Palestinian steadfastness

Submitted by Shepard Barbash (United States), Sep 5, 2018 at 23:28

'Palestinian resolve was broken in 1993, in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse and Saddam Hussein's defeat, when Arafat shook hands with Israel's prime minister and recognized Israel.'

What is the evidence for this, and how should one evaluate it against the evidence to the contrary noted in Karsh's article, excerpted below? Perhaps you are talking about two different things--you the resolve of the Palestinian people in West Bank and Gaza, Karsh the resolve of the PLO leadership in Tunis? If so, what is the evidence that those two entities were so autonomous as to justify the idea that the PLO's resolve had minimal influence on "Palestinian resolve'?

From Karsh's article:

a prominent PLO official candidly described [the Oslo accords] as a Trojan horse designed to promote the organization's strategic goal: "Palestine from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea"—that is, a Palestine in place of the state of Israel. [1]

But what if the would-be partner failed to act out the role ascribed to him? What if his "array of very strange ideas" proved impermeable to change?

...the countless Palestinian violations of the accords... the PLO's continued commitment to Israel's destruction.

the PLO's failure to abolish the clauses in the Palestinian covenant calling for Israel's destruction...

... the speaker of the Palestinian National Council (PNC), the PLO's semi-parliament, conditioned the covenant's amendment on fresh Israeli concessions...

in May 1994, Arafat told a closed meeting of Muslim leaders in Johannesburg that the Oslo accords were a temporary arrangement designed to bring about Israel's eventual demise, urging them to help spark a pan-Muslim jihad against Israel...

Arafat's insistence on Jerusalem as capital of the prospective Palestinian state....

... the Palestinians' wanton violation of contractual obligations

As late as August 2, 1993, Rabin told Peres that he would rather pursue the Syrian than the Palestinian track. "We made many concessions to the Palestinians, to no avail," he argued.

in late October and early November 1993, three Israelis were murdered in terror attacks, one of them by Arafat's Fatah group...

the PLO's open pleading with the Arab states to sustain their economic boycott of Israel

Rabin's occasional berating of Arafat, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) and PLO more generally, for failing to fight terrorism and/or meet other contractual obligations, notably the amendment of the Palestinian covenant. [26]

not only did Arafat ignore Rabin's demand to retract his infamous Johannesburg incitement, but he publicly reiterated the same themes shortly after the original speech. [27] ...

in August 1994, Arafat failed to condemn the call for Israel's destruction by Farouq Qaddoumi, the PLO's perpetual "foreign minister,"...

Arafat had made no serious effort to fight terrorism or to enforce law and order in Gaza,...

Arafat was not trying to make peace or curb terrorism.

a senior Gaza police officer... revealed that mass arrests carried out by the PA after major terror attacks were "a big show" for Israeli and American consumption, with most detainees released shortly after their arrest...

"For Arafat," he added undiplomatically, "peace is shit." [34]

(Rabin) repeatedly lamented that had he known in advance Arafat's real intentions, he would have never signed the Oslo accords...

The September 1938 Munich agreement, to give a prime example, was conceived by Hitler as a "Trojan Horse" for the destruction of Czechoslovakia, a strategy emulated by Arafat fifty-five years later with the Oslo process.

https://www.meforum.org/articles/2018/why-did-rabin-fall-for-the-oslo-process?utm_source=Middle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=291f1bfc28-MEQ_Fall_2018&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-291f1bfc28-33896409&goal=0_086cfd423c-291f1bfc28-33896409

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