Offer far from generous
by Mark Schneider, Denver
Letters to the Editor
Feb. 14, 2002
Having read Bobbie Towbin's Feb. 1 Speakout column, "Respecting Israel's rights will end troubles," I came away intrigued. Towbin's main argument was that Yasser Arafat walked away from Ehud Barak's "generous offer."
Barak's offer was far from generous. It represented nothing more than a crude attempt to slice and dice away at the already duplicitous Oslo agreement. "Surface" rights to the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque was Barak's East Jerusalem offer. Who would sign that? And the rest of Barak's offer was a continuation of Palestinian Bantustans neatly guarded by the Israeli military and American F-16s. This was Israel's "final stage" of negotiations? This somehow creates a just peace?
The international community is in near consensus to sending international observers, a peacekeeping force or both to at least start to implement U.N. Resolution 242 (1967) that mandated Israel immediately leave the occupied territories. If Israel's security is the issue, then why do the U.S. and Israel continue to block U.N. troops and observers that would provide security for both Israel and Palestine?
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml . If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.