The Collapse of Camp David Summit in 2000 - Essay Example

The Collapse of Camp David Summit in 2000 Introduction Camp David summit of 2000 was a meeting between the United States President Bill Clinton; Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak and the chairman of Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, conducted between 11th and 25th July, 2000. The meeting was conducted in Camp David, a country retreat of the presidents of United States, with an aim of ending Israeli-Palestinian long time conflict that is believed to have started in the mid-20th century which has led to civil unrest between these two sides and long term atrocities of the citizens. Camp David was seen as the favorite spot for negotiation due to its previous successes such as 1978’s Camp David Accords whereby the then United States’ President Jimmy Carter brokered a peace deal between Egypt and Israel, and 1993’s Oslo Accord on the Final Status Settlement; which provided agreement should be reached between Palestinians and Israelis on all outstanding issues primarily based on historical injustices with which the negotiations, which were for the most part verbal neither fulfilled Palestinians or Israeli interests thus the collapse of the summit (Finkelstein, 2005, pp.39-53). The two parties failed to agree over the following issues, the so-called final status settlement, and which formed the basis of negotiation: Refugees and Right of Return The Palestinians refugees demanded full implementation right of return which included: Each refugee to be granted the option of returning back to his/her home, with property restored and/or accept compensation. This would mean a concession by Israel which translates to demographic overwhelming of Israel since the first Arab-Israeli war led to movement of a significant number of Palestinian Arabs approximately 750000 from Israel whom by today is slightly over four million people inclusive of their descendants. Socially, Israel observed this influx could jeopardize its Jewish character and majority of the decision makers maintained that a large number of Jewish refugees were expelled from Arab countries and that they were never compensated, ruling out the demands of restoration of property and/or compensation to Palestinians by Israel, which at that point was against the will and demands of Palestinians. Economically, an international fund worth$30 billion was to be set up in a bid to help resettle the refugees in their present place of inhabitance at an expense of Israel gradually absorbing 150,000 refugees a year; a proposal which at first did not favor Israel but Palestinians in a nutshell and in the long run analysis. Israel on their side strongly stood with the argument that they were not to blame for the refugee problem and that they were only willing to absorb 100,000 refugees on humanitarian grounds directly observed as family reunification; which on the Palestinian side it was a continued state of inflicting pain and atrocities to its people. From the Palestinian point of view, this would mean that their people, either in Palestinian State or ones in third-party countries would only be absorbed a small number of 100,000 in their mother country and the rest absorbed to their present inhabitants; the fact that the non-absorbed would register claims for compensation of property lost and that the payments were to be made within the Israel’s resources, did not favor the Palestinian and thus a deal could not be brokered. Territorial Disputes In the 1967’s United Nation’s Security Council preamble which referred to admissibility of acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which every area can live in security (Boudreault, 1992, 6), gave Palestinians a negotiating stand in which they demanded full sovereignty over the entire West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This would meant that Israeli were to withdraw from these territories they had captured during the Six-Day-War in order to find the long lasting settlement deal. Israel on the other hand wanted to annex numerous settlements and claimed that a complete return to the 1967 Green Line boarders was dangerous to its security thus disputing the proposal and blaming the interpretation of the resolution by Palestinians. Practically, Palestinians were willing to accept the Green Line boarders for West Bank with which the Israeli definition on the same differed due Palestinians’ inclusion of East Jerusalem. Israeli argument on the case was that the 5% land area included by Palestinians would translate to 71 km2 of East Jerusalem, 195km2 territorial waters in the Dead Sea and 50km2 of the area known as No Man’s Land, figures that did not favor them. Despite the offer by Palestinians to consider a one-to-one land swap with Israel, after Israel withdraws from West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel observed that it would mean Palestinian State to occupy 100% of Gaza Strip and 73% of West Bank. To Israel, this would translate to an expansion by Palestinian State of approximately 92% within the preceding 10-25 years which they equated to the offer of a Palestinian State on a maximum landmark of 86%; an offer they had declined before when Palestinians had offered a 73% stake on West Bank, 27% less than the Green Line boarders. On the sovereignty issues due before divide, Israel would keep the