Fact
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to withdraw from 97 percent of the West Bank and 100 percent of the Gaza Strip. In addition, he agreed to dismantle 63 isolated settlements. In exchange for the 5 percent annexation of the West Bank, Israel would increase the size of the Gaza territory by roughly a third.
Barak also made previously unthinkable concessions on Jerusalem, agreeing that Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem would become the capital of the new state. The Palestinians would maintain control over their holy places and have “religious sovereignty” over the Temple Mount.
These are facts. These facts cannot be negated. Yet within one year all of these facts were being questioned Edward Said style. There is a whole industry of lies that has sprung up among the Arabs and the leftist Antisemites who take their method from Stalin, especially Breznev Stalinism, and not from the noble tradition of socialism at all.
But let us first consider Barak, because if the Jews are to be saved then they will have to do so by their own struggle and in this every aspect of leadership is and will be key.
I want to consider Barak as a type in Israel and in the world of the Jews. Of course we can dismiss immediately that Barak is stupid, he is in fact quite a brilliant man with a very capable mind and personality, with great grasp of detail in planning and sometimes in conversation. He is at the top of Israeli society and none of these people are stupid. So what gives then with this persistent trend to set up your worst foes in positions of power.
The first thing that must be understood is a comment that Trotsky made in relation to the Jews returning to Palestine during interviews he gave to the press in the late 1930s. This was not an article, this was a sentence or two in the midst of an oral interview, and of course it went over the head of the interviewer, and has never been heard of since.
I personally have never forgotten it. Trotsky said that in our modern world (by this he means modern barbaric world where capitalism is in its death agony) that just by stating something does not bring success, just by being right does not mean winning. I am paraphrasing wildly here but the issue is that these questions are fought out in a material and physical way.
The literature on Camp David is quite extensive for the following reason connected to those thoughts on Trotsky. Barak, with the imput of Clinton I presume, did come to the table with a final offer. Barak was in a position of authority and if he had reached an agreement then the Israeli Government would have honoured it, carried it out. Barak was clearly proposing to Arafat to rid the “West bank” of Jews except for a few places “on the edges” with concentrations of Jews living. Plus…an extended Gaza, making up for that 10 per cent by giving the Palestine Arab state MORE land, some safeguards for the Jews for a while as planes reaching Israel had to fly over the West Bank. (I use here the Arab term which is a concession…just for clarity)
He did make the offer. Arafat did listen and then walked. Arafat and his chums made no counter offer. Not we like this part…how about this. He walked and within a short time the “Intifada” began. The Israelis, the Jews, were following closely and saw immediately what had happened. It was so obvious and so truthful in that the experience got to the essence of the problem. The Israelis did not have to sell anything as the Leftist Antisemites like halpin later claimed, it was all there out in the open. The issue was not really about making peace, about reaching a settlement at all. The issue was about power. Then after a pause the leftist Antisemites in union with these Arabs began to rewrite what had happened and the Edward Said school of falsification stepped in, which we will indeed look at, but not here because I am focussed on Barak.
The Jews are battered by Antisemitism for Millennia so will grasp at any glimpse of peace with the Arabs. This aspect while it is obviously true and as proposed by Kenneth Levin (I saw it first in Francisco Gil White) does not cut it for me. It is dangerous because it makes Jews out to be exceptional. We are all battered one way or another. It answers nothing. Jews like all of us have to break and make a fresh start. There is no programme of action in Levin, just waiting, reacting.
I am a great fan of the book by Alan Dershowitz called “The Case for Israel” published first in 2003 (not expensive and available on Amazon). This is quite strange because there is not one single conclusion that Dershowitz reaches that I can agree with in respect to action or perspectives. But it is the same paradox as is Barak, very capable people, reaching false conclusions re perspective.
Pages 45-47 are worth a lot of study. The structure is this. The Leftist Antisemite Chomsky, who despite appearances sometimes is always an agent of the US Establishment, has accused the Jews of Israel as being “rejectionist”, hence the title of the chapter in dershowitz that the Jews are anything but rejectionist, meaning that they have always been for the two state solution.
Here is the value of Dershowitz. To prove his false argument he brings up the most important historical material, in this occasion the Peel Commission of 1938.
The main aspect of the Peel Commission to bear down upon is that it was a response to the violence of the Arabs (initiated by the soon to be Nazi Hajj Amin el Husseini who would travel about 4 years later to be with the Nazis in the carrying out of the Holocaust)
As a response to this violence this British Commission proposed a partition which the Jews accepted, the Arabs rejected. To understand this you need to see the map of this partition. Jerusalem is internationalised and the Jews are thrown a few scrappy acres in the North.
The Jews would accept anything. The Arabs would oppose everything so long as the Jews were there. It is so clearly Antisemitism.
What is so alarming is that Chomsky just argues totally a lie. Yes, Alan Dershowitz shows precisely how Chomsky simply lies and lies. But back to Trotsky…that is still not a decisive thing. Good people can lose.
What is also alarming is the outstanding truths contained in the analysis of the Peel Commission about the situation but its obvious bias in conclusion (what Peel proposed) against the Jews. They are basically saying, you have so much right on your side, but hey it was them who started the violence so you lose anyway.
And this sets the pattern for so much to folow, even in our present world down to this present day. Like say Mubarak…you have been an opponent of Sharia but hey these folks against you are very violent in deed and thought, so you lose Mubarak. You bugger off. Ben Ali in Tunisia the same. Gadhafi the same but in spades since Gadhafi because of his agreement with Bush and Blair was actually aiding VERY ACTIVELY in the hunt for Al Qaida operatives. Cameron says to Gadhafi “Yes I know you aided Blair and hunted down Al Qaida but these folks in Benghazi are very violent so you bugger off too”. The same treatment to Assad and the reason that Assad does not just fade away as did Ben Ali is because not only has he learned that lesson but there are definite political forces backing him, the minority Alawites, the Christians, the Kurds, the Assyrians (anybody who is a minority and will get short shrift from the genocidal Muslims)
To return to Barak and Camp David. No he was not stupid. He understood the genocidal nature of the Arabs. He proposed the suicidal state on the doorstep of Tel Aviv not because he was stupid but because he was politically bankrupt, a different thing entirely. It is that political bankruptcy (not wilful treachery) that is so important to understand.
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