By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
Jan 26, 2005
Generally recognized as an obstacle to Middle East peace, Yasser Arafat’s demise last year was heralded the world over as the beginning of a promising new chapter in efforts to finally bring to an end the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Largely ignored by the international community and even many in Israel is the fact that Arafat’s heir, Mahmoud Abbas, was for more than 30 years the arch-terrorist’s right hand man.
Nevertheless, Abbas is widely praised for his statements that the use of violence against Israeli Jews at this time was a tactical error on the part of the “Palestinians.”
“On the major issues,” however, Abbas will prove as intractable as Arafat ever was, Zalman Shoval, a senior advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, told Reuters Sunday.
At Camp David in the summer of 2000, Abbas firmly supported Arafat’s decision to reject a far reaching Israeli peace offer because it did not allow for the “Palestinians” to flood the Jewish state with refugees or take control over Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
Several months after the failed summit, Abbas wrote that the PA would accept nothing less than the right for an unlimited number of so-called refugees to take up residence inside sovereign Israel.
He repeated this demand at every stop during his election campaign last month.
Abbas has also rejected Israel’s desire to retain control over the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, including Judaism’s holiest site — the Western Wall.
Both issues are red lines for Israel.
“That being the case, it is clear that negotiating on a final accord now would be a recipe for disaster,” Shoval said.
The former Israeli ambassador to Washington said that in his opinion, “There will be no final [peace] accord in our generation.”
Rather, Shoval explained, Israel would seek a long-term interim agreement.