In fact, it was Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat who made the biggest, unreciprocated concessions to peace. In 1988, he recognised Israel and, later, in the 1993 Olso accords, he accepted the principle of partition on even more dismal terms than the UN's a state on 22 per cent of historic Palestine.
Even so, the Oslo process stood no serious chance of success after Israel refused to make promised withdrawals from the occupied territories. Finally, in 2000 President Bill Clinton called together Arafat and Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak to a peace summit at Camp David.
Arafat knew Israel was unwilling to make any meaningful compromises and had to be bullied and cajoled into attending. Clinton promised the Palestinian leader he would not be blamed if the talks failed.
Israel ensured they did. According to his own advisers, Barak "blew up" the negotiations, insisting that Israel hold on to occupied East Jerusalem, including the Al Aqsa mosque, and large areas of the West Bank. Washington blamed Arafat anyway, and refashioned Israel's intransigence as a "generous offer".
A short time later, in 2002, Saudi Arabia's Peace Initiative offered Israel normal relations with the Arab world in return for a minimal Palestinian state. Israel and western leaders hurriedly shunted it into the annals of forgotten history.
After Arafat's death, secret talks through 2008-09 revealed in the Palestine Papers leak showed the Palestinians making unprecedented concessions. They included allowing Israel to annex large tracts of East Jerusalem, the Palestinians' expected capital.
Negotiator Saeb Erekat was recorded saying he had agreed to "the biggest [Jerusalem] in Jewish history" as well as to only a "symbolic number of [Palestinian] refugees' return [and a] demilitarised state " What more can I give?"
It was a good question. Tzipi Livni, Israel's negotiator, responded, "I really appreciate it" when she saw how much the Palestinians were conceding. But still her delegation walked away.
Trump's own doomed plan follows in the footsteps of such "peace-making".
In a New York Times commentary last week Danny Danon, Israel's ambassador to the UN, candidly encapsulated the thrust of this decades-long diplomatic approach. He called on the Palestinians to "surrender", adding: "Surrender is the recognition that in a contest, staying the course will prove costlier than submission."
The peace process was always leading to this moment. Trump has simply cut through the evasions and equivocations of the past to reveal where the West's priorities truly lie.
It is hard to believe that Trump or Kushner ever believed the Palestinians would accept a promise of "money for quiet" in place of a state based on "land for peace".
Once more, the West is trying to foist on the Palestinians an inequitable peace deal. The one certainty is that they will reject it it is the only issue on which the Fatah and Hamas leaderships are united again ensuring the Palestinians can be painted as the obstacle to progress.
The Palestinians may have refused this time to stumble into the trap, but they will find themselves the fall guys, whatever happens.
When Trump's plan crashes, as it will, Washington will have the chance to exploit a supposed Palestinian rejection as justification for approving annexation by Israel of yet more tranches of occupied territory.
The Palestinans will be left with a shattered homeland. No self-determination, no viable state, no independent economy, just a series of aid-dependent ghettos. And decades of western diplomacy will finally have arrived at its preordained destination.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
