Comments on: The Myth That Stays With Us: Camp David 2000 http://mitchellplitnick.com/2007/02/21/the-myth-that-stays-with-us-camp-david-2000/ Seeking a realistic and just peace in the Middle East--Analysis with a new and balanced approach by Mitchell Plitnick (Disclaimer: The views on this blog are my own and do not represent those of any organization I am affiliated with.) Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:38:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Danny Ayalon plays a losing blame game - Blog Post http://mitchellplitnick.com/2007/02/21/the-myth-that-stays-with-us-camp-david-2000/#comment-1666 Thu, 16 Dec 2010 01:41:48 +0000 http://blog.mideastanalysis.org/?p=24#comment-1666 [...] offer that fell well short of minimal Palestinian demands and, while that particular story has been debunked many times, it still [...]

]]> By: Danny Ayalon Plays a Losing Blame Game « The Third Way: Finding Balance In Mideast Analysis http://mitchellplitnick.com/2007/02/21/the-myth-that-stays-with-us-camp-david-2000/#comment-1658 Wed, 15 Dec 2010 01:30:39 +0000 http://blog.mideastanalysis.org/?p=24#comment-1658 [...] offer that fell well short of minimal Palestinian demands and, while that particular story has been debunked many times, it still [...]

]]> By: Jewish State vs Jewish Homeland « The Third Way: Finding Balance In Mideast Analysis http://mitchellplitnick.com/2007/02/21/the-myth-that-stays-with-us-camp-david-2000/#comment-1388 Tue, 14 Sep 2010 18:46:21 +0000 http://blog.mideastanalysis.org/?p=24#comment-1388 [...] elsewhere. I contend that such a process was well underway in the 1990s before the so-called “generous offer” and the second intifada derailed [...]

]]> By: Is this really the time for direct talks? - Blog Post http://mitchellplitnick.com/2007/02/21/the-myth-that-stays-with-us-camp-david-2000/#comment-1214 Sun, 22 Aug 2010 06:07:20 +0000 http://blog.mideastanalysis.org/?p=24#comment-1214 [...] of blame, but Clinton and Barak had plenty of their own that they shifted on to him as well, as I recount here), failed talks will only further erode Abbas' standing and will bolster Hamas' contention [...]

]]> By: Direct Talks: A Path Forward or A Trap? « Realistic Peace in Israel-Palestine http://mitchellplitnick.com/2007/02/21/the-myth-that-stays-with-us-camp-david-2000/#comment-1156 Fri, 30 Jul 2010 21:08:49 +0000 http://blog.mideastanalysis.org/?p=24#comment-1156 [...] years ago, Bill Clinton pushed Israelis and Palestinians to a summit when neither side was ready for an agreement. It seems Obama has not learned this lesson from [...]

]]> By: Bibi: More of the Same Bad Leadership « Realistic Peace in Israel-Palestine http://mitchellplitnick.com/2007/02/21/the-myth-that-stays-with-us-camp-david-2000/#comment-1135 Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:00:42 +0000 http://blog.mideastanalysis.org/?p=24#comment-1135 [...] failure at Camp David is well-documented, a failure he certainly shared with Bill Clinton and Yasir Arafat. But his campaign to blame Arafat [...]

]]> By: The Third Way: A Different View of the Middle East » Getting Past Blame: Present Realities and How To Move Forward http://mitchellplitnick.com/2007/02/21/the-myth-that-stays-with-us-camp-david-2000/#comment-231 Mon, 13 Aug 2007 01:37:28 +0000 http://blog.mideastanalysis.org/?p=24#comment-231 [...] Much time has passed since then, and there is a general consensus supporting territorial concession in Israel. This is true despite the intentional setup of the Gaza withdrawal (see more on this here) and the campaign of deception and blame after the collapse of the 2000 Camp David talks (more on this here). As Avnery says, “The concept of ‘the Whole of Eretz-Israel’ is finally dead. There exists a national consensus about an exchange of territories that would make possible the annexation of the ’settlement blocs’ to Israel and the dismantling of all the other settlements. The real debate is no longer between the annexation of the entire West Bank and its partial annexation, but between partial annexation (the areas west of the wall as well as the Jordan valley) and the return of almost all the occupied territories.” [...]

