The Straites Times - Friday, October 11, 2002

The Myths that prevent a real Palestinian peace – by Janadas Devan

International public opinion overwhelmingly favours the Palestinians. But that has not fazed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The only public, besides Israel’s, that concerns him is America’s. There, opinion is still pro-Israel.

There are many reasons for this. The power of the Israeli lobby is one. That Israel is democracy, unlike most Arab states, is another? The Holocaust, and America’s genuine attachment to a Jewish homeland as restitution for a crime unique in history, is yet another.

But none of this explains the distrust Americans feel towards Palestinians. That is chiefly due to the skill with which Israeli spokesmen and their US apologists have weaved a number of myths about Palestinians.

Myth one: Terrorism is endemic among Palestinians. No matter how justified their cause, they cannot be trusted. They brought terrorism to the region.

Not True.

The first instance of large-scale terrorism in the region occurred in 1946, when Britain still held Palestinian mandate. The perpetrators were Israelis.

An extremist group, the Irgun – led by none other than Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, both future prime ministers – blew up King David Hotel in Jerusalem.

British administrators and soldiers were the targets, but many others were also killed. In all, 91 died – 41 Arabs, 28 Britons, 17 Jews, one Greek and one Egyptian.

Most Jews were repulsed by the attack, but the terrorism continued. One of the most horrendous acts occurred in 1948, when Stern Gang, another terrorist group, assassinated Count Folke Bernadotte, a United Nations mediator who negotiated ceasefires in the first Arab-Israeli war.

Count Bernadotte, a Schindler-like figure who had helped rescue thousands of Jewish women from Nazi concentration camps in World war II, was accused of favouring the Arab.

To be sure, Palestinians too committed atrocities. There are no angels in the fight. But Palestinians did not invent terrorism.

Myth two: Israel proved its desire for peace by signing the 1993 Oslo accords, a land-forpeace deal. Oslo’s breakdown seven years later is due solely to the Palestinian Authority (PA), and its leader, Mr Yasser Arafat.

Not True.

Oslo was certainly significant. The PA was established; it got jurisdiction, but not sovereignty, over slivers of land; Israel agreed to a Palestinian state at some future date.

But with each passing year, that state became more of a mirage. Settlement activities in the occupied territories accelerated after Oslo, and the number of Jewish settlers doubled. According to B’Tselem, an Israeli human-rights group, the settlements now effectively control 41.9 per cent of West Bank.

Land for peace? Israelis got more land; and in return, Palestinians were to offer
Peace, gratis. Is it any wonder they revolted?

Myth three: July 2000, at Camp David. Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak offered Mr Arafat statehood. He refused and turned to violence-proof he wants to destroy Israel.

Not True.

Mr Barak’s offer – nothing in writing, all oral – was indeed tremendous. Mr. Arafat’s response was clumsy, but he did not reject the offer.

As Mr Robert Malley, a member of the US team at Camp David, makes clear in an exhaustive account in the New York Review Of Books, the PA accepted a number of things. It accepted Israeli sovereignty over the Wailing Wall, the Jewish quarter of the Old City and Jewish neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem – none part of Israel before the 1967 war.

It accepted that the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees must respect Israel’s demographic concerns, but wanted a formula to finesse the issue with its ground. The suggestion that the talks broke down over the PA’s insistence that refugees had a right of return to Israel proper “is simply untrue”, says Mr Mally.

And it accepted Israeli annexation of West bank territory to accommodate settlements, though it insisted on a one-for-one swop of land ‘of equal size and value”.

But Mr Barak’s offer would have annexed 9 percent of pre-1967 Israel. Thousands of Palestinians would have been incorporated into Israel, and Israel would have encroached deep into the Palestinian State.

It was only in December 2000 that former US President Bill Clinton presented his plan, suggesting an Israeli annexation of 4 to 6 per cent, in exchange for a land swop of 1 to 3 per cent. The next month, at Taba, the PA proposed an equivalent 3.1 per cent land swop.

Within days, Mr Clinton left office; and soon after, Mr Barak was replaced by Sharon – the very same man who had earlier rejected Oslo, Camp David and Taba.

And they say peace is possible only if Arafat is removed from power?


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