IP: The Oslo Accords Were a Trojan Horse -- As usual read with a questioning mind

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2001 10:23:08 -0500
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
>
> Dave,
>
> If you decide to share this, and I do think it is important enough to 
> share, please do not include my name and email address.  Thanks.
>
> I received the comments and article below from someone who is a retired 
> department chair from a major DC area university.
>
>
> ------
>  I am sending you the attached document because it helped me, for the first
>  time, to understand fully why Arafat said "no" at Camp David.  So many of us
>  had assumed that the PLO was prepared to settle for a Palestinian State on
>  the West Bank and Gaza and were surprised that Arafat was not prepared to
>  make a deal that gave him more than 90% of what he wanted as "final status,"
>  including a significant portion of Jerusalem.
>
>  Faysal Husseiny had the reputation of being a PLO moderate, someone who
>  opposed Hamas violence and looked for a peaceful settlement.  Nabil Shaath,
>  who has recently made similar statements, has been viewed in the same light.
>  If we examine Husseiny's statement and then consider the basic reason 
> for the
>  breakdown of talks at Camp David, namely Arafat's insistence on the 
> "right of
>  return" and his lack of interest in Bill Clinton's offer of a financial
>  settlement with the descendants of the refugees, it all comes together now.
>  Barak did not offer more than 90%.  He offered little more than 20%, because
>  Arafat and his PLO want it all, from the river to the sea, as Faysal 
> Husseiny
>  explained, and they want to assert the "right of return" to get it all back.
>
>  The difference between Hamas and the PLO is still significant: Hamas 
> wants to
>  kill the Jews or push them into the sea.  The PLO wants to make peace with
>  Israel.  It is prepared to let the Jews live.  But any peace settlement that
>  maintains the State of Israel is a temporary settlement only.  The 
> long-range
>  goal is to disestablish the Jewish State by attaining an Arab majority 
> there.
>   An effort would be made to attain that majority peacefully, but that
>  requires the resettlement of large numbers of Palestinians in Israel.  Barak
>  was willing to take a relatively small number, but that does not meet 
> the PLO
>  requirements.  To attain their goal in the not-to-distant future, they want
>  the return of large numbers.  That is why there was no deal.
>
>  What all of this makes clear is that in Arafat's and the PLO's plans 
> there is
>  no room long-term for the existence of the State of Israel.  We are back to
>  Square 1, the search for authentic spokespersons for the Palestinians who
>  would be willing to enter into a settlement that accepts the existence 
> of the
>  State of Israel.
>
>  ----- Original Message -----
>    From
>         "MEMRI" <memri () memri org>
>     Date
>         Sun, 1 Jul 2001 16:35:29 -0400
>       To
>         "MEMRI Subscribers"@securehosts.com
>  Subject
>         Faysal Al-Husseiny in his Last Interview: "The Oslo Accords Were 
> a Trojan
>         Horse"
>
>
>  Special Dispatch - Egypt
>  July 2, 2001 No. 236
>
>  Faysal Al-Husseiny in his Last Interview: "The Oslo Accords
>  Were a Trojan Horse; The Strategic Goal is the Liberation
>  of Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean]
>  sea"
>
>
>  On his way to Kuwait, where he died later on of a heart
>  attack, Faysal Al-Husseiny gave an interview - which turned
>  to be his last - to the Egyptian (Nasserite) daily,
>  'Al-Arabi'. Following are excerpts from the interview with
>  reporter Shafiq Ahmad Ali: (1)
>
>  The Oslo Accords: A Trojan Horse
>
>  Q: "What is happening now, unfortunately, is a natural
>  consequence of Arafat's signing the Oslo Accords which did
>  not explicitly state that the settlements should be
>  removed, or even [their construction] halted...and did not
>  explicitly determine the future of Jerusalem and the right
>  of return...but - among other mistakes you recently admit -
>  it did explicitly state that the PA must confiscate weapons
>  from Palestinian civilians..."
