Jewish World Review July 17 , 2000 / 14 Tamuz, 5760
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
BACK IN
THE DAYS when the Holy Land was still under colonial British mandate and Israel was
struggling to be born, Zionist leader Chaim Weizman remarked that if England even offered
the Jews a state "the size of a tablecloth," hed be in favor of accepting
it. With peace and any amount of land, said the man who later became Israels first
president, "we can build our future." Lets hope Yasser Arafat remembers Weizmans words during the crucial talks
with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak that President Clintons hosting at Camp
David. The Palestinian leader is being offered far more than "a tablecloth"
hes being offered some 90% of the West Bank and Gaza, plus a deal on Jerusalem and a
huge amount of seed money for development. But unfortunately, rather than grabbing
opportunities, the history of the Palestinian struggle has most often been been one of
missing them. When the United Nations offered to divide Palestine between Arabs and Jews in 1947, the
Palestinian Arabs loudly said no, went to war and ended up with nothing but hatred for
Israel and a million Palestinian refugees. When Israel won the Six-Day War 20 years later
and offered to return almost all the territories it occupied in exchange for peace, the
Palestinians again stubbornly refused. And when Israel and Egypt made their own
U.S.-brokered peace deal at Camp David in 1978, the Palestinians said they wouldnt
dream of signing on. The Zionist state, Arafat & Co. said, would simply "have to
disappear." The Israelis also have had their blind sides, traditionally refusing to consider the
idea of an independent Arab Palestine albeit a demilitarized one. The very idea of
a Palestinian state on their borders seemed too threatening. Yet much has changed in
recent years. There was the ground-breaking Madrid peace conference in 1991, an on-again,
off-again peace process and in recent years thanks to the late Yitzhak Rabin
some actual Palestinian autonomy. Now, both Arafat and Barak have come back to what may not be the very last chance at
peace, but is the closest and yet at the same time farthest both sides have been from a
final settlement of their differences. Clearly, both leaders are gambling in a high-stakes
game, and both have decided to go for broke even if it means risking the loss of some
political support at home. Barak, for example, has lost his coalition majority much of it because of
political posturing by knee-jerk right wingers who reject anything that even smells like a
compromise deal. But the former Israeli chief of staff, the first Israeli leader to be directly elected
by the Israeli public, knows he has a weapon even stronger than the support of other
politicians: According to the latest polls, no matter what the politicos are saying, a
clear majority of Israelis is behind the prime ministers peace initiatives. So Barak
is forging ahead, and when and if he has a deal, this brave soldier of peace will seek to
offer it for approval not to the parliament, but to a national referendum. Reformed terrorist Arafat also knows that extremists among the Palestinians will be out
for his blood if he concedes even an inch of land they believe is eternally theirs. Yet,
like Barak, Arafat knows that the majority of Palestinians (a thus far largely silent
majority) is tired of bloodshed, tired of no economic progress, tired of losing children
to war and desperately seeking peace and yes, maybe even agreeable to a smaller
state then they once dreamed of. To be sure, some Palestinian spokesmen like Hanan Ashrawi are still mouthing the old
slogans about all or nothing at all. And both sides have clamped a blackout on hard news
from Camp David. Its not the sort of thing that delights journalists. But this may
be one situation where its definitely the smartest move they could make. All
concerned parties, especially the Israelis and their freewheeling press and media-savvy
politicians, have a long history of leaking secret information, which at this point could
be far more injurious than it would be helpful. So what kind of deal are we likely to see if there is one (and some people believe
its already been pre-cooked)? One growing possibility, according to some well-placed
observers, is a real land-for-peace deal: an exchange of territories between the two
sides. The Israelis would evacuate further areas of the West Bank, and the Palestinians
will agree to a tradeoff in which some, though not all, Israeli settlements in the West
Bank would become Israeli territory. In turn, Israel would cede some unpopulated areas
along the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians and evacuate others among the 170,000 settlers
living on the West Bank. Israel also would turn over the Jordan Valley to the
Palestinians, who would then lease the land back to Israel a security guarantee for
all concerned. The long-burning question of the right of return of Palestinian refugees to what is now
Israel could be settled with another compromise: a reunification of a symbolic number of
refugees with their Israeli-Arab families and compensation for others, as well as for the
600,000 Jews forced to flee Arab lands in the wake of Israels birth. The highly emotional issue of Jerusalem is believed to be finding a solution in a
compromise deal in which both East and West Jerusalem would become a municipality of Arab
and Jewish boroughs united under Israeli sovereignty. The holy citys Islamic holy
places would remain under Palestinian supervision. Most important, a nascent Palestinian
state would establish its capital in a burgeoning eastern suburb of Jerusalem called Abu
Dis, an area that would henceforth be called El Quds Arabic for Jerusalem (a
compromise solution that this reporter first revealed in US News & World Report more
than four years ago). Israel would agree to recognize a demilitarized Palestinian state; the Palestinians
would sign off on an end of claims against and conflicts with the Jewish state. The United
States, European Union and Japan would provide major development funding to both sides. Will it happen? Clinton, who sees this as one of his most important last hurrahs, will
do everything he can to make sure it will. In the end though, the President is spinning
the wheel. When it comes to putting down the chips, its going to be up to the two
high-stakes gamblers themselves: Arafat and Barak. We can only pray they make the right
By Richard Z. Chesnoff
JWR contributor and veteran journalist
Richard Z. Chesnoff is a senior correspondent at US News
And World Report and a columnist at the NY Daily News. His latest book is Pack of Thieves: How Hitler & Europe
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