by Hanan Ashrawi

Despite repeated Palestinian messages of caution that his move lacked sufficient preparation and that the Israeli position was a non-starter, in July 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak persuaded US President Clinton to convene a summit meeting at Camp David.

 Willfully disregarding all advice to the contrary, Barak grasped his notorious “red lines” and sought to convince Clinton that he could extract a final “peace agreement” from Arafat with a little bit of help (and pressure) from his friend Bill.

It did not take much imagination to forecast the failure of Camp David or to recognize the flaws inherent in a concept of “peace” that was based on coercing the Palestinians into self-negation and into relinquishing both lands and rights that would perpetuate rather than “end the conflict.”

Now that Barak’s shortsighted policies have backfired, he is adding injury to insult by his massive military assault on the captive Palestinian people and by the cruel strangulation of our towns and villages in a compound and cruel siege.

Once again, Barak has failed to understand (and to deal with) Palestinian realities and the requirements of a genuine peace.

Following his abysmal failure on both fronts, and in his drive to save his political career, Barak is once again attempting to peddle used goods to the Palestinians in a desperate bid to create the impression among the Israeli electorate that he can still “deliver”--whether peace or the Palestinians.

His concept of a phased or gradual permanent status is a euphemism for a permanent transitional phase.

As in the previous disastrous interim phase, any postponed issues are liable to be prejudicially preempted by Israeli unilateral measures (note the 52% increase in settlement expansion since the signing of the Declaration of Principles in 1993). Thus to postpone the issues of Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees even further would be to condemn them to further manipulation and injustice.

The 10% of the West Bank territory that Barak is “willing” to return to the Palestinians is far below the 40% that was supposed to be returned in the third phase of redeployment. However, it is perfectly consistent with the Sharon plan that purported to “give” the Palestinians 54% of the West Bank.

Consistent with the Sharon plan as well is the immediate annexation of the “settlement blocks,” the water sources, and the “security zone” in the Jordan Valley—thus completing the encirclement and the fragmentation of Palestine as a totally non-viable mini-state.

In return for this self-destruction, the Palestinian “state” would “gain” recognition from Barak’s government as a pseudo-state within the state of Israel, entirely surrounded and subjugated by Israel.

To add to this unique formula, Barak has not intimated, even in a whisper, any intention of dismantling existing Jewish settlements in Palestine. If the second intifada has proved anything, it is the blatant injustice of these settlements planted on Palestinian land and forming the source of constant friction, violence, and threat to the Palestinian people.

Thus, having failed to sell his defective goods at Camp David, and having directly brought about this latest tragic explosion, Barak is attempting to reduce and repackage his used merchandise and to vend it in installments as “new and improved” wares.

If the original Camp David “offer” was entirely unacceptable, by what stretch of the imagination could Barak hope to “sell” the Palestinians a “Camp-David-Minus”? The underlying assumption of gullibility must be horrendous.

After the tragic loss of 300 lives, the pain of 10,000 wounded Palestinians, the shelling of hundreds of homes, the uprooting of thousands of olive and fruit trees, the incarceration and economic deprivation of a whole nation, Barak still “doesn’t get it.”

Fearing that Clinton might “get it,” Barak issued his latest directive to the American President asking him to stay out of it.

Having reluctantly and belatedly accepted the idea of a fact-finding mission (rather than a commission of inquiry), Barak is now insisting on restricting any political moves to the lethal occupier-occupied equation.

The outcome is as predictable as the total post-Camp David breakdown.

With Yossi Beilin on the one hand trying to persuade the Americans to get back into the game and to broker an agreement before January 20, 2001, Barak is telling them not to bother.

After recruiting Clinton himself to save Barak (in his infamous post-Camp David interview on Israeli television), and after selling him the Israeli version of peace (the “American paper” at Camp David), Barak is now declaring that the Americans have no position or proposal worth considering.

The snub to Clinton is resounding.

The Barak “bilateral” approach betrays a mentality that views the Palestinian question as an internal Israeli issue, still subject to the asymmetry of power of the occupation.

Given the European preoccupation with the Mad Cow disease and the American obsession with the chad count phenomenon, a clear political vacuum is playing into the hands of the occupation.

By excluding the Americans (and others), Barak is also avoiding any kind of monitoring and accountability, even of the mildest most tolerant kind.

The exclusion also allows Barak to keep his “options” open.

An “emergency” national unity government (that also includes Sharon) needs an ongoing crisis and emergency conditions.

To feed these conditions, as well as to demonstrate that he can outdo the Likud in his policies of cruelty and collective victimization towards the Palestinians, Barak wants a free hand to escalate his repressive measures without American “interference.”

This way, he can still pander to the extremists, appease the settlers, and gain his “credentials” as the candidate who can still “crush” the Palestinians—even while he is claiming to be the only one capable of bringing them to the peace table.

Clearly, Barak has not drawn the proper conclusions from the debacle of his simultaneous forays into defective peace making and brutal war mongering. Settlements and oppression negate any peace partnership with the Palestinians. A unilateral, illegal, and unjust concept of peace is a declaration of war.

One thing remains constant: the Palestinians cannot be brought to their knees. Neither coercive “peace” nor brute force can defeat the will of a people bent on freedom, dignity, and independence.

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