>
>  A: "Following the signing of the Oslo Accords... I said
>  three things:
>  First: following a long period of "pregnancy" we brought a
>  child into the world [the Oslo Accords] who is smaller,
>  weaker, and uglier than what we had hoped for. However,
>  despite it all, this is still our child, and we must
>  nurture, strengthen and develop it so that he is able to
>  stand on his own two feet."
>
>  "Second, we are the Jews of the 21st Century. Meaning, we
>  the Palestinians will be the Jews of the early [previous]
>  century. They infiltrated our country using various
>  methods; using all kinds of passports, and they suffered
>  greatly in the process. They even had to face humiliation
>  but they did it all for one goal: to enter our country and
>  root themselves in it prior to our expulsion out of it. We
>  must act the in the same way they did. [We must] return
>  [to the land], settle it, and develop new roots in our land
>  from where we were expelled; what ever the price may be."
>
>  "Third, the [ancient] Greek Army was unable to break into
>  Troy due to [internal] disputes and disagreements [among
>  themselves]. The Greek forces started retreating one after
>  the other, and the Greek king ended up facing the walls of
>  Troy all by himself, and he too suffered from illnesses and
>  [internal] disputes, and ended up leading a failed assault
>  on Troy's walls."
>
>  "[Following these events] the people of Troy climbed on top
>  of the walls of their city and could not find any traces of
>  the Greek army, except for a giant wooden horse. They
>  cheered and celebrated thinking that the Greek troops were
>  routed, and while retreating left a harmless wooden horse
>  as spoils of war. So they opened the gates of the city and
>  brought in the wooden horse. We all know what happened
>  next."
>
>  "Had the U.S. and Israel not realized, before Oslo, that
>  all that was left of the Palestinian National movement and
>  the Pan-Arab movement was a wooden horse called Arafat or
>  the PLO, they would never have opened their fortified gates
>  and let it inside their walls."
>
>  "Despite the fact that we entered these walls in order to
>  build, unlike the Greeks who entered them in order to
>  destroy, I now tell you all, all these to whom I spoke in a
>  secret meeting during the days of Oslo: 'climb into the
>  horse and don't question what type of material the horse is
>  made of. Climb into the horse, and we shall transform your
>  climbing into that horse into a beginning of a building era
>  rather than an era of the end of hope."
>
>  "And indeed, there are those who climbed unto the horse and
>  are [now] inside [the PA territory] whether they supported
>  the Oslo Accords or not."
>
>  Q: "But the horse began to ignore criticism from the
>  people, both from those who supported Oslo and those who
>  opposed it. [It ignored] criticism about the true
>  democracy that should lead the horse and about the horse's
>  corruption."
>
>  A: "Your words remind me of the famous meeting we had with
>  all the Palestinian factions three years following Arafat
>  and the PLO's return to Gaza...the debate revolved around
>  the same issues you are raising - i.e., democracy,
>  corruption, etc."
>
>  "In that meeting - and those who attended are still alive
>  and can attest to it - I asked to speak. I told everyone:
>  three years ago I said 'climb into the horse' and everyone
>  entered into the horse and the horse entered into the
>  walled-in [area]. Now, the time has come for us to say:
>  'come out of the horse and start working. Don't stay
>  inside the horse and don't waist time and energy while you
>  are inside the horse arguing whether this was a good horse
>  or not. Look, it is thanks to this horse that you were
>  able to get into the walled-in city."
>
>  "So come down out of the horse and start working for the
>  goal for which you entered the horse to begin with. In my
>  opinion, the Intifada itself is the coming down out of the
>  horse. Rather than getting into the old arguments...this
>  effort [the Intifada] could have been much better, broader,
>  and more significant had we made it clearer to ourselves
>  that the Oslo agreement, or any other agreement, is just a
>  temporary procedure, or just a step towards something
>  bigger..."
>
>  "Praise Allah, by now we have all come out of the horse,
>  those who were with Arafat and those from the opposition.
>  Personally, I never had any complaints regarding the fact
>  that they entered the horse while being opposed to it.
>  However, I would have complaints had they stayed inside the
>  horse and never came out of it. Now that we all came out
>  of the horse, I ask of you and of all journalists to lay
>  aside all the analyses of past events, all the old
>  disputes, and judge people on the basis of what they are
>  actually doing now...our slogan from now on should be "the
>  Intifada is always right..."
