Norman Finkelstein: Distorting Camp David
This article, excerpted from a longer essay deconstructing Dennis Ross's book on the Palestinian-Israeli peace process from 1993 to 2000, focuses on the Camp David summit. In particular, it examines the assumptions informing Ross's account of what happened during the negotiations and why, and the distortions that spring from these assumptions. The article demonstrates that, judged from the perspective of Palestinians' and Israelis' respective rights under international law, all the concessions at Camp David came from the Palestinian side, none from the Israeli side. In reflecting on Ross's narrative, the author explores what he considers its "main innovation": the subordination of the normative framework of rights to the arbitrary and capricious one of "needs."
Dennis Ross's The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace[1] has been widely heralded as the definitive treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" from the 1993 Oslo Accords through the Camp David negotiations of July 2000.[2]
The "one overriding lesson from the story of the peace process," Ross writes in his prologue, "is that truth-telling is a necessity" (p. 14). The "purpose" of his book as well as the "key to peace," he similarly concludes, "is to debunk mythologies . . . to engage in truth-telling" (p. 773). Ross's execution of this debunking and truth-telling enterprise, however, is problematic. His account of the peace process is based almost entirely on his memory and notes. Its authority derives chiefly from the fact that he was the "point person" (p. 106) for the Clinton administration on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Yet his "inside story" of the Camp David negotiations differs fundamentally on crucial points from what other participants have said and written. Rather than go over the ground already covered,[3] I will focus here on the cluster of assumptions informing Ross's account of what happened during the negotiations and why, and the distortions that spring from these assumptions.
Ross's interpretation of why Camp David failed gained wide currency almost immediately. His narrative, as is well known, assigns the lion's share of blame for the summit's collapse to Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. Nonetheless, Ross situates the failure in a deeper Palestinian pathology.
The root of the problem
It is a central contention of Ross that Palestinians are in thrall to a victim syndrome. While acknowledging that they "surely have suffered" (p. 775), Ross maintains that the Palestinians' "sense of being victims has . . . fostered a sense of entitlement" (p. 42; cf. pp. 200, 686). For instance, Palestinians harbor the belief that they had been "entitled to the land" on which they were born when Zionist settlers coming from Europe sought to displace them; that the land "was theirs and had been taken" (p. 35). In Palestinian "eyes," Ross continues, "they were not responsible for what was done to the Jews in Europe" (p. 42). In their "eyes," consequently, "ending the conflict and agreeing to live with Israel's presence" constituted a significant concession (p. 44). Further, Palestinians chafed at the fact that it was Israel that determined the pace and parameters of withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territory because they "believed they were getting what was rightfully theirs" (p. 55) and that "the land is 'theirs'" (p. 763). Their opposition to Israeli settlement expansion apparently sprang from this misapprehension as well: "it outrage[d] the Palestinians-absorbing land that they considered to be theirs" (pp. 82, 195), "perceived to be theirs" (p. 765), that "they believed was theirs or should be theirs" (p. 332; cf. 44, 55). Finally, Arafat "flew into a rage" and "ranted for several minutes" after seeing the Oslo map because of the "appearance" that the Palestinian areas comprised "isolated islands that are cut off from each other" (p. 205). It so happens, however, that what Palestinians "believed," "considered," and "perceived" to be theirs actually was theirs according to international law; that it was not just "in their eyes," but in those of any rational person that, whatever sins Palestinians might be chastised for, causing the Nazi holocaust is not one of them; and that the Oslo map did in fact shatter the Palestinian territory into a maze of fragments.
Compounding Palestinian misapprehensions regarding their legitimate claims on Palestine, according to Ross, were those regarding the United Nations and international law. For example, Ross writes:
Palestinians and many in the Arab world continued to see an American double standard. . . . They asked why was Israel permitted to effectively ignore Security Council resolutions while Saddam was forced to comply? They did not see the difference between the Security Council resolutions. Those against Iraq came as a response to Saddam's eradication of a member state of the U.N.; the resolutions required his compliance, not his acceptance. Noncompliance carried sanctions, and led to the use of force against his absorption of Kuwait. The resolutions that Palestinians and Arabs more generally focused on with regard to Israel were resolutions 242 and 338. They were adopted after the 1967 and 1973 wars. They provided the guidelines or principles that should shape negotiations to resolve the conflict between Arabs and Israelis. The terms of a final peace settlement were not established in these resolutions and they could not be mandatory on either side. But drawing distinctions between Security Council resolutions involving the Iraqis and the Israelis was not satisfying. The Arab world generally rejected the idea that Iraq faced pressure to implement Security Council resolutions while Israel did not. They wanted equal treatment. They wanted to portray all Security Council resolutions as having the force of international law. For the Arab world generally, the resolutions were their face-savers. They would resolve the conflict with Israel, but only on the basis of international law, "international legitimacy," as they called it. Here was their explanation, their justification for ending the conflict. If Iraq had to follow international legitimacy, so too, must Israel. (p. 43)...