only populous settlements within the Palestinian State but still demanded that West Bank be split in the middle by a road from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea which Israel had to control. Palestinians were simply not favored by this demand despite the provision by the Israeli of free passage by Palestinians on the grounds that; the control by Israel and reservation of rights by Israel to close the road passage in case of an emergency would imply future threats and intimidations on basis of either creed and religion/color disagreements. Israeli on the other hand were to withdraw 63 settlements from Palestinian State followed by subsequent demolition/ dismantling of the sparsely populated settlements with exceptions of those near the Holy City of Hebron which to the Palestinians was not significant as it was an Israeli enclave to their much anticipated land. In their argument, Palestinians argued that Israeli’s proposed plans to annex areas would lead to cantonization of West Bank into Three blocks; settlement blocks, bypassed roads and annexed lands which would create barriers between Nablus and Jenin with Ramallah. This was factually presented by the areas to be conceded by both parties, for instance, Israel would concede 1% of the land within the Green Line and retain 9% of the West Bank whereas the Palestinians would give up the West Bank in exchange for 78 km2 Halutza Sand region alongside Gaza Strip which Palestinians argued that the land was of inferior quality. In addition to this, Palestinians protested on the terms of exchange in that majority of the land and symbolic and cultural features they were to concede had a concrete land value and significance compared to Israeli’s land and territories which in a way were not explicitly defined and specified. They termed this as a trap citing unwanted divisions of their important landmarks such as Hebron and Bethlehem to create Ramallah Block and later retain a small share of East Jerusalem which would be surrounded by annexed lands in the West Bank, which were to be under Israeli control. Security Arrangements The fact that majority of the Arab refugees claimed to have been expelled from Israel, the negotiators on the Israel side proposed the need by Israel to Set up and control radar stations inside the Palestinian State. Earlier under the Barak’s offer the totality of the air space, that is, the Palestinian and the new radar to be crated were to be controlled by Israel a move that Palestinians saw as a mode of neo-colonization. For instance the construction of the new radar coupled by full control by Israel would imply that Israel had the rights to deploy troops in the Palestinian territory in an event of emergency; forcing the troops to be stations on international provisions in the Jordan valley. This was a total breach of the 1967 United Nation Security Council chatter on peaceful coexistence and security details of a sovereign country as defined in the clauses, which from the Palestinians and the treaty point of view did not favor them (Ross, 2005, 8). In addition to this, the security structure proposed by Israeli would mean meddling with Palestinian’s political independence and territorial integrity despite the temporary provisions. For instance, in the offer, Israeli would maintain security presence of 15% along the Palestinian – Jordan boarder, the site of the international force thus breaching the agreements of the United Nation’s security chatter on territorial integrity and political independence. Israel’s demand to demilitarize Palestinian State with exception of its paramilitary security forces was seen as the new political and economic focus of control since controlling the security aspect of a state would mean much power economic wise (Eiechengreen, 2003, 6). On the sovereignty matters, the control of security details by Israeli would mean that Palestinian security forces would not make any alliances without Israeli approval and/or introduction of foreign forces to destabilize their presence, thus affecting/ breaching the Palestinian sovereignty as a state. East Jerusalem as a Central Dispute The clash on the basis of disputes by the negotiating table in a bid to control the direction and destiny of the warring parties also contributed to the collapse of the summit. For instance, Barak had instructed his delegates to base the historical wars on the need to acquire East Jerusalem as the core dispute ground while Arafat on the other side was flexible but maintained the preciousness of the one thing; temple mount. At this point, Palestinians maintained the demand to control complete sovereignty of East Jerusalem with interests over Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, located in the holy site for Islam and Judaism, Temple Mount, with a condition that Israeli neighborhoods built over the Green Line be dismantled. The clash was on the course since Israel on the other side disputed the demands to return all sovereignty of East Jerusalem to Palestinians by arguing and warning the interceptors cum third parties such as America that they could not accept giving Palestinians more than a purely symbolic sovereignty over any part of East Jerusalem. As earlier discussed in the security details above, Israel maintained the need to grant Palestinians “custodianship” rather than sovereignty over Temple Mount in that they were to