Decades after the failure of the Oslo paradigm to produce any beneficial results for Palestinians, the idea of the two-state solution continues to face ever-growing skepticism. It is becoming increasingly common for pundits and academics to acknowledge that Israel’s rampant colonization of Palestinian land, as well as permanently changing facts on the ground, have doomed any such prospects.
Despite this shift in public opinion and among the intelligentsia, the two-state solution is still the only solution on the agenda of policy-makers worldwide, and why not? It is convenient for them, it does not challenge their interests, and even though they know that it has been made impossible, the status quo is much more politically fortuitous than demanding actual concessions from Israel which might strain their relationship. After all, it is not they who need to live under a military dictatorship and settler colonialism.
Yet even after all of this, apologists for Israel claim that we only reached this point due to Palestinian intransigence, and the refusal of the Palestinian leadership to sign any peace treaty with Israel. Setting aside the ridiculous assertion that Israel was forced to violate the Geneva Conventions because the Palestinian Authority didn’t sign a treaty, what is often conveniently left out of the story is what exactly these “offers” entailed.
This is a common theme in Israeli Hasbara efforts, leaving out key context or information that would completely change the significance of an event. For example, when discussing the 1948 war, the focus is often on the number of the Arab states “ganging up” on Israel, in an attempt to imply numerical superiority. However, when the actual number of troops is inspected the question becomes not if the Israeli army outnumbered all the Arab ones combined, but how badly?
Following this same method, what has come to be known as the “peace process” is plagued with such cases. I have previously discussed the numerous problems with partition as a concept, as well as in practice, this is not the focus of this answer. Instead, I would like to set aside these objections and skepticism for a moment and look at the “peace process” and judge it even by the standards of those who support the two-state solution. The Camp David summit in 2000 is an excellent case study to attempt this, and it still serves as a representative microcosm of the negotiation process to this day.
Why Camp David specifically?
Camp David is one of the most emblematic instances of this kind of rhetoric, where the common “wisdom” to this day is that Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestinian Authority at the time, rejected an incredibly generous offer from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Prod any of the other periods of negotiation and you will find extreme similarities and parallels with Camp David, where the focus remains on the “offer” part without delving into any of the specifics or context of said offer, any counter-offers, or what was rejected.
Background:
In general, the quest for two states found its genesis in the diplomatic process in the 1970s which called for establishing a sovereign Palestinian state next to Israel. The first bilateral breakthrough in this process materialized in the -at the time- secret Oslo Accords where Palestinians, represented by the PLO, and Israelis agreed upon a declaration of principles that would lead to creating the Palestinian Authority. The Authority would act as an interim Palestinian government that would supposedly pave the way for a final settlement. These accords were mostly a declaration of principles which did not contain any parameters for how such a state would even look. As a matter of fact, the word “state” with regards to Palestinians was never mentioned once. It was two years later, in what is referred to as Oslo II, taking place in the Egyptian city of Taba, that negotiations earnestly began. In these negotiations more concrete parameters were discussed, as well as the logistics and method for instating the Palestinian Authority on the ground.
The Palestinian Authority was supposed to last no longer than 5 years, after which a sovereign Palestinian state would be established as a culmination of the negotiation process. Clearly, this did not materialize and the negotiation process stalled. In 2000, US. President Bill Clinton called for a summit at Camp David to try and nudge negotiations forward and put an end to the “conflict” once and for all.
The summit lasted for approximately two weeks, and needless to say, it failed in its objectives. Following this failure, there was a media frenzy blaming Arafat and the Palestinians for the negotiations breaking down.
The claim was that Barak offered the Palestinians everything they could ever want for peace and that Arafat simply threw that all away. Articles started emerging saying that this was the perfect test for Arafat’s intentions and that he failed miserably, and asserted that the Palestinians refused to make any concessions or compromise on anything.
Thus, it became part of the “canon” that the Palestinians had -once again- rejected a peace offer by Israel, proving that Israelis really have no partner for peace and that nothing could appease Palestinians.
Digging deeper:
Let’s step away from the sensationalism and media spins of Camp David and take a bit of a deeper look into what Barak offered, and why it was rejected.
