Word: barak
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First, that peace is not something that can be negotiated, because history is not something that can be forgotten. Ehud Barak, Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat did not reach a "final agreement" because it is impossible for three signatures to numb the memories of decades, centuries, millenia of internecine struggle. Peace can, however, evolve out of stability. We should not force final agreements or accords to those who don't want them, but work towards achieving a world without the terrors of Molotov cocktails, tear gas and fatal rubber bullets...
...this happen? What brought Palestinians and Israelis to a place where communicating a point entails raw violence? How did seven painstaking years of building toward peace smash apart in two weeks? Why did Barak and Arafat, who had just taken the unprecedented step of dining together at Barak's home three weeks ago, preside over the worst bloodshed between their peoples in three decades? What went so awfully, fatally wrong...
...already made. His people were fed up with a process that had won them only the shards of an independent state and a life in which checkpoints and expanding Jewish settlements rubbed their noses daily in the continuing indignity of occupation. But Clinton and Prime Minister Ehud Barak had urgent reasons to get a deal done: fearful violence could quickly erupt, Clinton had a legacy to secure before leaving office, and Barak needed to fulfill his promise of peace to hold...
Arafat came home bitterly disgruntled. He was cast as the intransigent spoiler. Clinton publicly lavished praise on Barak for his flexibility and chided Arafat for his lack of it. Much of the world embraced the Israeli interpretation that their awesome generosity had been stupidly spurned. Clinton seriously underestimated how entrenched Arafat was in his positions before the summit, and still thought he could budge him afterward. U.S. officials expected that Arafat would come forward with a counteroffer. Then Clinton could stage-manage a split-the-difference agreement giving both sides cover for daring but conflict-settling compromises...
...calls up and asks to interview me about the situation. Oh, boy, the situation. How I like to talk about the situation. There is a terrible hailstorm, and I am screaming on the telephone. I can't hear myself. I can't see anything. About three months ago, when Barak was at Camp David, we thought we were winning. That our struggle for peace was on the verge of success. That there is a chance, a future, that all this would happen during our lifetime...