OSLO CONTINUED:
FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE INTIFADA
TO CLINTON'S DECEMBER INITIATIVE:
(continued)
by
Arthur Bierman

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Let us examine in some detail the diplomatic developments between December 23rd and January 5th.

Immediately after receiving Clinton's proposal, Israel's foreign minister Shlomo Ben Ami returned home and presented the document to the "peace cabinet" for consideration. As described by him to an interviewer nine months later, the cabinet was far from enthusiastic. (22)

"The proposal was difficult for us to accept. No one came out dancing and singing, and Ehud (Barak) especially was perturbed."

One can easily understand Barak's "perturbation." As explained on CNN a few days later by Israeli journalist Daniel Ben Simon, the proposal meant that that the Israelis would "have to say goodbye to most of the settlements and half of Jerusalem and to the Temple Mount which is, for so many Jews, the most sacred place on earth."(23) There was still another "painful Israeli compromise" entailed by Clinton's "bridging proposal"--the provision replacing Israeli forces in the Jordan Valley by an international contingent.

Despite these misgivings, Barak's peace cabinet voted to accept Clinton's proposal in the spirit in which it had been offered -- that is, that it provide the framework for a final peace settlement. Further negotiations would then only be devoted to the details of implementation. However, given Israel's unhappy experience with the Camp David summit, the cabinet decided to make its acceptance conditional upon a corresponding Palestinian acceptance. It voted, therefore, to delay its official answer until Arafat had given his response to the Clinton proposal. To avoid, however, the appearance of procrastination, Ben Ami informed the White House on December 27th and Arafat on December 29th of the cabinet's positive response. From here on, the Foreign Minister told the Palestinian leader, all further discussions "should only be within the framework of the parameters and how to implement them." (24)

Ben Ami's account is not only supported by Gilead Sher's published observations as participant in the final stage negotiations (25) but also by other contemporary sources. For example: On the previously mentioned December 28th program, CNN's Jerusalem reporter Matthew Chance stated that: "Ehud Barak has already indicated he'll accept the U.S. plan." And Gilead Sher, Chief Israeli Negotiator was quoted by CNN as saying that "we consider these ideas (Clinton's parameters) to be the basis for discussion, providing that they will remain, as they are now, a basis for discussion acceptable for the Palestinians." (26) On December 29, President Clinton held a news conference at which he described his role in the Mideast peace process: "I put some ideas on the table. They go beyond where we were at Camp David. And the Israelis said that they would agree to try to close the remaining gaps within the parameters of the ideas I put forward if the Palestinians will agree. " (27)

A very similar statement was issued by the Israeli government on December 31, 2000: "The State of Israel gave a positive answer in principle to President Clinton that is conditioned on a positive answer by the other side." It went on to say: "If the Palestinians accept President Clinton's proposals, it will then be possible to continue the (peace) process while adhering to our principle of no right of return to Israel and the Prime minister's intention not to sign any document that transfers sovereignty over the Temple Mount to the Palestinians." (28) (We should note that since the Clinton outline gave Israel sole right to determine the return of refugees into Israel and since it also advocated granting each side only limited or partial sovereignty over the whole Temple Mount complex, Western Wall included, Barak's above stated two conditions were not incompatible with the Clintonian parameters.) Finally, on the morning of January 2, 2001, Clinton's press secretary Siewert explained Arafat's impending visit to the White House in the following terms: "The chairman agreed to come here in the hopes that we could reach some sort of common understanding about the parameters of a negotiation if it were to take place. We have heard from the Israelis that they think that such a negotiation is worthwhile, and they think that they would be happy to sit down. But we are waiting to hear back on a final answer from the Palestinians." (29)

As we can see from these citations, not only had Israel responded in a timely fashion to Clinton's proposal but had also responded positively -- that is, it had agreed to accept Clinton's parameters as defining the framework for further negotiations, if the Palestinians were prepared to do the same.

How did the Palestinian respond to Clinton's December 23rd proposal? We should first note that Arafat, instead of replying to Clinton within the requested five day period, delayed his answer until January 2nd. Whether this was intended to delay negotiations until after Clinton's term had expired, or whether it reflected Arafat's genuine inability to reach a quick decision on the American proposal is not known. But whatever the reason, this delay jeopardized not only the success of Clinton's last minute effort but also of the whole Oslo peace process. This follows from the fact that all Israeli public opinion surveys were predicting that Sharon, a well known opponent of Oslo, would win the up coming February 6th elections.

For over a week the world waited anxiously for Arafat's response. But while the PA was temporarily silent, some important Palestinian voices raised substantial objections to the President's proposal. Thus, Marwan Barghouthi, the West Bank's Fatah Secretary, predicted that it would not be acceptable to the Palestinian people. "In an interview with the Egyptian Television broadcast tonight , Barghouthi noted that "nothing that would negate the Palestinians' right of return could be acknowledged," and added that "this right is sacred under Resolution 194." (30) Also, on the same day, the Jerusalem Al-Quds published an editorial which stated that "the central issue in the Palestinian --Israeli conflict ..is the issue of the refugees and their right of return to their towns and villages," and that it could not be traded in to gain Palestinian sovereignty in East Jerusalem. (31)

