Ehud Olmert has stated repeatedly that Mahmoud Abbas did not respond to his
peace proposals, which, in the description provided by president George W. Bush
in his new memoirs, included relinquishing “the vast majority of the territory
in the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians,” allowing “a limited number of
Palestinian refugees to return to Israel,” establishing Jerusalem “as a joint
capital of both Israel and Palestine,” and placing control of the holy sites in
the hands of “a panel of nonpolitical elders.”
Abbas himself has
indicated he could not accept the terms.
The Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl
last year, reporting on an interview with Abbas, wrote flatly of Olmert’s offer:
“Abbas turned it down.” Diehl quoted Abbas telling him: “The gaps were
wide.”
RELATED:Bush rejects claims that Israel was behind Iraq war Abbas was ready to back Olmert deal, Bush memoir says Bush: Olmert asked me to strike Syria, but I refused Meanwhile, Abbas’s senior negotiator Saeb Erekat asserted to
The
Jerusalem Post last month that Abbas had responded to Olmert – not with a
definitive yes or no, but with “his own plan and map for a solution” – a claim
that sources close to Olmert immediately denied.
Former president Bill
Clinton, for his part, has twice indicated in recent days that Abbas was ready
to accept the kinds of terms discussed with Ehud Barak in 2000 and offered by
Olmert in 2008. In
The New York Times last week, Clinton wrote that: “Because of
the terms accepted in late 2000 by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, supported in
greater detail by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and approved by President Mahmoud
Abbas and other Palestinians, everyone knows what a final agreement would look
like.”
And in a subsequent talk to mark the anniversary of the
assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the former president elaborated that Abbas had
“made it clear” that Clinton’s own peace proposals, accepted by Barak in 2000,
were “more or less what he’d be prepared to accept.”
Why does any of this
matter? Because it’s much more than just recent history. It stands,
indeed, as a barometer of Abbas’s viability as a peace partner – a question of
vital, ongoing importance.
Now George W. Bush has weighed in, but his
Decision Points is either lazily or deliberately somewhat vague on the issue.
It’s worth a close look, with a particular focus on the former president’s use
of the word “We.”
“Shortly after Annapolis, the two sides opened
negotiations on a peace agreement, with Ahmed Qurei representing the
Palestinians and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni representing the Israelis...,”
Bush writes. “We sent financial assistance and deployed a high-ranking general
to help train the Palestinian security forces...
“The negotiations
resolved some important issues, but it was clear that striking an agreement
would require more involvement from the leaders. With my approval, Condi
[Rice, the secretary of state] quietly oversaw a separate channel of talks
directly between Abbas and Olmert. The dialogue culminated in a secret proposal
from Olmert to Abbas.”
After detailing that proposal, the former
president continues: “We devised a process to turn the private offer into a
public agreement. Olmert would travel to Washington and deposit his proposal
with me. Abbas would announce that the plan was in line with Palestinian
interests. I would call the leaders together to finalize the
deal.
“The development represented a realistic hope for peace,” Bush
writes. “But again, an outside event intervened. Olmert had been under
investigation for his financial dealings... [and] he was forced to announce his
resignation in September.
“Abbas didn’t want to make an agreement with a
prime minister on his way out of office. The talks broke off in the final weeks
of my administration, after Israeli forces launched an offensive in Gaza in
response to Hamas rocket attacks.”
The president uses the word “We” twice
in this passage – in the first case, fairly clearly to refer to his
administration: “We sent financial assistance.”
But what of the second
case, “We devised a process...”?
If the “We” here refers to Bush, Olmert and
Abbas, that would indicate, dramatically, that the Palestinian leader was indeed
ready to accept Olmert’s terms, and would tie in to Bush’s reference in the next
paragraph to “The development...” – implying that something of true
substance had been achieved. It would also accord with Bill Clinton’s recent
comments.
If, however, the second “We” is much like the first, and refers
to the president and his key administration officials, it carries less
significance. It certainly suggests Bush held expectations that Abbas would
sanction an agreement. But it does not contradict Olmert’s “he never came back
to me” narrative or Abbas’s “gaps were wide” comment, and means that the
president’s account offers no new definitive answer.
We’re been trying to
get clarification from the former president himself. Watch this space...