A few quick thoughts on the welcome retirement of Ehud Barak.
He, more than anyone else, destroyed the peace process. He was elected in 1999 on a Labor Party peace platform, arguing that the incumbent prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, had destroyed chances for peace. He promised to reach a deal with the Palestinians who welcomed his election along with an ecstatic Israeli peace camp.
But following the election he immediately set out to humiliate the Palestinians, ignoring Yasir Arafat’s pleas to start talking and instead pretended to focus on reaching a deal with Syria so he could end run the Palestinians. He ke them waiting for six months, a strategy designed to strengthen his hand against them.
He repeatedly ignored requirements in the Oslo agreement for territorial withdrawal. To this day he proudly says he never agreed to yield territory (unlike his predecessor).
In 2000, he decided to push for an all-or-nothing agreement. Arafat said no, that it was too soon, especially given the good will that Barak had frittered away. Clinton agreed with Arafat that first Barak needed to lived up to the agreements Israel had already signed. (Clinton has publicly regretted being duped by Barak)
But Barak insisted on a summit. Israelis, Palestinians and Americans commenced negotiations at Camp David in July where Barak refused even to talk to Arafat directly. He famously treated Arafat as some indigenous local chief while he was a head of state.
Barak put some ideas on the table, all in the spirit of take-it-or-leave-it. Barak and the Dennis Ross-led American “peace team” coordinated every step of negotiations which were essentially a gang-up. Arafat, who had said from the get-go that he could not reach a deal until Israel lived up to its previous agreements, refused to accept Barak’s offers which, in any case, never came close to meeting Arafat’s demand for a state in 22% of historic Palestine.
Following negotiations, Barak announced that he had “torn the mask” off the face of the Palestinians. Although negotiations continued, Barak was now in the business of demonizing them. By the time he made the Palestinians a decent offer, it was too late. Trust had been destroyed.
In the fall, he gave Ariel Sharon, leader of the opposition, permission to take a stroll with a few thousand followers on the Temple Mount or the Haran al Sharif. Arafat had begged him in a desperate visit to Barak’s home not to permit that, knowing the explosion that would follow. It did. And then Intifada II broke out following Barak’s decision to shoot dead 13 unarmed Israeli Arab demonstrators in the country itself.
The West Bank and Gaza exploded. Peace was dead and Barak was replaced by Ariel Sharon.
While Barak’s policies were no worse than Sharon or Netanyahu, he is the only one who was elected to achieve peace on the Labor ticket. In my view, he is then worse than either of them.
Now he leaves, bodies strewn everywhere.
Palestinians will celebrate Barak’s downfall but their contrempt for him will never match that of the Israeli people he betrayed. They voted for peace. He gave them war. They voted for hope. He destroyed hope.
(Best book on the subject: THE TRUTH ABOUT CAMP DAVID by Clayton Swisher)
Good post. I was not aware of all of the behind-the-scenes tactics in Camp David, before, during, or afterward.
To the commenter, above: Obama tried PEACE? When was this?
Obama’s expanded wars and created more non-war-wars, in an effort to come to a peaceful settlement? WHERE?
Sorry, but this is simply inane.
It’s too bad Obama has been all hype and no hope, but you have to at least start with this premise if you are going to get anywhere in this world.
Obama; run by the same people who bombed Gaza for a week or so.. Sure, he wanted peace.. you betcha.
I takes bravery to be a peace-maker. Obama strive for it but he (like many Palestinians) lives in Israeli-occupied territory (ruled by the AIPAC proxy). If Barak did at one time want peace, he got talked out of it. No-one lives in a vacuum, especially not political leaders. Israelis are rather fond of their settlement regime and have come to regard the Israeli-settler parts of West Bank and Golan as “part” of Israel, not at all surprising since their leaders encourage this thinking and since the method of Israeli “acquisition” of these lands is exactly the method by which Israel auto-established in 1948 — aggressive terror and war.
No-one is willing to cut the baby in half by saying the illogical (but so necessary): “Israel is entitled to its pre-1967 territory but not entitled to any more at all, either temporarily or permanently, except as freely negotiated with the Palestinians AND must remove its settlers and demolish or dismantle its settlements and wall immediately and not re-establish them again during the occupation”.
Wish the UNSC would say this, again (see UNSA 465 (1980)) and this time with “teeth” (sanctions for non-compliance).
Always remember and never forget: Politicians will say anything to get elected. You may have wanted to believe he wanted peace, based on what he’s said, but I am sure Obama did not want that peace..
Therein lies the problem.
We are not ruled by Obama. We are run by AIPAC, as is Obama, and they certainly do not want peace!