The Weekly Standard
04/25/2002

Myths of the Intifada
Yasser Arafat has propagated three myths about the deals he turned down. Now
Dennis Ross has set the record straight.
by Fred Barnes

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/168lewqp.a
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PALESTINIAN and other apologists for Yasser Arafat have propagated three
myths about his failure to reach peace with Israel. And only now--two years
after Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed because of Arafat's
intransigence--is the truth becoming known. This is mostly thanks to Dennis
Ross, the Middle East negotiator for both the first Bush administration and
President Clinton.

The first myth is that the final deal offered to Arafat would have created a
new Palestinian state fragmented into four "cantons" on the West Bank, each
surrounded by Israeli territory, none connected to Gaza. It was
understandably unacceptable to the Palestinians. The second is that Arafat
actually accepted a later, more generous peace settlement, only to have it
nullified by the election of Ariel Sharon as Israeli prime minister in
February 2001. And the third is that this final offer, an official United
States proposal made by Clinton, was never put on paper, making it a matter
not to be taken seriously, then or now. (Yes, the myths conflict. Arafat is
said to have turned down one final deal but accepted another, later, final
offer.)

Myth number one has an element of truth. Indeed, the terms of the peace
settlement offered by then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak at Camp David
in July 2000 involved four separate clusters of territory on the West Bank
and no land link to Gaza. Arafat said no and didn't make a counteroffer.
Instead, in September, he started a violent new intifada, or insurrection,
against Israel. But the myth, persistently voiced by such Arafat
sympathizers as James Zogby of the Arab American Institute and the
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, is that this was the final peace
proposal. It wasn't.

Following the Camp David summit, Arafat asked for another meeting, according
to Ross, and was told he would need to be prepared to accept a deal before a
new summit would be set up. So Arafat "agreed to set up a private channel
between his people and the Israelis," Ross told Brit Hume on "Fox News
Sunday" on April 21. Arafat knew the United States was "poised to present
our ideas" when he ordered a new intifada. The United States asked Arafat to
prevent violence from erupting after Sharon's provocative visit to the
Temple Mount in Jerusalem and he said he would. "He didn't lift a finger,"
Ross said.

In December 2000, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were brought to
Washington. And on December 23, President Clinton presented a new plan to
them. The Palestinians would get 97 percent of the West Bank, Arab
neighborhoods in East Jerusalem would become the capital of the new
Palestinian state, refugees would be allowed to return to Palestine but not
Israel, and a $30 billion fund would be established to compensate refugees.
This was the final offer: The cantons were gone and a land link to Gaza was
included.

And that leads into myth two, that Arafat accepted the fresh and far more
generous proposal. True, he said yes when he met with Clinton on January 2,
2001, in the Oval Office. "Then he added reservations that basically meant
he rejected every single one of the things he was supposed to give," Ross
said. He rejected the idea Israelis would have sovereignty over the Western
Wall in Jerusalem and other religious sites. He rejected the scheme for
refugees and what Ross called "the basic ideas on security . . . So every
single one of the ideas that was asked of him, he rejected." How can Ross be
so sure of that? He was in the room with Clinton and Arafat when it
happened.

As for myth three, Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi and others have
dismissed the U.S. offer, which the Israelis under Barak were willing to
accept, as so inconsequential it wasn't even written down and publicly
announced. But by late 2000, Ross said, Americans had learned Arafat's
negotiating style. Any formal offer would be taken as the floor for further
negotiations requiring more Israeli concessions. But with the Clinton
administration soon to leave office, there wasn't time to allow Arafat to
prolong talks. "We wanted them to understand we meant what we said," Ross
said. "You don't accept it, it's not for negotiation, this is the end of it,
we withdraw it . . . It couldn't be the floor for negotiations. It was the
roof." So for Arafat, it was take it or leave it. He left it, and soon the
negotiating environment changed with the election of Sharon and George W.
Bush.

In truth, the offer was written down when it was initially presented by
Clinton in December. "He went over it at dictation speed," Ross said. After
Clinton left the meeting, Ross stayed behind to make certain the Palestinian
negotiators had gotten "every single word." They had. A footnote: Ross
insists the Palestinian negotiators were ready to accept the offer. They
"understood this was the best they were ever going to get. They wanted
[Arafat] to accept it." He refused. Why? Ross believes Arafat simply doesn't
want to end the conflict with Israel. His career is governed by struggle and
leaving his options open. "For him to end the conflict is to end himself,"
Ross said.

What's important about the history of peace talks in the Middle East is what
it tells us about Arafat. The inescapable conclusion is that he will never
reach a settlement with Israelis leading to two countries, Israel and
Palestine, living side by side in peace. The Israelis? An honest recounting
of the Clinton-led peace talks shows they were willing, though hardly eager,
to make substantial concessions to reach a settlement. Had Arafat gone
along, Ross believes Barak could have sold the deal to the Israeli people,
even as Palestinian terrorism continued and Sharon's election victory
loomed. Maybe so, but that was a moment in time that, because of Arafat, has
now passed away.

Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.