Representative Press Blog

Another Israeli Journalist Exposes Another Israeli Myth

Israeli journalist Amon Kapeliouk exposes the Israeli myth about the Camp David talks of July 2000. They myth pushed by amoung others, Ariel Sharon who claims that Israel has "no partner for peace."

"The 'no partner' myth is the rationale behind the unilateralism the Sharon government has practiced over the past four years on everything from building the wall, to withdrawing from Gaza. It will also be at the center of the upcoming Israeli elections in March, which will go a long way towards determining whether there will be a peace agreement or another generation of war and reprisal.

According to Israeli journalist Kapeliouk, the Palestinians were wary about Camp David because Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak refused to lay out a pre- talk proposal. But because the Palestinians were also worried that if they refused to sign on, Barak and President Bill Clinton would paint them as obstructionists, they agreed to the negotiations.

Sure enough, when the Palestinians got to Camp David they were handed an offer they could only refuse: Israeli sovereignty over the Haram al Sharif, Islam's third holiest site; continued Israeli presence in the West Bank; no sharing of Jerusalem; and no plan for the 3.1 million Palestinian refugees. To top it off, Barak insisted nothing be written down.

The Palestinians countered with a proposal to give up 9 percent of the West Bank, agree to Israeli sovereignty over settlements in East Jerusalem, and to find a solution to the refugee issue that 'would not threaten Israeli demographic and security interests.'

The Palestinians also wanted this in document form because they felt that by not insisting on specific language concerning the settlements they had been burned in the 1993 Oslo Accords. At the time, the Palestinians assumed Oslo meant the settlements would be frozen until a final agreement was worked out. Instead, Israel doubled the settler population and built more than 40 new ones" - Israel/Palestine A Way Out? by Conn Hallinan

Israeli journalist Tanya Reinhart has alos exposed the facts about Camp David. Reinhart writes about it in detail in her chapter "The Camp David Negotioations: Myths and Facts"
Tanya Reinhart's second edition of her book Israel/Palestine : How to End the War of 1948 provides a primer on the current Israeli/Palestinian crisis.

People like Thomas Friedman are deceiving the American public. As Tanya Reinhart, an Israeli scholar has pointed out, “It is still difficult for many to believe that a deception of such magnitude is possible. Deceptions and false declarations have ben the standard in the politics of the powerful, and certainly are in Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians from the start.” Israel/Palestine by Tanya Reinhart P25

Josef asked, “My question to you is then why didn't Arafat take the 2000 Camp David deal?”

Because it was grotesquely unfair. see link And it is incredible how sleazy the Israeli side was, nothing was put in writing and you may have noticed that “maps were carefully avoided in the US mainstream” medialens. See Reinhart’s book Israel/Palestine : How to End the War of 1948: Robert Malley revealed, after waiting a year, that the 2000 Camp David offer was not as it has been presented in the mainstream media. He pointed out that “strickly speaking, there never was an Israeli offer ... The Israelis always stopped on, if not several, steps short of an offer” Reinhart quoting Malley p25 Israel/Palestine see “Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors” The New York Review of Books August 9, 2001 And there were supposed to be more negotiations, it was the Israeli side that refused to continue the talks.

Josef insisted “And if you want right-of-return so bad, don't you realize that'll kill the Jewish state?”

I think the melodrama and manipulation of using words like “kill” has got to end. As far as a Jewish State, could there be anything more unjust to be imposed upon non-Jews? The whole concept violates basic human rights and is against basic American values. We don’t accept such injustice here in America, we should not be financing it abroad. A state should be of it citizens, not of a privileged class. Do you think Jews in Israel have some special right to set up a discriminatory state? Do you realize Zionists consider equal rights to be “the destruction of Israel” by definition? This is too fanatical an opinion to indulge. All people deserve equal rights regardless of the fact that they don’t belong to a certain religion. At the time the father of Zionism plotted to ethnically cleanse non-Jews, the non-Jews were over 90% of the population of Palestine. In 1947 when the Zionist started the massive ethnic cleansing, non-Jews were approximately 67% of the population. Do you realize that now in America, Christians make up over 76% of the population and Jews are only 1%? But setting up a “Christian State”would be unjust.

 The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine