January 23, 2001 Taba – Israel Offers Peace

Yasser Arafat/ Ehud Barak

“In the course of these meetings, which lasted until January 2001, Barak startled the world by offering the Palestinians nearly all the territory they were seeking. By the time the negotiations ended, Barak had accepted Clinton’s even more generous proposal and was offering the Palestinians “between 94 and 96 percent of the West Bank” and all of the Gaza Strip. In exchange for the 4 to 6 percent that Israel would retain for security purposes, it would cede 1 to 3 percent of its land to the Palestinians. This would plainly have satisfied Security Council Resolution 242, which mandated return of “territories,” not all territories, captured in Israel’s defensive war with Jordan. Few, if any, Palestinian people would remain under Israeli occupation.”

“IN ADDITION, BARAK OFFERED THE PALESTINIANS A STATE WITH ARAB JERUSALEM AS ITS CAPITAL AND COMPLETE CONTROL OVER EAST JERUSALEM AND THE ARAB QUARTER OF THE OLD CITY, AS WELL AS THE ENTIRE TEMPLE MOUNT, DESPITE ITS HISTORIC AND RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE TO JEWS. ISRAEL WOULD RETAIN CONTROL OVER THE WESTERN WALL, WHICH HAS NO SIGNIFICANCE FOR MUSLIMS.”

Source: Dershowitz, Alan. The Case for Israel (p110)

The connection between Palestinian violence and their bargaining stance at the conference table is somehow missed by the Barak government’s senior negotiators, although by no one else. At the intensive negotiations broken off at Taba Tuesday Jan 23, after the Tulkarm murders, three ministers, Amnon Shahak, Shlomo Ben Ami and Yossi Bailin, offered the Palestinians joint administration of Jerusalem’s shrines including the Western Wall of Temple Mount.

Prime Minister Barak explained:

“Israeli sovereignty will stay, but we have to consider the sensitivities of the three important religious and accept joint administration of the holy places.”

In other words, the Barak government not only gives up temple mount but is willing to share jurisdiction over the Western Wall; it accepts the Moslem WAQF’s (religious council) full control of Temple Mount and its restriction of the Jewish right of “access” to the 48 meters of the Western Wall.

Yet even this was turned down by the Palestinian side at Taba.

Source: Debka file