The official Palestinian response was finally delivered on January 1, 2001, as a memorandum issued in the name of the Palestinian negotiating team -- and on the next day, Arafat personally presented the same text to the Clinton White House. (32) While the document formally accepted the American proposal, its actual message, namely rejection, can be immediately deduced from its opening statement -- that the U.S. proposals "fail to satisfy the conditions required for a permanent peace"-- as well as from its concluding sentence -- that "we cannot, however, accept a proposal that secures neither the establishment of a viable Palestinian state nor the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes." The main points of the document are summarized on the very first page:

"We wish to explain why the United States proposals, taken together and as presented without clarification, fail to satisfy the conditions required for a permanent peace. As it stands now, the United States proposal would:

"1. divide a Palestinian state into three separate cantons connected and divided by Jewish only and Arab only roads and jeopardize the Palestinian state's viability;". --

"2. divide Palestinian Jerusalem into a number of unconnected islands separate from each other and from the rest of Palestine;"

"3. force Palestinians to surrender the right of return of Palestinian refugees...."

And a few paragraphs later, the memorandum returns to the refugee issue with the following strong assertion:

"The essence of the right of return is choice. Palestinians should be given the option to choose where they wish to settle, including return to the homes from which they were driven. There is no historical precedent for a people abandoning their fundamental right to return to their homes...We will not be the first to do so. Recognition of the right of return and the provision of choice to refugees is a prerequisite for the closure of the conflict." (My emphasis.)

The memorandum raised also serious questions concerning Clinton's proposal that Israel and the Palestinians share sovereignty over the Temple Mount complex.

"The United States formulations on the Haram [the Arab name for the Temple Mount] are problematic. First the proposal appears to recognize Israeli sovereignty under the Haram by implying that it has a right, which it voluntarily relinquishes, to excavate behind the Western Wall (i.e., the area under the Haram, Moreover, the "Western Wall" extends to areas beyond the Wailing Wall,..."

In short, Arafat raised serious objections to every important item in Clinton's proposal-- a circumstance which led Dennis Ross to claim that while Arafat "said yes, ..he added reservations that meant he rejected every single one of the things he was supposed to give." (33) The same conclusion, that Arafat had effectively rejected the Clinton proposal, was also reached by Robert Malley and Hussein Agha, two well informed observers much more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than Dennis Ross. (34) After listing a number of reasons why Arafat distrusted Clinton's diplomacy -- the offer was not "final" but consisted only of parameters requiring further negotiations; Arafat felt pressured by Clinton's and Barak's impending departures from power to accept a deal which might never materialize; a better proposal might be forthcoming if he waited for the new American administration-- Malley and Agha concluded that "Arafat preferred to continue negotiations under the comforting umbrella of international resolutions rather than within the confines of America's uncertain proposals." Which is a gentle way of saying that Arafat had rejected Clinton's proposal.

Interestingly enough, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi Ambassador to Washington reached the identical conclusion. Based upon extensive interviews with the Saudi prince, a recent New Yorker article by Elsa Walsh presents Bandar's account of his involvement in these December negotiations. (35) Pressed by Clinton to assist his last minute peace effort, Bandar was first reluctant to participate, but changed his mind when shown the President's bridging proposal. According to Walsh, "Bandar recognized that in its newest iteration the peace plan was a remarkable development. It gave Arafat almost everything he wanted, including the return of about ninety-seven percent of the land of the occupied territories; all of Jerusalem except the Jewish and Armenian quarters, with Jews preserving the right to worship at the Temple Mount; and a thirty-billion-dollar compensation fund."

Persuaded of the proposal's excellence, Bandar met with Arafat prior to his January 2nd White House meeting and urged him to accept it. Arafat had seemed receptive to Bandar's argument, which impression left the prince angry and confused when told the next day of Arafat's negative answer to the White House offer. According to Walsh, it was Bandar's belief that "Arafat... was committing a crime against the Palestinians - in fact, against the entire region."

Our claim that Arafat had effectively rejected Clinton's parameters receives additional support from a January 16 memorandum issued by Arafat's own Fatah Movement. Citing no fewer than 44 (!!!) reasons for rejecting the American proposal, it repeated the essence of Arafat's January 1st letter, but expressed it in much harsher language. (36) Thus, where the letter had thanked President Clinton "for the tremendous effort he has expended in promoting a just and lasting peace", the Fatah memorandum attacked "the monopoly of the Zionist Clinton administration to the peace process". It rejected also the "principle of Judaization...of Jerusalem", rejected "any rights of Jews in the Aqsa Mosque that must not be desecrated by the Zionist extremists", rejected any "talk over the so called Wailing Wall" and defended the right of return of refugees on the ground that it would "help Jews get rid of the racist Zionism."

Three comments are in order concerning this Palestinian response. The first notes once again the Palestinian insistence upon the unlimited right of return of refugees to Israel and their corresponding refusal to acknowledge that it threatened Israel's very existence as a Jewish state. The second notes the Palestinian objection to even the slightest hint of a Jewish connection to the area under the Haram - an area where the Jewish temple was located two thousand years ago. And the third notes the repeated Palestinian claim that the Clinton parameters would lead to a cantonized West Bank. This last is an assertion which Dennis Ross, ordinarily not given to strong language, called a "canard". He went on to say: "Yet with 97 percent of the territory in Palestinian hands, there would have been no cantons. Palestinian areas would not have been isolated or surrounded." (37)

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