Summary
Israeli Labour prime minister from 1999. In Pappe’s account in The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, facing electoral defeat within a year, he treated peace with the Palestinians as a way to safeguard his political future, publicly committed to the Knesset law barring discussion of the Right of Return, and presented at Camp David in 2000 the Israeli plan that Arafat refused to sign.
Details
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Labour was back in power in 1999 under the ‘Peace Camp’, this time led by Ehud Barak; within a year, facing electoral defeat for over-ambition in almost every field, a peace with the Palestinians seemed the only way of safeguarding his political future (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.278).
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What for Barak was no more than a tactical move to save his skin, the Palestinians envisaged as the climax of the Oslo negotiations; US President Clinton invited Barak and Yasir Arafat to Camp David in the summer of 2000 (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.278).
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The Knesset swiftly passed a law barring discussion of the Right of Return, with Barak publicly committing himself to upholding it as he climbed the steps of the plane taking him to Camp David (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.282).
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Earlier in Pappe’s account, Sarafand’s hundred-year-old mosque was bulldozed on 25 July 2000 despite a petition to Ehud Barak (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.252-255).
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In Makdisi’s account of the Camp David Summit, 2000, no Israeli offer was formally presented in writing; what was discussed left Israel controlling the Jordan Valley, the eastern third of the West Bank, borders, airspace, water and the settler road network, with a Palestinian “capital” in Abu Dis and 10 percent of the West Bank’s most fertile land annexed (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, PDF p.134-135).
Related pages
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oslo Accords, Right of Return, Yasir Arafat