DENNIS ROSS ON "AFTER ARAFAT"

Interview with Middle East Peace Negotiator Dennis Ross - Nonna Gorilovskaya (Mother Jones)
After Camp David, I felt that [Arafat] had really revealed that he was not interested or capable of doing an agreement that ended the conflict. What he is not prepared to do, in the end, is to truly live with a two-state solution....He doesn't want to be the one that goes down in Palestinian history as the one who precluded a one-state solution.

I think what [Prime Minister Sharon] would say is that he doesn't believe it's possible to produce peace right now. Not only because there isn't a partner, but even when a partner emerges, it's going to take time because the two sides have to learn to live together in a way that they haven't at this point.

As long as the Palestinians will do absolutely nothing to stop suicide bombers from going into Israel, the Israelis have a right to defend themselves. The author of the [security] barrier was Yitzhak Rabin. [Rabin's] position was, through Oslo, let's try to negotiate the partition. But if in the end it does not work out...we're going to have to build a barrier, and we're going to have to separate.

I think the last three-plus years have made the situation so bad, have produced such deep animus on both sides, have produced such deep disbelief on the part of each side that the other one can be a partner, that the task of peace-making is far more difficult now than it was before.

There should be a principle: wherever the Israelis evacuate or withdraw from territory, Palestinians should assume responsibility in that territory showing that they can govern themselves, showing that territory won't be a platform for attacks against Israel.

See also After Arafat, What? - Dennis Ross
Arafat always succeeded far more as a symbol than as a leader. As a symbol, he had only to excite passions; as a leader, he had to make hard decisions and choices, and in that he was far more a decision avoider than a decision maker. He was the lone figure of authority, and even if he chose to do little to prevent chaos and anarchy in the West Bank and Gaza, he was the one person who could have done something about it.

It is the absence of a figure of authority that invites a power vacuum and is almost certain to trigger a struggle for power in Arafat's aftermath. The problem with any collective leadership arrangement is that it would mask the leadership vacuum and not resolve it. It would provide no legitimacy for making difficult decisions. (Washington Post)