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August 3, 2001/Av 14, 5761, Vol. 53, No.43
What are they smoking?EditorialWhen the Camp David talks collapsed a year ago, after Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat rejected a sweeping offer from Israel, it was clear who wanted peace and who did not. When the Palestinian intifada was launched 10 months ago against Israel, it was clear who was attacking whom.A revisionist view that may be gaining force in this country and in Europe paints Arafat as a peace seeker; the "evidence" is that he allowed talks - ultimately fruitless - at the Red Sea resort of Taba in February. Israel and the United States are faulted as having been inflexible and underprepared for the talks. At the core is the notion that Israel's then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the United States' then-President Bill Clinton made crucial mistakes preparing for the Camp David meeting, then were discourteous to Arafat at the Maryland retreat. The European buy-in to this view is evident in the resolution taken by the G-8 leading industrial nations urging international monitors on the West Bank and in Gaza. Arafat long has wanted such a presence; the G-8 action rewards his turn to violence by treating him as the injured party. Concurrently, the Bush administration appears to be reviving policies of "moral equivalence," equating Israeli strikes at terrorist leaders with Palestinian suicide bombers striking teenagers. Ultimately, the current violence will subside and it may be possible to talk about peace. Such talks will not succeed unless the Palestinians, the Israelis, the United States and the rest of the world are clear about why the talks failed last year and how deliberately Arafat chose a path of violence. The revisionists can point to small failures on all sides, but doing so blurs the fact that the Palestinians started hurling stones at Western Wall worshippers, firing on Jewish settlers and sending suicide bombers to Israeli cites. The alternative to failed negotiations could be more negotiations, a relatively stable status quo, or violence. We know who chose that last, worst option. Jewish Renaissance Media |