control the Western Wall, a remnant of the ancient war that surrounded the Temple Mount, which was outside the temple itself. This was another clash of interests between the two parties as the security and major control of the important cultural and holy sites were to be left on the hands of Israeli at the expense of Palestinians which the latter observed as a form of discrimination based on religion and political affiliation (Hunnicutt, 2011, 24). On the issues that Palestinians observed as calculated traps was a proposal by Israel for Palestinians to merge their historically important neighborhoods such as Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan and At Tur with certain outer Arab villages and small cities that have been annexed to Jerusalem. From the Israeli point of view, by granting Palestinians administrative control and allowing them to raise Palestinian flags over these merged cities would lure them to surrender the Temple Mount which Palestinians observed as a long term calculated trap which could hamper their sovereignty and loss of their cultural heritage. In the long run, this would mean annexing to Israeli Jerusalem settlements within the West Bank and beyond the Green Line such as Ma’ale Adumin, Givat Ze’ev and Gush Etzion, sites and cities that Plaestinians had fought and were still fighting for during the time. The major clash on the East Jerusalem was based on the religion and control facts with Palestinians crying foul of Israeli’s creation and establishment of Jewish neighborhoods in the holy places within the old city and the excessive control which to some point compromised independence of religious administration and freedom, and the overall need to maintain sovereignty of important sites within the Old City by Israeli at the expense of cheap offers to the Palestinians. Settlements The disagreement on the Jewish civilian communities built on the lands occupied by Israel which also existed in Sinai and Gaza Strip was also a course of collapse of the summit. For instance, in an occasion that saw Palestinians claim over-concession, Israeli dismantled 18 settlements in the Sinai Peninsula in 1982 without any step that would change the status of West Bank. To the Palestinians this followed unabated Israeli expansion of settlements despite the 1993 Oslo Accords and that demolishing their settlements in the name of illegal occupied territory in and later expanding theirs in West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan height was not only violation of the principles but over-concession from their side at the expense of the Israeli who were unmoved (Ben- Ami, 2006, pp.5-7). This violated the territorial sovereignty and integrity of the Palestinians with which they had a ground to stand for as guaranteed by the United Nation Security council’s chatter that maintained the need of the States to adhere to; to promote states’ autonomy, and the 1993 Oslo’s Accords as the final status settlement (Levin, 2005, 3) which were meant to spearhead negotiations and brokering of a peaceful deal. Conclusion In a nutshell, conflict of interests between the two parties and their delegates contributed to the collapse of the summit which in one way or the other it can be evaluated and or analyzed from the individual state’s historical background and/or economic interest’s point of view. For instance, Barak’s demand to annex 9% of the west bank with no Israeli land given to a Palestinian state in return, shows the selfish economic interests and the need to guard country’s commitment and/or earn trust from the Israeli side. Palestinians on the other side, based their grounds on historical and/or cultural backgrounds which never necessitated any further concession to the realization of peace in that the subject of East Jerusalem in seemed to affect their religious/cultural factions with which they were not willing to give up over something else may it be economical or politically beneficial. The need for economic stability by Israeli that necessitated the need to control majority of the cities and sites at expense of Palestinians also propagated the collapse of the summit. The two sides need to be committed to putting to the end the decades of war and achieve a long lasting peaceful coexistence which can only be achieved through non-selfish negotiations which should be free from economic and or socio-cultural pressures, intimidation and acts/threats of violence. References Ben-Ami, S. 2006. Scars of war, wounds of peace: the Israeli-Arab tragedy. Oxford, Oxford University Press Boudreault, J. 1992. UN security council resolution 242. Eichengreen, B. J. 2003. Crisis resolution: next steps. Cambridge, Mass, National Bureau of Economic Research Finkelstein, N. G. 2007. The Camp David II Negotiations: How Dennis Ross Proved the Palestinians Aborted the Peace Process. Journal of Palestine Studies : a Quarterly on Palestinian Affairs and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. 36, 39-53. Hunnicutt, S. 2011. The Middle East peace process. Farmington Hills, Mich, Greenhaven Press. Levin, K. 2005. The Oslo syndrome: delusions of a people under siege. Hanover, NH, Smith and Kraus. Ross, D. 2005. The missing peace. New York, Farrar Straus Giroux. Swisher, C. E. 2004. The truth about Camp David: the untold story about the collapse of the Middle East peace process. New York, Nation Books. Read More