Nadene Goldfoot
Rabin and Arafat's Dealings
Agreement between Israel and a future Palestine came to fruition August 20, 1993. Rabin, Arafat and Clinton negotiated.
According to the agreement, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and the Arabs had a right of self-government. The Palestinian government was to last for a five-year period. Major issues such as Jerusalem would be decided at a permanent status negotiation that was to come in 1996. They signed a mutual recognition paper. Rockets were fired into Israel intensely starting in 2000 by the terrorists.
The Knesset's left wing supported this agreement while the right wing opposed them, and after a two-day discussion they voted with 61 for the decision, 50 against and 8 abstained.
Palestinians were also divided. Fatah was the group in the negotiations and they accepted while Hamas was against it. They refused to recognize Israel's right to exist in what they called Palestine, which was including the land Israel was on. The fact is that there never was a country of Palestine at all, just an area that Rome had renamed to erase Jewish presence.
On Sept 12, 2005 Israel withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip. Abbas was given authority. In twelve days Hamas fired rockets at Israel. By 2007 896 rockets and 740 mortar shells were fired from Gaza onto Israel. Many Israelis were continuously killed and injured between 1993 and 2000 by terrorists.
One can see that Hamas took over Gaza, winning their elections in 2006, and chased Fatah out into the West Bank. No group speaks for all of "Palestine". For eight years Hamas shelled Israel with rockets leading to Israel's Operation Cast Lead operation. Abbas has been very weak in his leadership. When violence increased against Israelis, the Palestinian Authority did not stop these attacks and instead endorsed them. Operation Cast Lead started on Dec 27, 2008. 1,571 rockets and 1,531 mortar shells had been fired into Israel by Hamas.
Earlier they had turned their guns on Israelis in clashes which left 61 Palestinians and 15 Israeli soldiers dead. Arafat stated among Palestinians that he compared the accord to the Hudaibiya agreement that Muhammad signed with the sons of the tribe of Quraish as a way of justifying signing them. This meant that they were signed not in good faith but as an appeasement.
Israel, on the other hand, refrained from building new towns or villages although the agreement did not stipulate such a ban. It did expand towns already there as the Arabs had not accepted the accords. More people were allowed to move into the towns in Judea and Samaria so that the population grew by about 10,000 each year. Note that all this time the accords were not in effect as the Palestinians did not accept them. Israel was not going to sit around and wait and do nothing. Israel learned quickly not to trust the Palestinians as they were divided and not being compliant. Attacks on Israel had intensified right after the signing and continued.
What the Palestinians have not figured out is that their fears were realized due to their own hatred. Israel did not dismantle their towns in Judea and Samaria for their Palestine to be created and it did expand with more people and more building simply because the Arabs could not come into agreement to recognize Israel and not attack them.
Who are you going to blame? Israel was being compliant even though almost half of their country feared the move. Israel wanted peace. After all, they've been fighting hatred and attacks since their inception. They're living in a very violent and dangerous neighborhood.
As of February 10, 2009, just last year, rocket fire continued from Gaza. The Islamic Jihad admitted that a Palestinian was killed while approaching Gaza's border fence with Israel as he was on his way to attack Israelis. On the 1st of February twelve rockets and mortars were fired into Israel. Hamas said they didn't fire them but they didn't stop them, either. And so it continues.
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