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America in the Middle East

Clinton ignored own misgivings about Arafat


By Ryan Jones
June 21, 2004

Not for the first time, former US president Bill Clinton Sunday laid the blame for the failed Oslo “peace” process squarely on the shoulders of PLO chief Yasser Arafat.

In a weekend interview published ahead of the release of his autobiography, Clinton told Britain’s The Guardian he holds Arafat solely responsible for the collapse of Middle East peace efforts.

But subsequent to the 2000 Camp David summit, where Clinton says Arafat appeared out of touch with reality, the by-then lame-duck president attempted to assuage the “confused” terror chief by offering him even more of Israel’s biblical homeland at Taba in December of that year.

US President George W. Bush has staked his Middle East policy on the same failed formula of buying the Arabs’ acceptance of Israel by ignoring biblical mandate and uprooting Jews from their God-given lands.

Arafat to blame

In My Life , scheduled for release Tuesday, Clinton reportedly speaks at length about his endeavor to broker a final peace agreement between Israel and the “Palestinians” by portioning off the Jews’ biblical homeland to their Muslim enemies.

But Arafat, described as “confused…and possibly no longer at the top of his game,” was incapable of making the final transformation from terror boss to legitimate statesman, the former commander-in-chief said.

According to a New York Times review of his book, Clinton reflects that Arafat was “not fully in command of the facts” during their three-way summit with then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David in June 2000.

Clinton told the Guardian that as he was preparing to leave the White House, Arafat phoned to tell him he was a “great man.”

"'Mr. Chairman,' I replied, 'I am not a great man. I am a failure, and you have made me one,’” Clinton said.

The Jerusalem Post reported that this past January, Vice President Dick Cheney recounted how on Bush’s inauguration day in 2001, Clinton "talked repeatedly all day long about his disappointment in Yasser Arafat, how Arafat had, in effect, torpedoed the peace process."

After signing what has come to be known as the Oslo Accord in 1993, Arafat told Jordanian reporters that the perceived “peace” with Israel was merely the first step in his plan to eliminate the Jewish state in phases.

Courting disaster

Despite his own misgivings, Clinton reacted to the failure at Camp David by offering Arafat even more of Israel’s land at Taba, Egypt in December 2000. And this after the PLO chief had already launched his “Al Aqsa Intifada.”

Even today, Clinton believes Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have no choice but to negotiate with the unrepentant mass murderer.

"Unless they just want to wait for him to become incapacitated or pass away or unless they seriously believe they can find a better negotiating partner in Hamas ... then they need to keep working to make a deal," he was quoted as saying.

Bush’s own Middle East policy, centered on his Road Map peace plan, follows the same failed formula of buying Arab acceptance of Israel by dividing the holy land.

And while Bush has attempted to sideline Arafat, he has forbidden Israel to remove him, allowing the aging terror boss to continue to dramatically affect events in the region.

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