On November 15, 1988, the Palestine Liberation Organisation declared statehood by passing the Palestinian Declaration of Independence while exiled in Algiers. That declaration constituted the Palestinian people’s historic compromise for peace as they limited their national aspiration towards the establishment of the Palestinian state over 22 per cent of historic Palestine, thus tacitly recognising Israel over the remaining 78 per cent.

Disregarding our historic compromise, Israel has instead strengthened its occupation through an illegal settlement enterprise. Throughout a negotiations process lasting over 19 years, the Israeli settler population has nearly doubled, from 236,000 in 1993 to over half a million today.

Congress actually tracked the PLO’s activities in light of this historic compromise, what did Congress find?

(1) United States policy regarding contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization (including its Executive Committee, the Palestine National Council, and any constituent groups related thereto, (hereinafter referred to as the `PLO’)) set forth in the Memorandum of Agreement between the United States and Israel, dated September 1, 1975, stated that the United States `will not recognize or negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization so long has the PLO does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and does not accept United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338′;

(2) section 1302 of the International Security and Development Cooperation Act of 1985 (22 U.S.C. 2151 note; Public Law 99-83), effective October 1, 1985, stated that `no officer or employee of the United States Government and no agent or other individual acting on behalf of the United States Government shall negotiate with the Palestine Liberation organization or any representatives thereof (except in emergency or humanitarian situations) unless and until the Palestine Liberation organization recognizes Israel’s right to exist, accepts United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and renounces the use of terrorism’;

(3) the Department of State statement of November 26, 1988, found that `the United States Government has convincing evidence that PLO elements have engaged in terrorism against Americans and others’ and that `Mr. [Yasser] Arafat, Chairman of the PLO, knows of, condones, and lends support to such acts; he therefore is an accessory to such terrorism’;

(4) Secretary of State Shultz declared on December 14, 1988, that `the [PLO] today issued a statement in which it accepted United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace and security, and renounced terrorism. As a result, the United States is prepaed for a substantive dialogue with PLO representatives’;

(5) President Ronald Reagan, subsequent to the decision to open an United States-PLO dialogue, stated that the PLO `must demonstrate that its renunciation of terrorism is pervasive and permanent’ and if the PLO reneges on its commitments, the United States `will certainly break off communications’;

(6) since Yasser Arafat’s statements in Geneva, there have been several attempted incursions into Israel by PLO member groups, that Arafat has not renounced any of these potential terrorist incidents, that he has threatened `ten bullets in the chest’ to any of his own people who seek peace and coexistence with Israel, and that his principal deputy, Abu Iyad, as well as other senior Al-Fatah figures, have been quoted as saying that the PLO recognition of Israel and renunciation of terrorism is merely tactical and that a Palestinian state is but the first step in the `liberation of Palestine’; and

(7) such actions and statements give both the United States and Israel reason to question the PLO’s ultimate intentions.

It seems that peace in the Middle East has always involved a component of looking the other way and denying the PLO’s involvement in terror. The “historic compromise” that Erakat boasts about was nothing more than window dressing to disguise the fact that the PLO had not really changed.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

His campus politicking notwithstanding, Erekat had in mind for himself a career in academics. After returning home in 1979, he got a teaching job at An-Najah National University at Nablus on the West Bank but soon won a scholarship to a doctoral program at Englandâ€s University of Bradford. He settled in at the universityâ€s respected Department of Peace Studies, picking conflict resolution as the subject of his Ph.D. He said it was here that he became convinced that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would end only through peaceful means.

(emphasis mine)

Erakat’s vision of peace.

It is true that the negotiations continued for many years, but donâ€t you know that President Yasser Arafat was besieged in Camp David and was killed unjustly, only because he adhered to Jerusalem, and because he refused to let the Israeli measures on the ground give rise to any [Israeli] right or any [Palestinian] obligation? The Palestinian negotiators could have given in in 1994, 1998, or 2000, and too months ago, brother Abu Mazen could have accepted a proposal that talked about Jerusalem and almost 100% of the West Bank, but it is not our goal to score points against one another here. Our strategic goal, when we strive for peace, is not to do so at any price. We strive for peace on the basis of an Israeli withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 borders, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip geographically connected.

[…]

There will be no peace whatsoever unless East Jerusalem – with every single stone in it – becomes the capital of Palestine.

[…]

In my family, we are seven siblings. My six brothers and sisters are in the diaspora. But this does not deny them the right to inherit this land. Ten million Palestinians own Palestine, just like I do. Our survival and steadfastness on this land, our wresting of an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital – this is what we can achieve in our generation.

I don’t know if Erakat asked the University of Bradford for a refund, because he clearly still has a lot to learn about conflict resolution. Still, for some reason, plenty of folks consider him an authoritative voice of Palestinian moderation.

In his report Palestinians Discouraged by Meeting’s Outcome , Howard Schneider uses Erakat to show that the meeting between President Obama and PM Netanyahu was a failure.

“There is a difference between being a tough negotiator and a non-negotiator. What I heard today was a non-negotiator,” said Erekat, who added that Palestinians had been looking for Monday’s meeting to produce some sense of progress — whether a statement from Netanyahu about the restriction of settlements or on the establishment of a Palestinian state.

“He says that he wants me to govern myself by myself. I have one simple question: How can I do that when roadblocks are suffocating us in towns and refugee camps? When the army makes incursions wherever they want? When the demolition of homes continues?” Erekat said.

This frustration about Netanyahu being a “non-negotiator” is ironic form someone who claims that no compromise is possible unless his full demands are met. (Incidentally, despite the plural in the title, Erakat is the only Palestinian quoted.)

Erakat also makes an appearance in Cheryl Gay Stolberg’s account Obama Tells Netanyahu He Has an Iran Timetable in the New York Times.

The chief negotiator for the Palestinians, Saeb Erakat, said afterward that the Palestinians welcomed Mr. Obamaâ€s remarks as a sign of “the active re-engagement of the United States” in the Middle East peace effort.

Mr. Erakat criticized Mr. Netanyahu for failing to endorse the two-state solution, saying he had “missed another opportunity to show himself to be a genuine partner for peace.”

Again coming from someone who has expressed no interest in compromise, this criticism is rather ironic.

The New York Times also quotes Aaron David Miller who seems to have learned the art of the soundbite.

Mr. Miller, the former Middle East negotiator, characterized the session as “President ‘Yes We Can†sitting down with Prime Minister ‘No You Wonâ€t.†”

How did Miller’s last job in negotiating work out? Oh that’s right, Arafat walked out of Camp David rejecting Ehud Barak’s offer listening to Erakat’s advice. I guess being an authority on peace negotiations means never having actually accomplished anything.

It does seem though that like a number of us predicted, there was no major conflict between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.