IsraelPalestine by Alan Dowty

Author:Alan Dowty [Dowty, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781509554836
Published: 2023-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

The major Israeli demand, an end to Palestinian attacks on Israelis, had been a key provision of every single one of the agreements concluded between the two sides, but attacks had continued with little apparent PLO effort to prevent them. More Israelis were being killed than before the Oslo process began. Most Israelis felt that the PA was giving a “green light” to extremist groups to carry out such attacks, in order to increase pressure on Israel. Furthermore, the PA was systematically ignoring the arms limitations of the agreements, and was inciting the Palestinian public rather than preparing it for coexistence with Israel. Arafat, in Israeli eyes, was not truly committed to a two-state solution, but remained intent on the “phased” program for destroying Israel. Why should Israel aid him in this enterprise by providing him with a base of operations?

Because of these vastly different conceptions of the peace process on the two sides, Israel and the Palestinian Authority were still some distance apart at Camp David, despite the agreed framework. Mahmoud Abbas wrote a year later that the Palestinians were unable to make any additional concessions since they had already made the key concession in accepting Resolution 242 in 1988 (Abbas 2001). Gilead Sher, a member of the Israeli team, writes that “even if Camp David had ended with an agreement, it is highly doubtful that Barak had the political stamina to carry through his ambitious move” (Sher 2001: 239). In fact, both Israel and the PA would have had great difficulty selling such an agreement to their own publics. According to polls carried out in late July 2000 – immediately after Camp David – by Jacob Shamir and Khalil Shikaki, 57 percent of Israelis thought that Barak’s position was “too much of a compromise,” while 68 percent of Palestinians thought Arafat’s rejection was “just right,” and a solid majority of Palestinians thought Arafat had conceded too much on Jerusalem, Jewish settlements, and security arrangements (Shamir and Shikaki 2002: 190).

In January 2001 representatives of the two sides met again in Taba, the Egyptian resort town on the Gulf of Aqaba, to make one last stab at a final settlement. The Taba talks represented the closest approach to agreement up to that moment; by all accounts, both sides felt the time pressure and made serious efforts to close the remaining gap. A record of the Taba talks was kept by the only outside observer, European Union representative Miguel Moratinos of Spain. Moratinos revised his account in response to comments from both sides until he had a final version confirmed by both. A year after Taba, this document was published by the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz (Eldar 2002).

The Taba negotiations were based on proposals (the “Clinton parameters”) made by US President Bill Clinton during his last days in office. The establishment of a Palestinian state was taken for granted; the June 4, 1967 lines (i.e. the 1949 armistice lines) would be the “basis” for the border between Israel and Palestine, with agreed land swaps.

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