Quote:
Originally Posted by Manhattanboy
I have often wondered two things:
1. Was Arafat really ever honest/sincere about permanent peace with Israel? Was he really willing to accept a two state solution?
2. Where would the region be today if Yitzhak Rabin had not been assassinated? I do believe the old IDF general Rabin and Shimon Peres really did want peace and were willing to live side by side with an independent Palestine. I recall they had grand plans for a free trade zone between Israel and Palestine that included the construction of an elevated freeway across the Negev Desert that would connect the West Bank and Gaza.
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It's an interesting point. There was definitely many parties on both sides dedicated to a false peace. Whereby they would use the peace process as stepping stone towards further conflict.
I do believe that at one point, the people in power in Israel genuinely wanted a fair two state solution. A lot of that may have been based on a far of the "demographic bomb", whereby Palestinians would become the majority. I also do not think Arafat, for the same reasoning, was ever committed to a two-state solution.
What's really changed in Israel is that the demographic bomb never came into being. The Jewish birth rate outpaces the Arab one now. The Palestinians also horribly exaggerated their population numbers. Now, it looks like the opposite is the more likely scenario, where Jews will come to outnumber Arabs in Israel and the West Bank. Without this external demographic pressure, the Israeli hawks have zero pressure to go back to the table.