Last week, in Europe, I happened to pass a frozen lake. I was told that a few days before it waspossible to skate on it. But the temperature had risen and the ice cover had started to melt. Itstill covers the whole lake, but in many places it can be broken with a stick. I was warned not totry to stand on it, because it might break, I would fall into the lake and disappear. But in a fewdays or weeks, I was promised, the ice would disappear and the beautiful lake would come to lifeagain.
The situation in our country resembles this situation. The ice still covers the whole state,but it has started to melt.
The ice is the Big Lie told by Ehud Barak and his companions. This lie is starting to break. Soonnothing will be left of it.
When the bunch of bankrupt politicians returned from Camp David, they fabricated the legend,which has since become a holy truth, as if given by God at Mount Sinai. Like the Ten Commandmentsof Moses, there are Eight Facts of Barak: I have turned every stone on the way to peace; I havesubmitted offers unprecedented in their generosity; I went further than any Prime Ministerbefore me; I have given the Palestinians everything they wanted; Arafat has rejected all theoffers; Arafat does not want peace; The Palestinians want to throw us into the sea; We have nopartner for peace.
If Binyamin Netanyahu had said this, it would not have had any impact. Everybody knows thatNetanyahu is a crook. If Sharon had said it, he would not have been believed, because everybodyknows that Sharon is a Man of Blood, unable to distinguish between truth and untruth. But whenit came from the leaders of the Labor Party, those eminent spokesmen for peace, it caused thecollapse of the established peace movement.
Since then, many testimonies about Camp David have been published, including some bypro-Israeli American eye-witnesses. All of them show that Barak’s proposals fell far shortof the essential minimum for peace: end of the occupation, establishment of a Palestinianstate side by side with Israel, giving up all the occupied territories (all in all 22% ofPalestine under the British Mandate), returning to the Green Line (with the possibility ofmutually agreed swaps of territories), turning East Jerusalem into the capital ofPalestine, return of the settlers and soldiers to Israel, ending the tragedy of the refugeeswithout damage to Israel.
When the Big Lie exploded, an alternative lie was put out: Some months after the Camp Davidtalks were renewed in Taba, Barak’s men made offers unprecedented in their generosity, gavethe Palestinians everything, but Arafat Refused To Sign, which shows that he does not wantpeace, etc.
Now Moratinus, the the European Union emissary for peace in the Middle East, has come along andburied this lie, too. The Spanish diplomat, who was in Taba but did not take part in the talks,has published a long and detailed report about what really happened there.
The clear conclusion is that at Taba the sides indeed came dramatically closer to each other.Gaps remained between their positions in almost all areas, but they were quantitative,rather than qualitative gaps. Clearly, if the talks had gone on for another few days or weeks, ahistoric agreement would have been achieved.
So what happened? Is it true that “Arafat Refused To Sign”?
Not at all. Arafat did not refuse to sign. He wanted to continue the negotiations until therewas an agreement to sign.
It was not Arafat who broke off the talks at this critical moment, when the light at the end of thetunnel was clearly visible to the negotiators, but Barak. He ordered his men to beak off andreturn home.
Why?
The Taba talks began after the outbreak of the second i ntifada . After Sharon’s invasion of theTemple Mount with Barak’s permission, and after seven Arab protesters were shot by Ben-Ami’spolice, bloody incidents occurred daily. The Taba talks were held “under fire” – a processthat is quite normal in history. After all, negotiations are held in order to put an end to thefire.
On that day, two Israelis were murdered in a Palestinian town. The Palestinians said that thiswas revenge for the murder of a local leader. But it was enough for Barak to break off the talks.
What was the real reason? The answer must be found in the mind of Barak. After all, it happened toBarak time and again: whenever he got close to an agreement, he withdrew at the last moment.
It started at the very beginning of his term of office. As will be recalled, he wanted to come toan agreement with the Syrians first, in order to isolate the Palestinians. Completeagreement was almost reached, when suddenly everything broke down. Assad wanted Syrianterritory to extend to the shores of the Sea of Galilee, while Barak wanted the border to be ahundred meters away from the shore. Because of the hundred meters, Barak rejected thehistoric agreement that was at hand. (Comics say these days that Barak should have fixed theborder at the shore line as it was then, as the sea has retreated many hundreds of meters sincethen.)
The same happened at Camp David. Agreement was possible. All the participants believed at thetime that it was already close. Then something happened to Barak. As the Israeli participantstestify (and as Arafat told me a few days ago), Barak simply freaked out. He cut himself off, didnot shave and refused to meet even with his closest assistants.
Something similar happened at Taba. When the agreement was at hand, Barak ordered the talks tobe broken off. The actual pretext does not matter.
When something like that occurs again and again, it raises questions. It may be called”politicus interruptus’. A moment before the consummation, Barak draws back. I am not apsychiatrist and am not qualified to deal with mental problems. But I believe that every time,when Barak saw the actual price of peace in front of him, he shrunk back at the last moment. Therewas a dissonance between the price of peace (withdrawal from the occupied territories,evacuation of settlements, conceding East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, return of asymbolic number of refugees) and the ideas he was brought up on. He could not shoulder theresponsibility and broke down. At the same time, he expanded the settlements at a franticpace.
Adding sin to crime (as the Hebrew expression goes), he covered his personal collapse with theBig Lie, which caused a national collapse.
Now the lie is starting to break up. The open discussion of war crimes, the declaration ofhundreds of soldiers that they refuse to serve in the Palestinian territories, the call of thereserve generals for an end to the occupation, the new voices in the media, the call ofcourageous artists, the big demonstration of 27 militant peace organizations (includingGush Shalom), the following big Peace Now demonstration – all these show that the ice isstarting to melt.
This is only the beginning. Now is the time for all those who were waiting to join the effort. AsChurchill said after the victory in Egypt: “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning ofthe end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”