San Francisco Chronicle · San Francisco, California · 23 April 2002

CP-2002-010

Ex-ambassador calls Arafat obstructionist

Clinton envoy fuels criticism in Congress

Edward Epstein, Chronicle Washington Bureau

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Transcribed from the clipping

“WASHINGTON — A former top U.S. Mideast negotiator’s statement that Yasser Arafat scuttled attempts to reach an accord under former President Bill Clinton fueled criticism of the Palestinian leader yesterday and set the stage for a congressional vote as soon as today that would tag Arafat as an obstacle to peace.

Former Ambassador Dennis Ross’ remarks, vigorously disputed by Palestinian representatives, buttressed the view of many in Congress and the Bush administration who believe Arafat ruined ambitious peace initiatives by Clinton and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in the final days of Clinton’s presidency.

The peace talks’ failure, in turn, led to the anger that fueled Palestinian suicide bombings and Israel’s recent West Bank military action, Arafat’s critics say… According to Ross, Arafat rejected a deal in January 2001 that would have given the Palestinians 97 percent of the disputed West Bank, all of the Gaza Strip, a capital in East Jerusalem, a $30 billion international fund to pay for resettling Palestinians in their own state and an international force in the Jordan Valley.

Ross, who spent thousands of hours in talks with Palestinian and Israeli negotiators, said on Fox News that he now believes Arafat was never interested in an agreement, although his aides in the Palestinian Authority were. ‘Arafat’s whole life has been governed by struggle and a cause. ...

For him to end the conflict is to end himself,’ Ross said in an interview on Fox News… Palestinian negotiators, however, say Ross’ version of events is wrong. Hassan Abdel Rahman, the Palestinian representative in Washington since 1994, said those who said that the Palestinians had caused the current crisis were mistaken.

‘Some in this town say, “Well, the Palestinians deserve it. They brought it onto themselves, because they were offered a very generous deal in Camp David, and they rejected it.” And this lie has been repeated so often in this town to the point where it has become a fact or appears to be a fact,’ he said at a forum sponsored by the U.S.

Institute for Peace. Rahman contended that no formal offer had ever been made, and that Israel’s positions on resettling refugees, the future of Jerusalem, security arrangements for the West Bank and its insistence on controlling West Bank airspace were all unacceptable.

Rahman said Arafat had told Clinton not to force the sides into the Camp David summit because they weren’t ready.

‘We offered Israel a compromise with the hope that they will behave as neighbors with us, that they will respect our humanity and our dignity, not to perpetually control us and deprive us of every right that every one of you take for granted,’ Rahman said.

Ross’ remarks sparked Feinstein to take to the Senate floor, where she read large pieces of his interview to colleagues, and said his comments were the most thorough account she had yet seen of Clinton’s lame-duck peace efforts. ‘When push came to shove, Yasser Arafat said no,’ said Feinstein. Last week, she and Sen.

Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., introduced a bill that would designate Arafat’s group as a terrorist organization and enact sanctions against it. ‘I think Yasser Arafat is totally responsible for the problems in the Middle East,’ said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.”

Context added by this archive

The generous-offer claim and the Palestinian answer to it in one column, and the Palestinian representative names the mechanism he objects to: that a thing repeated often enough in Washington becomes a fact.

Cite this clipping

This clipping is read closely in the section below

• No partner for peace, and the answer printed beside it

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