Summary of a Lecture by Journalists Said Arikat and Ron Kampeas
For the Record, No. 228 (2nd of 4 in Series) / 26 July 2005

Israel's continued dismissal of the Palestinian voice in peace negotiations caused the failure of the peace process, argued journalist Said Arikat, the Washington, D.C. bureau chief of the Palestinian daily Al-Quds. "The problem with the Oslo agreement was that it was really all about Israeli security, and not about the realization of the Palestinian national objectives," Arikat said. Arikat's Israeli counterpart, Ron Kampeas, concurred.

Kampeas, who serves as the Washington, D.C. bureau chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, explained that in many ways the failure of the Oslo peace process can be traced to the refusal of the Israeli leadership at the time to listen to what Palestinians were saying about their own affairs and about Israel. Kampeas believed this manifested itself with the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who said that Palestinian affairs were best left to the Palestinians and whatever the Palestinian leadership said about Israel was beside the point.

Arikat and Kampeas addressed the Palestinian and Israeli politics and perceptions of peace on 19 July 2005 at the D.C.-based Palestine Center, the second of four lectures in the 2005 Intern Lecture Series, "In Pursuit of Peace: Dialogues on Final Status."

Based on his journalistic experience in Israel, Kampeas found that a change has occurred in Israeli resistance to Palestinian demands. He said there is a "broad consensus" in Israel today that believes what the Palestinians think "does have a lot to do with how the peace process works." However, Kampeas stressed that Palestinian recognition of Israel is important. He argued that the lack of such recognition serves to 'turn Israelis off" from Palestinians. Kampeas acknowledged the difficulty for Palestinians to recognize something they believe is "very oppressive." Nevertheless, he said that for Israelis, recognition is a necessary aspect of achieving peace.

According to Arikat, the day-to-day difficulties faced by Palestinians since Israel's founding have inhibited their readiness to accept Israeli identity. "Since 1948, you must recognize that the Palestinians have been dealing with their own survival," said Arikat. "They look at Israel as this foreign element that came in and uprooted them and brought about a great deal of misery and dislocation."

Turning to the role of Israel's two main political parties, the right-wing Likud and the left-leaning Labor, Kampeas and Arikat analyzed the influence of each party in determining Israeli policy toward Palestinians. Arikat argued that Israel's creation was through militant means by groups who have come to represent the Israeli left, and their governance is thus correspondingly militant. He added that the Israeli left has "never ceased to treat the Palestinians with the heavy hand of occupation."

Kampeas pushed the discussion of the Israeli Right and Left toward the immediate realities by focusing on the mid-August Gaza disengagement plan. He noted that the Israeli Left and Right have "competing expectations" about the disengagement. According to Kampeas, Israeli Prime Minister and Likud leader Ariel Sharon "explicitly sees the withdrawal from Gaza as a way to consolidate Israel's hold over the settlement blocks that were supposedly agreed upon at Camp David" in July 2000. Labor, on the other hand, which also backs the Gaza plan, believes "once you actually shut down the settlements, once you manage to get the settlers out of Gaza, then the floodgates are open [and] the Israelis will see that [withdrawal] can happen," said Kampeas.

However, Arikat pointed out that from a Palestinian perspective, only the complete withdrawal from the lands occupied in 1967 would meet Palestinian national objectives and create an environment in which a just and sustainable peace could be achieved.

Arikat criticized the acquiescence of late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. "The moment you accept the concept of settlements, you have destroyed your cause," Arikat said. In his opinion, the peace process failed because of continued settlement construction and the ongoing seizure of Palestinian lands.

The above text is based on remarks delivered on 14 June 2005 by Said Arikat of Al-Quds and Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The speakers' views do not necessarily reflect those of The Jerusalem Fund or its educational program, The Palestine Center. This "For the Record" summary was written by Palestine Center intern Laura Breslin and is the second of four lectures summaries that have been published to our email distribution list, on our website, and through our compendia of publications. It may be used without permission but with proper attribution to the Center.

The Intern Lecture Series is organized each summer by the Palestine Center's interns. The 2005 summer interns are Zachary Bernstein of Georgetown University, Laura Breslin of Vanderbilt University and Rasha Uthman of Emory University. 


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