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Arafat wasn't the "sole culprit" for a deal not being signed but that's not my point. Of course it would have been better for everyone if Israel agreed to remove all their settlements, if Clinton/US were more reasonable and firm about some form of the right to return and put some more pressure on Barak. All parties deserve some blame on a deal not getting done, but that's not my point.It's all ifs and buts, but Arafat signing what would've been considered an absolute capitulation, would have destroyed the PA for good and empowered the extremists even more. @2cents has rightly, imo, mentioned that both Arafat and Barak were prisoners of societal mechanisms and expectations that made them unable to compromise and I think that it's a fair assessment. I personally refuse the easy and very common trope that holds Arafat for sole culprit in the failure of Camp David and believe that it is a simplistic (and biased) reading of what was happening back then.
No it wouldn't, no matter how many would love it to be the case and find it easier to shift the responsibility to theArabsPalestinians. Palestine would still not be considered, nor recognized, nor function a state. Israel still had the upper hand and absolute control on palestininan territories and there was nothing done or said about further settlements. The worst of it is that any further revendications from the Palestinian side would've considered been null and void as the proposed accords expressly stated and insisted on. If you can't see that, and why so many wars of independence were fought without compromising on such basic principles, then there's nothing to discuss any further.
There's no two ways about ending this tragedy. Either have two states or exterminate the Palestinians. Anything else is wishful thinking and Israel will never have peace.
My point is the deal that was on the table that Arafat rejected. Even if it wasn't what Palestinians ideally wanted, that deal still could have materially improved things from what did happen culminating in the current situation. It's easy to see the internal logic of why Barak did not offer more and why Arafat rejected it, but that doesn't change the fact that the rejection looks like the wrong choice for the long-term welfare of Israeli and Palestinian civilians from where we sit now.
Just one example, I think reining in the settlements (even if not completely reversing them) would have improved the situation and incentivized more moderate policies moving forward. I think with even an imperfect agreement, the extremists would have been less empowered than they have been in the last two decades.
You seem to disagree and fair enough, we can agree to disagree. You seemingly believe that no agreement on the table in the past 30 years could possibly have improved things from where we are now. I'm afraid I have to disagree with that notion.
I think most neutral parties want some form of a two-state solution. The question is how to get there when you have extremists in control on both sides that don't want that outcome. For me, the negotiations of Camp David had a chance to realistically move things forward to a better place than where we ended up now. And where we are now seems like the worst of almost all possible outcomes.