for the end of hostilities Israel must accept into its midst millions of Arabs who claimed to either have once lived in what is now Israel or to be their many descendants. Such a move would have turned the country’s demographic upside down ending Israel’s existence as the world’s only Jewish state and haven for Jewish refugees fleeing persecution. The demand took the Israeli and American negotiators totally by surprise and while they agreed to dividing Jerusalem and giving the Palestinians Israel’s disputed territories for a sovereign state the Israeli’s couldn’t agree to their own destruction.
As is now known the Intifada that raged in the first years of the new millennium, in which over 1000 Israelis were killed in terror attacks, was initially preconceived by Arafat as a means by which to put pressure on the Israelis to make ever greater concessions. Finally as Ehud Barak’s time in power approached its end and in desperation to try and stop the escalating violence in the series of negotiations around 2000/2001 Barak agreed to turning over the equivalent of 100% of the disputed territories to the Palestinians and crucially to gradually over a number of years absorbing the Palestinians claiming refugee status back into Israel. This was not what Arafat had expected, indeed he had made the demand because he’d assumed the Israelis would never agree to it. Realising that he was now in a position where he had to accept Israel’s offer and make peace he abruptly called an end to the conference and on his way out famously told the press that the Israeli’s could ‘go to hell’. There was nothing more that could be done and Israel entered its bloodiest and most threatening period since its war of independence.
For Arafat acceptance of a peace deal would have meant an end to his very reason for being; using terror to fight Israel, it was from this activity that he derived his power. A final agreement would have meant an end to Palestinian grievance, an end to terror, an end to world sympathy and an end to the large donations from supporters around the world. It would have meant the beginning of the far more serious and difficult activity of state building. For the Palestinian leadership and terrorist operatives there was never any question over which of the two scenarios they preferred.
Little has changed since then, actually hurrying into bringing the creation of a Palestinian state into being seems extremely low down the list of the Palestinian Authorities set of priorities right now. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas insisted he would not enter into any final status negotiations unless Netanyahu first accepted the creation of a Palestinian state, something he reckoned Netanyahu would never do. But with pressure from Obama and much to Abbas’ horror, a few days ago in his major policy address that’s exactly what Netanyahu did. The Palestinian spokes people quickly went into reaction and went ahead and delivered exactly the same speeches they’d prepared in the event of the Israeli Prime Minister not accepting a Palestinian state. They claimed that Netanyahu had ‘slammed shut the door’ to any peace negotiations, when clearly in reality he had fulfilled the very pre-conditions the Palestinians had laid down for such talks to begin.
The Palestinians have claimed that their grievance is over Netanyahu insisting any future Palestinian state could not be heavily militarised and that the Palestinians must accept Israel will be the Jewish state and theirs the Palestinian state. There is nothing new in this, Arafat was supposed to have recognised Israel’s right to exist before negotiations back in the early 1990s and as an obligation of Oslo was supposed to have amended the PLO charter so that it no longer called for Israel’s destruction, something they have still failed to comply with. As far as demilitarisation of the Palestinian state goes this was made clear as part of Israel’s acceptance of George Bush’s U.N backed Road Map back in 2003. Indeed there is nothing new about the games Abbas is playing, when he first became Palestinian Prime Minister during the time of the Sharon government he would often respond to Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners by cancelling his meetings with Sharon, claiming they’d expected larger numbers of terrorists to be released.
This is a reminder that Israeli good will gestures have more often than not been met by even more outrageous demands, protest and refusal to cooperate. While time and time again Israel has made difficult and dangerous concessions, offering just about everything in their power for peace, the Palestinians seem to have worked equally as tirelessly to avoid making peace at all costs. For the moment it seems that just as Israeli’s fear a Palestinian state will threaten their country’s existence the Palestinians fear a final peace agreement will weaken their campaign to destroy Israel.
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