Read entire article at Zmag
Dennis Ross's The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace[1] has been widely heralded as the definitive treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" from the 1993 Oslo Accords through the Camp David negotiations of July 2000.[2]
The "one overriding lesson from the story of the peace process," Ross writes in his prologue, "is that truth-telling is a necessity" (p. 14). The "purpose" of his book as well as the "key to peace," he similarly concludes, "is to debunk mythologies . . . to engage in truth-telling" (p. 773). Ross's execution of this debunking and truth-telling enterprise, however, is problematic. His account of the peace process is based almost entirely on his memory and notes. Its authority derives chiefly from the fact that he was the "point person" (p. 106) for the Clinton administration on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Yet his "inside story" of the Camp David negotiations differs fundamentally on crucial points from what other participants have said and written. Rather than go over the ground already covered,[3] I will focus here on the cluster of assumptions informing Ross's account of what happened during the negotiations and why, and the distortions that spring from these assumptions.
Ross's interpretation of why Camp David failed gained wide currency almost immediately. His narrative, as is well known, assigns the lion's share of blame for the summit's collapse to Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. Nonetheless, Ross situates the failure in a deeper Palestinian pathology.
The root of the problem
It is a central contention of Ross that Palestinians are in thrall to a victim syndrome. While acknowledging that they "surely have suffered" (p. 775), Ross maintains that the Palestinians' "sense of being victims has . . . fostered a sense of entitlement" (p. 42; cf. pp. 200, 686). For instance, Palestinians harbor the belief that they had been "entitled to the land" on which they were born when Zionist settlers coming from Europe sought to displace them; that the land "was theirs and had been taken" (p. 35). In Palestinian "eyes," Ross continues, "they were not responsible for what was done to the Jews in Europe" (p. 42). In their "eyes," consequently, "ending the conflict and agreeing to live with Israel's presence" constituted a significant concession (p. 44). Further, Palestinians chafed at the fact that it was Israel that determined the pace and parameters of withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territory because they "believed they were getting what was rightfully theirs" (p. 55) and that "the land is 'theirs'" (p. 763). Their opposition to Israeli settlement expansion apparently sprang from this misapprehension as well: "it outrage[d] the Palestinians-absorbing land that they considered to be theirs" (pp. 82, 195), "perceived to be theirs" (p. 765), that "they believed was theirs or should be theirs" (p. 332; cf. 44, 55). Finally, Arafat "flew into a rage" and "ranted for several minutes" after seeing the Oslo map because of the "appearance" that the Palestinian areas comprised "isolated islands that are cut off from each other" (p. 205). It so happens, however, that what Palestinians "believed," "considered," and "perceived" to be theirs actually was theirs according to international law; that it was not just "in their eyes," but in those of any rational person that, whatever sins Palestinians might be chastised for, causing the Nazi holocaust is not one of them; and that the Oslo map did in fact shatter the Palestinian territory into a maze of fragments.
Compounding Palestinian misapprehensions regarding their legitimate claims on Palestine, according to Ross, were those regarding the United Nations and international law. For example, Ross writes:
Palestinians and many in the Arab world continued to see an American double standard. . . . They asked why was Israel permitted to effectively ignore Security Council resolutions while Saddam was forced to comply? They did not see the difference between the Security Council resolutions. Those against Iraq came as a response to Saddam's eradication of a member state of the U.N.; the resolutions required his compliance, not his acceptance. Noncompliance carried sanctions, and led to the use of force against his absorption of Kuwait. The resolutions that Palestinians and Arabs more generally focused on with regard to Israel were resolutions 242 and 338. They were adopted after the 1967 and 1973 wars. They provided the guidelines or principles that should shape negotiations to resolve the conflict between Arabs and Israelis. The terms of a final peace settlement were not established in these resolutions and they could not be mandatory on either side. But drawing distinctions between Security Council resolutions involving the Iraqis and the Israelis was not satisfying. The Arab world generally rejected the idea that Iraq faced pressure to implement Security Council resolutions while Israel did not. They wanted equal treatment. They wanted to portray all Security Council resolutions as having the force of international law. For the Arab world generally, the resolutions were their face-savers. They would resolve the conflict with Israel, but only on the basis of international law, "international legitimacy," as they called it. Here was their explanation, their justification for ending the conflict. If Iraq had to follow international legitimacy, so too, must Israel. (p. 43)...