>
>  The Strategic Goal: A State from the Jordan River to the
>  Mediterranean Sea
>
>  Q: "What are the borders of the Palestinian state you are
>  referring to, and what kind of 'Jerusalem' would you accept
>  as the capital of your state?"
>
>  A: "With this question you are dragging me into talking
>  about what we refer to as our "strategic" goals and our
>  "political" goals, or the phased goals. The "strategic"
>  goals are the "higher" goals, the "long-term goals," or the
>  "unwavering goals," the goals that are based on solid
>  Pan-Arab historic rights and principles. Whereas the
>  "political" goals are those goals which were set for a
>  temporary timeframe, considering the [constraints of] the
>  existing international system, the balance of power, our
>  own abilities, and other considerations which "vary" from
>  time to time."
>
>  "When we are asking all the Palestinian forces and factions
>  to look at the Oslo Agreement and at other agreements as
>  "temporary" procedures, or phased goals, this means that we
>  are ambushing the Israelis and cheating them. However, the
>  truth is that we are doing exactly what they are doing.
>  The proof for that is that they are aware of, and are not
>  trying to hide, the fact that there is nothing that unites
>  them more around the territory which extends from the Nile
>  to the Euphrates, than their slogan, which was taken from
>  the Torah, and reads: 'These are the borders of the greater
>  land of Israel.'"
>
>  "If, for some reason, they had to temporarily declare their
>  state over "a part" of the greater land of Israel, they
>  would publicly declare that this is their "political"
>  strategy, which they will have to temporarily accept due to
>  international circumstances. On the other hand, their
>  "higher strategy" is always "The Greater Land of Israel."
>
>  "We are [acting] exactly like them. In 1947, in accordance
>  with [the UN] Partition Plan, they decided to declare
>  statehood on 55% of the land of Palestine, which they later
>  increased to 78% during the War of 1948, and then again
>  [increased it] to 100% during the War of 1967. Despite all
>  that, they never attempted to make secret of their
>  long-term goal, which is "Greater Israel" from the Nile to
>  the Euphrates. Similarly, if we agree to declare our state
>  over what is now only 22% of Palestine, meaning the West
>  Bank and Gaza - our ultimate goal is [still] the liberation
>  of all historical Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the
>  [Mediterranean] sea, even if this means that the conflict
>  will last for another thousand years or for many
>  generations."
>
>  "In short, we are exactly like they are. We distinguish
>  the strategic, long-term goals from the political phased
>  goals, which we are compelled to temporarily accept due to
>  international pressure. If you are asking me as a Pan-Arab
>  nationalist what are the Palestinian borders according to
>  the higher strategy, I will immediately reply: "from the
>  river to the sea." Palestine in its entirety is an Arab
>  land, the land of the Arab nation, a land no one can sell
>  or buy, and it is impossible to remain silent while someone
>  is stealing it, even if this requires time and even [if it
>  means paying] a high price."
>
>  "If you are asking me, as a man who belongs to the Islamic
>  faith, my answer is also "from the river to the sea," the
>  entire land is an Islamic Waqf which can not be bought or
>  sold, and it is impossible to remain silent while someone
>  is stealing it ..."
>
>  "If you are asking me as an ordinary Palestinian, from the
>  "inside" or from the Diaspora, you will get the same answer
>  and without any hesitations. However, what I am able to
>  achieve and live on right now, due to [constraints of] the
>  international system, is not, of course, Palestine "from
>  the river to the sea." In order for us to fulfill all of
>  our dreams regarding Palestine, we must, first of all, wake
>  up and realize where we are standing. On the other hand,
>  if we will continue to behave as if we are still dreaming,
>  we will not find a place to put our feet on..."
>
>  "As I once said in the past: our eyes must continue to
>  focus on the higher goal. The real danger is that I might
>  forget [it], and while advancing towards my short-term goal
>  I might turn my back on my long-term goal, which is the
>  liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea..."
>
>  (1) 'Al-Arabi' (Egypt), June 24, 2001). Subtitles are
>  given by the translator.
>
>
>  ************************
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