A perverse dynamic at work
By Daniel Pipes
Jerusalem Post

(August 2) - Camp David II had a topsy-turvy quality to it,
as two facts suggest. First, Israel, the major power of the
Middle East, the victor in war, the economically prosperous
and politically stable country, did all the giving while the
Palestinians - losers, weak, poor, and unstable - were to
get the practical benefits. 

Lest this seem like an exaggeration, consider the issues
under discussion at Camp David: Jerusalem, borders,
Jewish settlements, Palestinian refugees. In every one of
these, Israel gives and the Palestinians take. Issues that
would benefit Israel - normalizing relations, changing
school textbooks, the Arab League declaring a formal end
to the conflict - were not even on the table. The old
"land-for-words" formula of UN Resolution 242 is
apparently defunct, replaced by Oslo's "land-for-nothing" logic. 

Second, and stranger yet, is the fact that the Israeli side
made almost every concession at Camp David. It made a
heart-wrenching compromise on Jerusalem, a strategic one
on the Jordan River front, and a Zionist one on the return
of Palestinian refugees. Despite the remarkable nature of
these steps, much at variance with traditional policy, polls
showed Israeli public opinion, with reservations, endorsing
the prime minister's efforts. 

In contrast, the Palestinian side mounted a wall of
opposition to Yasser Arafat's presence at the negotiations,
seeing in this alone something terrible. Hamas, the leading
Islamist group, declared the Camp David meeting to be
nothing less than "a new Zionist and American conspiracy"
against "the rights of our people." 

Islamic Jihad, a yet more radical group, concurred: "The
summit is in the Israeli interest and Israel and the United
States will try to pressure the Palestinians and impose
Israel's position on them." 

The prospect of Arafat making any concessions was
anathema to his constituency. On the issue of refugees
returning to Israel, for example, one member of the
Palestinian Legislative Council, Hussam Khadir, warned
Arafat that "A pistol bullet has been passing from
generation to generation and its last destination will be the
heart of those who cede the refugees' right to return." With
this kind of threat hanging over the Palestinian delegation, it
is not surprising that they stood tough on nearly every point. 

Whatever the summit might have achieved would have
been unwelcome to Palestinians. "I consider any
agreement that might be reached at Camp David to be a
failure because it is not what the Palestinians are looking
for," Sheikh Ahmed Yassin of Hamas proclaimed. Like
Hafez Assad four months earlier, the Palestinians would
not take yes for an answer. 

All this is really very odd. Not only is the stronger power
unilaterally handing over its trump cards, but the recipient is
loath to take them. What explains this upside-down
circumstance? 

Palestinians have, over the seven years of the Oslo
process, grown accustomed to taking from Israel and
offering very little by way of compensation. In fact, they
have come to take this for granted. They expect more of
the same - land, autonomy, tax income - culminating in the
declaration of a Palestinian state. 

As the Palestinians have become the beneficiaries of
Israeli largesse, their earlier fear of Israel has been
replaced with a disdain that borders on contempt. The
result is plain to see. The Barak government signals a
willingness to turn over about 90 percent of the West
Bank, a much larger percentage than ever previously
discussed, and the Palestinians react with indifference.
Why bother with this, they ask each other. Why settle for
anything less than full control of the land? 

At the very least, they can hold out for a better offer. Or
they can turn to the alternative, the one that Hizbullah
trail-blazed in Lebanon. 

Instead of the indignity of negotiations, Palestinians can
resort to the (for them) more noble and redeeming use of
violence to extrude the Zionists from every last meter of
what they consider to be their land. 

A perverse dynamic, in other words, is at work here. The
more that Israelis are reasonable and flexible, the less
likely Palestinians are to accept a compromise with them.
The grander Barak's gesture, the more trivial and even
unwelcome it appears to his opponents. 

This self-defeating logic is likely to continue until Israel
again shows the kind of fortitude that it once made famous.