In 1987 in Gaza (at the time under military Israeli administration, with schooling and health care organized by UNRWA and growing in might though still very quiet Hamas (created in 1982 by Muslim Brotherhood with sheikh Yassin as its deciding force) another Israeli was stabbed to death. Such attacks occurred not constantly, but not rarely. More about Gaza soon. Few days later 4 Palestinians from Gaza were driving home from work in Israel when their car was hit by a truck on the crossroads. They were killed. It was an accident, but Gazans interpreted it as revenge for stabbing an Israeli. That is how the first intifada started.
Today it is called the intifada of stones, but they were stones, knives and Molotov cocktails. During next 6 years 1087 Palestinians and 160 Israelis were killed with over 3000 Israelis wounded.
During the intifada the series of meeting started taking place between Israeli officials and Arafat, living at the time in Tunisia. Particularly important was Madrid meeting in 1991 after the first Gulf War. It was important because the invitation was issued by President Bush, but Michail Gorbachev was also in attendance and the USSR was a co-sponsor. Invited delegation came from Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Jordanian delegation co opted Palestinian delegation. Considering that a lot of Israeli-Palestinian conflict was de facto hot spark of cold war with PLO financed, trained, armed and supported by Soviet Russia which also supported Egypt and Syria in their wars with Israel, such initiative at the time and in the year when Soviet Union collapsed was very important.
The Oslo peace process was initiated in Oslo in 1993 and thought as a way to achieve two state solution. Israel was first to partially leave Jericho and Gaza. Later areas A in the West Bank and than areas B. Joint patrols and police cooperation with Palestinian forces were to be created and Palestinian Autonomy was created during the process with first elections in 1996. Arafat was elected as a president. Notably next presidential elections in Autonomy were held after his death and so far Abbas is at 20th year of his 4-year-term.
Israelis indeed withdrew from Jericho and most of Gaza and the cooperation in security matters was to some extend created but Arafat never really committed to the peace process. Israelis were, understandably, distrustful of PLO commitment to preventing terror attacks, but they shared information with PLO.
In wake of peace talks Arafat moved from Tunis to Gaza, which, at the time, was not restricted enclave and hundreds of Gazans were going each day to work in Israel whereas bus lines were entering Gaza through the checkpoints.
To understand what happened next, one must understand deep divisions in both Israeli and Palestinian societies. The whole first 30 years of Israel's history, as well as for all the time of Yishuv existence the dominating power in Jewish, later Israeli, social fabric was secular, left-inclined Zionist movement cooperating with more religious but also Zionist movement, mostly of Ashkenazim descent. But the demography was working against it, not to mention history on the ground. After the fall of Golda Meir government as a result of Yom Kippur war the political right in Israel started gaining momentum. The right started its march with Menachem Begin and his Likud party, yes the same party that is now under Benjamin Netanyahu. On the Palestinian side "left" was PLO with Arafat, with Islam more as a unifying power than true commitment, much more nationalist than religious in every aspect and strongly backed by USSR. The Palestinian right - Hamas - created during the first intifada by Muslim Brotherhood, was fundamentally Islamic, calling for jihad. The divisions run deep at the time and remain deep today.
To Hamas talks with Israel were treason. The fact that two-state solution could even be considered was abomination. Hamas never really cared about Palestinian state, but always deeply cared about destroying Israel, as was obvious from the start (and written in their charter). In a wake of Oslo peace process Hamas was dedicated to torpedoing them and carried the chain of terror attacks in Jerusalem and other places to drive the talks to standstill. Israel had its few, but notable, extremists. Two of them were of particular importance: Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli physician and extremist of the far-right ultra-Zionist Kach movement, who in February 1994 shot and killed 29 Arabs in Cave of Patriarchs mosque in Hebron, a place important for both religions, which brought about Arab strikes, and Yigal Amir, ultra nationalist opposed to peace process, who in 1995 assassinated Icchack Rabin. After the assassination Shimon Perez took power and the elections were to be held in 1996. Perez wanted to continue peace process, and, even with all the turmoil in both Israel and Palestinian territories, he had strong support of - still hopeful - Israelis. Hamas, wanting to prevent peace talks, orchestrated a series of suicide terrorist attacks through the whole first half of 1996. This changed the dynamics of the electoral process paving way to power for the first time for a young, ambitious and very far right politician - Benjamin Netanyahu.
What about refusing Palestinian state by Arafat?
In 2000 Ehud Barak, a then PM of Israel, and Yasser Arafat met in Camp David with then President of the US Bill Clinton. It was a last attempt to revive failing peace process after the series of terrorist attacks (by Hamas but with Arafat silent approval as in the case of bus 18 bombing described here. The negotiations didn't go easy, but Clinton and Barak were determined.
The offer Barak put on the table included creating of de-militarized Palestinian state (understandable that after 3 major wars with Arabs, countless terrorist attacks, intifada and while the terror campaign was ongoing, demilitarization of a new state was crucial) with the territory consisting of 92% of West Bank, the whole Gaza, parts of Eastern Jerusalem. The bulk of settlements was to be removed, and the rest, concentrated on 8% of the West Bank territory annexed by Israel with the swap of land for some other to compensate Palestine for this loss. Arafat, who previously declared he is open to any proposition in mid-90% of so called Palestinian territory said "no". He did not even put his own proposal, he just left the room. Here are the words of former President Clinton about the negotiations: "The true story of Camp David was that for the first time in the history of the conflict the American president put on the table a proposal, based on UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, very close to the Palestinian demands, and Arafat refused even to accept it as a basis for negotiations, walked out of the room, and deliberately turned to terrorism." Barak summed them up saying: ""He did not negotiate in good faith; indeed, he did not negotiate at all. He just kept saying no to every offer, never making any counter proposals of his own".
The story goes that presented with the proposal Arafat said that he only needs to address the details to say "yes". The "details" turned out to be so called "right of return" for all Palestinians whose ancestors lived in today's Israel effectively dismantling Israel. Think what would be reaction to demanded "right of return" of all British whose ancestors lived in Ireland to Ireland, all Americans whose ancestors lived anywhere in Europe to respective European countries, all Chinese whose ancestors ever lived in Russia (e.g. when Vladivostok was Chinese) to Russia, all Hindus whose ancestors left Pakistan in 1948 (same year) to Pakistan and so on and so forth.
Arafat did not want Palestinian state. He wanted the destruction of Israel even when he was claiming to negotiate. I will just remind you accepting by Jews the propositions of Peel commission, of 1947 resolution - they wanted the state. However small for starters. But the state. Arafat was offered 95% of the whole so called Palestinian territory and East Jerusalem. He said "no" and left the room.
Clinton never understood it. When Arafat called him at the beginning of 2001 to thank him for successful term he allegedly told him: "I am a failure, and you made me one."
1990s were time when the peace looked like real, touchable perspective. Due to Jewish extremists like Amir, and right politicians like Netanyahu, but first, foremost and with almost exclusive power, due to Arab terrorist organizations, both PLO under Arafat and Hamas under sheikh Yessin, the peace did not come. The table started to turn in different direction and the hope was all but lost. I don't know if it will reappear and when. I know though, that Arafat was never committed to two state solution, all he was after was destruction of Israel, no matter the prize, including the prize to be paid by Palestinians.
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