settlements. The real debate is no longer between the annexation of the entire West Bank and its partial annexation, but between partial annexation (the areas west of the wall as well as the Jordan valley) and the return of almost all the occupied territories.
That is still far from the national consensus that is necessary for making peace-but it is even further from the consensus that existed before Oslo, when a large part of the public denied the very existence of the Palestinian people, not to mention the need for a Palestinian state. This public opinion, together with international pressures, is what now compels Ehud Olmert at least to pretend that he is going to negotiate about the establishment of the Palestinian state.
It is still too early to judge Oslo, for better or for worse. Oslo does not belong to the past. It belongs to the present. What future it may have depends on us.
July 21, 2001
Everybody knows who is a war criminal. For example, somebody who kills prisoners of war or massacres a civilian population (or allows others to do this) is one.
The time has come to define who is a peace criminal: somebody who kills peace and thereby makes war inevitable. Golda Meir, for example, in the early 1970s, killed the chances for peace with Egypt and caused the Yom Kippur war, in which 2,000 Israelis and countless others died.
Ehud Barak is a peace criminal. He brought about the failure of the Camp David summit and its consequences, primarily the present intifada, in which hundreds have already died. This might well lead to a general war, in which thousands will perish.
If there were an International Court for Peace Crimes, Ehud Barak would be indicted on two counts:
Count 1: The accused pressured Arafat and Clinton into agreeing to the summit and brought about its failure by presenting to it an ultimatum of unacceptable proposals.
Count 2: The accused spread the lie that he had offered Arafat "everything he asked for" and that Arafat rejected it. By
spreading this lie, the accused destroyed the Israeli peace camp which believed him, brought the extreme right to
power, prepared the ground for a "national unity" based on
the lie, and almost obliterated any real opposition.