Israel Matzav

Walt and Mearsheimer 's attempt to rewrite history

At the American Thinker, Rick Richman writes an article that is "not a book review" of Walt and Mearsheimer's The Israel Lobby, but the peeling away of layers of falsity in the book regarding what happened at Camp David and at Taba in 2000 and 2001.

This article is not intended as a book review, but rather an examination of a central event in the Middle East "peace process" that Walt & Mearsheimer distorted in their earlier work -- and now expand in their book.

As the State Department seeks to "accelerate" the peace process by organizing an international meeting for the Fall -- on grounds the Palestinians need a "political horizon" -- it is important to understand what actually happened when they received multiple "political horizons" in 2000, and how that relates to what is happening now. What follows is thus of more than academic interest.

Richman shows how Walt and Mearsheimer's portrayal of Camp David and Clinton's final proposal to the parties, which was the basis for Taba, is distorted and not in accord with any of the first-hand accounts from those present at Camp David. Richman concentrates particularly on Dennis Ross' account, which has been turned into a book. This is his conclusion.

The ultimate result of six months of intensive meetings and multiple Israeli concessions and offers was a new "intifada" involving waves of barbaric mass-homicide bombings. The Clinton Parameters were ultimately superseded by the Bush Parameters in the April 14, 2004 letter to Israel, which promised the U.S. would (a) support no other plan than the Road Map, (b) back "defensible borders" for Israel (rather than a withdrawal to the 1967 lines), and (c) act to insure Gaza would not pose a threat, and which recognized that refugees would not return to Israel. [I'd like to see the US fulfill the first half of item (c) today. CiJ]

Last month, Rudy Giuliani said the Barak concessions had been made "unwisely." He recognized that a Palestinian state per se is not necessarily in the interests of the United States, unless the Palestinians first renounce terrorism, accept the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, and demonstrate for "some safe period" that the commitments are real. Absent compliance with those conditions, he said he opposes a process to create a Palestinian state, since rather than advance the war against terror it might provide a new base for terrorism.

Seven years after the Palestinians twice turned down a state, they are not even close to meeting the conditions articulated by Giuliani (much less the Bush Parameters). They have not dismantled a single terrorist organization, are still pushing their "right of return," still demanding that Israel move back to the indefensible borders of 1967, and still insisting on sovereignty over the most holy Jewish site in the world (among other deal killers). And not only Israel but the whole world saw what happened after the total withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza.

Walt & Mearsheimer figure prominently in a new anti-Israel lobby that is entitled to its own opinions but under no circumstances to its own facts. Fortunately, primary documents that refute their account are easily available. We can only guess at Walt & Mearsheimer's motivations, but their goal seems to extend far beyond academia: with their egregiously erroneous portrayal of the events of 2000, they seem to be seeking not only to re-write history, but to add to the pressure on Israel to make the same unwise concessions again.

According to Richman, the attempted distortion is especially significant now since

As the State Department seeks to "accelerate" the peace process by organizing an international meeting for the Fall -- on grounds the Palestinians need a "political horizon" -- it is important to understand what actually happened when they received multiple "political horizons" in 2000, and how that relates to what is happening now. What follows is thus of more than academic interest.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:34 AM