Just to balance my post a few days ago about Arafat’s role in the middle-eastern peace process, here’s a contrasting view of arafat’s role in Palestinian/Isreali relations (or lack thereof). My last post contained an article by the political scientist Stephen Zunes opining that Arafat was often the excuse rather than the reason for the failures in achieving a peaceful resolution to the palestinian/israeli peace process. It’s only fair to point out that while Arafat may not have been directly responsible for many of the atrocities committed by factions under the PLO umbrella he arguably contributed to the failure of the Oslo Accords and their final peace talks chaired by Bill Clinton at Camp David in July 2000. The political writer Seth Gitell had the following take on the failure of this process, pinning the blame on Clinton’s attempts to harry both sides into striking a potentially unworkable deal (to be fair, he didn’t have much time) and an unwillingness on the part of Arafat to accept basic tenets of the deal from the outset
“Clinton has never understood that a steadfast and even-handed approach by America to issues between the Israelis and Palestinians is more than likely to produce a Camp David-style impasse. This has happened at each juncture during the “peace process.” When the Palestinians ventured off the Oslo reservation, they were met with only the most polite admonishments. After Arafat gave the green light to violence when Israel opened the tunnel in Jerusalem, the United States responded tepidly. The Clinton administration’s even-handed missives — warning both sides to avoid intemperate actions — would almost be comic if not for their damaging effect.
This permissiveness on the part of the Clinton administration — the looking the other way at Arafat’s violations of Oslo, the winks, the nods — served to encourage an ultimate breakdown in the negotiations. Because Arafat came to believe he could use Clinton as a lever against the Israelis, he learned that he should always hold out for more. Even at the beginning of Camp David, this strategy seemed to work for Arafat. When Barak offered civil control of parts of Jerusalem, Arafat balked. Barak came back with a more generous proposal. Knowing that the Israelis are weary, that their morale is low, that they recently unilaterally surrendered Lebanon, Arafat had every incentive to push for the maximum — and then walk away.”
The justification for Palestinian involvement in the Camp David talks is described below while the official Palestinian comments on the failure of this process can be found here
“The Arab consensus prior to Oslo was that a resolution of the conflict must be based on the exchange of land for peace. The Palestinian leadership, for its part, would not accept a peace process outside the framework of international legality. However, Israel rejected any framework in which it acknowledged it was an occupier, and refused to make any commitment to withdraw and stop building settlements. The impasse was broken only when Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat stepped in and, contrary to his own instructions to his Washington representatives, agreed to negotiate with Israel without any conditions and in an open-ended process. The Oslo Accords were the result.”
This statement goes on to state that Israel “rejected any framework in which it acknowledged it was an occupier, and refused to make any commitment to withdraw and stop building settlements.”. This was hardly a surprise to Arafat or any other member of the PLO. Indeed, one feels Clinton’s frustration at his “failure” to broker peace when the Palestinian stance from the very beginning seemed highly unlikely to bring about any agreement, despite concessions from the Isreali government. Whatever your beliefs on his attempts to reign in the more extreme factions within the PLO, as leader of the PLO, Arafat could not abdicate responsibility for the failure of the Oslo accords. If you consider the acts of horrific violence and retaliation perpetrated by both sides since, this failure is saddening.
In saying this, this is a hugely complex issue with contrasting opinions on both sides of justice, blame and solutions. In a conflict such as this a neutral observer often concludes that no party is innocent, none is entirely to blame and the greatest casualty is the thousands of people who have lost their lives in the many years of fighting.