]]> By: The Third Way: A Different View of the Middle East » Being Realistic About Peace http://mitchellplitnick.com/2007/02/21/the-myth-that-stays-with-us-camp-david-2000/#comment-230 Thu, 05 Jul 2007 07:43:57 +0000 http://blog.mideastanalysis.org/?p=24#comment-230 [...] Ya’alon similarly obscures the facts about Camp David, which I have already recounted in this space. Yet despite his propagandistic distortions (or, perhaps one might say, because of them), Ya’alon is giving voice to the belief of a majority of Israelis, Jews and many concerned people around the world. [...]

]]> By: Isidor Farash {a.k.a. Prof. Cornelius Debusse Trollstein} http://mitchellplitnick.com/2007/02/21/the-myth-that-stays-with-us-camp-david-2000/#comment-229 Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:16:48 +0000 http://blog.mideastanalysis.org/?p=24#comment-229 Peter Belmont:
“Israeli occupation”
This is a much abused concept and is at least as much of a “bumper-sticker” as any other sound-bite (approximation) of reality.
Since Palestine was never before a nation, Palestine can not be under formal “occupation”. Since Jordan did not hold legal title to the disputed areas either, they too are outside the rhelm of the generally understood meaning of “occupied”. The situation being debated is atypical and simply does not fit into the cookie-cutter form, that the U.N. and ICJ would like to contend. Points can be made on both sides and interestingly, interpretations have morphed greatly over time but the bottom line continues to be:
1. Israel will not willingly loose its core character as the Jewish National Homeland. This means that it will not be accepting large numbers of new non-Jewish citizens. Some call this racism and others call it refuge.
2. In the interum, Israel will not be in the position of “non-violent-resistor” to the unabated attacks from various Arab factions. This translates into a wall and other counter-terror measures that some people consider excessive. But, I proclaim this with absolute certitude, namely that most of the people who make issue about the security fence and quote from the U.N. and ICJ (in their larceny), really wish that Jews become a minority group within Israel. Because, at the end of the day, that is what the dispute is really about and there is no way to settle it the way Ghandi would.

]]> By: Peter Belmont http://mitchellplitnick.com/2007/02/21/the-myth-that-stays-with-us-camp-david-2000/#comment-228 Tue, 13 Mar 2007 18:37:31 +0000 http://blog.mideastanalysis.org/?p=24#comment-228 The history of “peacemaking” is always interesting but, it seems to me, off the main point, which is the character of the occupation. “Peacemaking” is a bumper-sticker of a word, the sort of thing politicians would like to be responsible for accomplishing, and so we hear a lot about it. But given the intransigence on all sides, we’d be well advised not to hold our breath. Peace is probably a chimera, an illusion.

But the occupation has gone on since 1967, for 40 years (and Israel itself was only 19 years old in 1967!), so the occupation is not only “real” but is actually the real issue, not peace or peacemaking. And of course the rigors of this increasingly repressive occupation are a tool (a bludgeon) of the US-Israeli “peacemakers”, so the character of the occupation is doubly important.

I’d recommend that we all blow our trumpets for an occupation conducted in a manner compliant with all international law (especially the Fourth Geneva Convention), and compliant with the 7/2004 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Thus, we should loudly blow our horns for the removal of the wall [where it lies within occupied territory] and for the removal of all settlers from occupied territory [settlers were declared illegal by the ICJ].

It is far easier to ask Israel to do something that (in principle) is non-discretionary than to ask Israel (or the PA or PLO or the US) to do anything at all that is wholly discretionary, like “peacemaking”.

Today, Olmert asked the AIPAC to demand that the US avoid precipitous removal from Iraq, in the interest of Israel’s safety. OK, good enough, but only if Israel does something for US safety, like conducting the occupation in a legal fashion and [thus] respecting the human rights of those Palestinians who live under Israeli occupation.

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