Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed
Most Arab news outlets killed the latest Israeli peace offer, when they added the word “only”. Arab media conveyed the news, posted by Israeli daily Haaretz, in an incomplete manner and in a resentful way, citing Israel’s offer to return “only” 93% of occupied lands to the Palestinian Authority. The word “only” triggered a flood of opinion pieces attacking and dismissing the offer. Palestinian negotiators were intimidated, as a result, and disclaimed the offer as “false piece of news”, describing it as a test balloon by the enemy.
The word “only” would have been consistent with the context, had the declared percentage been 39%. But the declared figure is encouraging and worth positive consideration by Arabs and Palestinians. It is also considered a good achievement by the Palestinian delegation to the negotiations under hard negotiating conditions. When we describe it as positive, we don’t mean to accept it outright, but rather to continue to bargain on it as a base. Even in Arab-Arab border conflicts, we rarely find a party that concedes such a percentage to the other party.
Those who attacked the offer did not even care to know the contents of such “balloon”. The Israeli newspaper said that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proposed to the Palestinian side that Israel keeps seven percent of the West Bank, in the form of parallel settlements. That means giving up 93 percent to the Palestinians.
The offer does not end here, as Israel is to compensate the Palestinians with five and half percent of “its land”. That means giving the Palestinian state 98.5 percent. Israel will also give the Palestinians a land passage linking the Gaza Strip to the West Bank, a passage without checkpoints that would still be owned by Israel. Israel, practically, offers some 100 percent.
This is similar to or even better than (former Israeli Prime Minister) Ehud Barak’s offer in 2000. Every body has blamed (late Palestinian President Yasser) Arafat for refusing that offer. Sheikh Ahmad Yassen, the late leader of Hamas, even said that he would accept that offer. Arafat himself, God rest his soul, asked for that offer again but Israel refused offering it again.
Unfortunately, a campaign was launched during the negotiations, forcing Arafat to turn down Barak’s offer, only to regret it later. Arafat’s opponents claimed that the offer was only 37 percent, but the truth was later revealed.
I do not want to call this offer a magnificent one, but it does represent a good start. Israel has proposed evacuating Israeli settlers from all occupied territories on two phases; the first will be a voluntary one, while the second is mandatory. Other items of the offer are not tempting; such as returning only 20,000 Palestinian refugees to the current state of Israel, the number of refugees to be returned to the Palestinian state is unknown and no details about Jerusalem.
It is very easy to reject any result if you have an alternative, but there is no military or political alternative. It is easy for most of us to refuse 93 percent in the name of the remaining seven percent of the occupied land. But remember that most of those who refused the offer watch the tragedy of Palestinians from their air conditioned living rooms on TV screens. We should give the final word to the Palestinians through a public referendum, not to the Palestinian president, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Arabs or Iranians.
Published in the London-based ASHARQ AL-AWSAT on August 17, 2008. |