To begin with, the often-repeated line that Barak offered the Palestinians the Gaza Strip and 96% of the West Bank for a state is completely untrue. Barak offered the Palestinians 96% of Israel’s definition of the West Bank, meaning they did not include any of the areas already under Israeli control, such as settlements, the Dead Sea, and large parts of the Jordan Valley. This meant that Barak effectively annexed 10% of the West Bank to Israel, with an additional 8-12% remaining under “temporary” Israeli control for a period of time.
In return for this annexation, Palestinians would be offered 1% of desert land near the Gaza Strip. Thus, Palestinians would need to give up 10% of the most fertile land in the West Bank, in exchange for 1% of desert land. Not to mention that if the past record is any indicator, the additional 8-12% under “temporary” Israeli control would remain so forever.
In addition to all of this, Israel demanded permanent control of Palestinian airspace, three permanent military installations manned by Israeli troops in the West Bank, Israeli presence at Palestinian border crossings, and special “security arrangements” along the borders with Jordan which effectively annexed additional land.
The cherry on top of all of these stipulations, is that Israel would be allowed to invade at any point in cases of “emergency”. As you can imagine, what constituted an emergency was left incredibly vague and up to interpretation. The Palestinian state would be demilitarized, and the Palestinian government would not be able to enter into alliances without Israeli permission.
None of these are ingredients for the creation of an actual sovereign state.
But the Israeli conditions did not end here. In the case of East Jerusalem, which was supposed to be the capital of the Palestinian state, Israel refused any form of Palestinian sovereignty over the majority of the city, including many Palestinian neighborhoods. It should be noted that the PA agreed to Israeli sovereignty over Jewish neighborhoods and the Kotel, and even proposed Israel annex settlements in East Jerusalem in return for land swaps elsewhere. This was met with Israeli intransigence, and an insistence that the Noble Sanctuary remain under Israeli sovereignty, and that a part of it should be reserved for Jewish worshippers.
Furthermore, when it came to the right of return, Israel refused to admit any responsibility for the millions of refugees it created. The only thing it offered was a very limited return of a very limited number of refugees over a very long period of time.
Ultimately, this “generous offer” amounted to turning the West Bank into non-contiguous cantons, crisscrossed by a network of settlements, roads and Israeli areas. Even the supposed “capital” of the Palestinian state would mostly be under Israeli control, with stipulations and conditions that stripped any real sovereignty from any area of the supposed Palestinian “state”. Not even the sky above Palestinian heads would be under their control, nor the water under their feet, as Israel still demanded access to water resources under the West Bank.
To add insult to injury, Israel was adamant that Arafat declare “the conflict over” with the signing of these accords, meaning that Palestinians could never ask for anything more after this.
As I’m sure you’ll agree, none of this was conducive for the establishment of a real, sovereign and viable Palestinian state. How could anyone accept a state where they don’t even have control over their own capital?
Even Shlomo Ben Ami, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, and one of the main negotiators at Camp David, later candidly admitted later that:
“Camp David was not the missed opportunity for the Palestinians, and if I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David, as well.”
As it stands, Palestinian aspirations cannot be allowed to exceed the ceiling of Israeli table scraps. What is acceptable to Palestinians never enters the discussion, which must always be tailored to what Israel is willing to concede. This becomes even more infuriating once you realize that Israel is not really conceding anything; ending its occupation and stopping its settlement activities is merely following international law. It is not a sacrifice -it should be the default position.
This is how all of the “generous” Israeli peace offers play out. The majority of people who hear about this on the news have no clue what the parameters of the offer are. All they hear is that the Palestinians have rejected yet another “peace” initiative by Israel. This is why Israel focuses on the number of offers, because it distracts from their content, similar to the above example regarding army numbers in 1948.
All of this feels completely irrelevant today. We’re talking about some failed negotiation summit from a couple of decades ago. Hell, many of its participants have actually passed away since. I brought attention to Camp David not specifically because I believe Camp David needs revisiting, but for it to serve as an archetypical example for how Israel has always approached negotiations with the Palestinians, and how any justified rejection of absurd stipulations leads to decades of accusations and smears.
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