Israel/Hamas War Superthread

[Dill]

(05-07-2024, 07:36 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Not surprisingly, given your posting history and heavily biased position on Israel, your description of why the Oslo Accords fell apart is rather at odds with the record.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1993-2000/oslo
Oslo’s Collapse, 1996–2000
In November 1995, Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, an Israeli who opposed the Oslo Accords on religious grounds. Rabin’s murder was followed by a string of terrorist attacks by Hamas, which undermined support for the Labor Party in Israel’s May 1996 elections. New Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu hailed from the Likud Party, which had historically opposed Palestinian statehood and withdrawal from the occupied territories.
No blame for Hamas?  Shocking for you, just shocking.

In Israel’s May 1999 elections, the Labor Party’s Ehud Barak decisively defeated Netanyahu. Barak predicted that he could reach agreements with both Syria and the Palestinians in 12 to 15 months, and pledged to withdraw Israeli troops from southern Lebanon. In September, Barak signed the Sharm al-Shaykh Memorandum with Arafat, which committed both sides to begin permanent status negotiations. An initial round of meetings, however, achieved nothing, and by December the Palestinians suspended talks over settlement-building in the occupied territories.
Barak then withdrew Israeli forces unilaterally from Lebanon and returned to the Palestinian track. At the prime minister’s insistence, Clinton convened a summit at Camp David in July 2000, where he, Barak, and Arafat attempted to reach a final agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Accounts differ as to why Camp David failed, but it is clear that despite additional concessions by Barak, the Israelis and Palestinians remained strongly at odds over borders, Jerusalem, and whether Israel would recognize Palestinian refugees’ “right of return.” The summit ended without a settlement; Clinton would blame Arafat for its failure.

The kindest interpretation of the above is that both sides were responsible for the collapse of Oslo.  The opinion of Bill Clinton, who you may have heard is a prominent Democrat, was that Arafat was the cause.
You literally couldn't be objective on Israel if you tried.  It makes one wonder why.

You are offering me the very general assessment of an anonymous Clinton White House historian, one which apparently was not maintained/revised after 2000, since it makes no mention of which features of Oslo remained in place nor how the peace process continued after the Second Intifada, limping along for another 15 years, producing at least one more agreement between Israel and the PA, the 2005 Agreement on Movement an Access.  

Your source does not reflect the consensus of most Israeli, European, and US PROEFSSIONAL historians at the moment. I can establish that, if you are interested.

Nor does it reflect the historical record, as currently understood. The first bolded offers the primary clue as to why your WH assessment was already outdated, or steadfastly myopic. 

Absent from this also are the devilish details, which were available in 2000, like 

1) the massive imbalance of power between the sides, 
2) the causes of the "string of terror attacks" which supposedly undermined Labour elections, and 
3) the details of Barak's "concessions" and Arafat's grounds for rejection.

Finally, this does not refute my claim that Sharon and Netanyahu tanked the peace process. To understand what happened, you need to set aside the rush to blame for a moment and understand, first, what was/is at stake for each side in the Oslo in the first five "permanent status" issues. And then how each side exercised what power it had during and after the five year implementation phase in a progression of verifiable causes and effects. Only then does the arc of failure and its primary causes become clear.