As published in the Chicago Tribune Voice of the People Section, Nov. 22, 2004

CPN PRESIDENT GIDON D. REMBA CHICAGO TRIBUNE LETTER ON ARAFAT AND THE PEACE PROCESS

In an article on local reactions to the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the Chicago Tribune paraphrased my comments (Nov. 11) by stating that I "praised Arafat for his role in the now-failed peace talks."

I do not believe that Arafat is worthy of praise for his role at the ill-fated Camp David peace summit in 2000. Arafat was not as unconstructive at that summit as he is usually made out to be by many American and Israeli pundits. Contrary to popular spin, he did in fact make a counter-offer at Camp David on territory, settlements and sharing Jerusalem in response to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's offer, as recent memoirs by Bill Clinton, Dennis Ross, and Israel's chief negotiator Gilad Sher attest. But Arafat's unreasonable position on Palestinian refugees, his insistence on explicit recognition of a "right of refugee return" to Israel, and his obscene denial that the Jewish Temple was once in Jerusalem, created an insurmountable obstacle to a peace deal.

While Arafat aided and abetted horrific terrorism during the last four years since the collapse of the peace talks, it is now widely forgotten that he is worthy of praise for the security cooperation with Israel that he and the Palestinian Authority engaged in from October 1997 through October 2000, the last years of the Oslo peace process. That cooperation succeeded in preventing almost all suicide bombing attacks against Israel for a three year period, resulting in only a single Israeli fatality from suicide and other bombing attacks, as Israeli military and police officials acknowledged at the time.

By his refusal to allow moderates like former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to gain control over Palestinian security forces, his encouragement and support for terrorism, and his problematic position on the refugees, Arafat was indeed a major impediment to peace.

Sincerely,

Gidon D. Remba

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The writer is President of Chicago Peace Now and co-editor of a forthcoming volume, From Baghdad to Jerusalem: A New Road to Middle East Peace?. He served as Senior Editor and Foreign Press Translator in the Israel Prime Minister's Office from 1977-1978 during the Egyptian-Israeli Camp David peace process.