OUR FRIENDS IN THE MEDIA

POST-OSLO MYTHS
In a Dec. 22 article in The Nation, Baruch Kimmerling brushes aside the Palestinian culture of suicide 'martyrdom' (one factor that killed Oslo), and fabricates in its place a supposed Israeli promotion of death culture. In an article entitled 'Israel's Culture of Martyrdom', Kimmerling claims that

in the case of Israel the connection between nationalism and death is especially visceral... Zionism, the state's ruling ideology, is a triumphal creed shadowed by death... It is deeply ironic that the very same society now claims to be shocked by the 'martyrdom culture' in the occupied territories.

Kimmerling goes on to describe 'European Jews who colonized Palestine,' Israeli leaders 'unburdened of almost any moral restrictions, or even obedience to internal and international laws,' and an 'obsessive commemoration of the Holocaust and of Jewish victimhood... the victory of death over life.'

A similar denial of Palestinian promotion of martyrdom recently appeared in the International Herald Tribune (Dec. 18), where Roger Avenstrup claimed that 'time and again, independently of each other, researchers find no incitement to hatred in the Palestinian textbooks.'

In response, expert Itamar Marcus said those like Avenstrup 'are tragically enabling the Palestinian Authority to avoid necessary changes in its education system.' Marcus gives a number of examples of Palestinian schoolbook lessons that the Koran views the Jews as 'the enemy of God,' that Israel resides on Palestinians' 'stolen homeland,' and of an Islamic religious obligation to destroy the Jewish state.

In the Buffalo News, academic Jerome Slater claims that Oslo failed not because of Arafat, but rather because of Israel and Ariel Sharon. Slater writes:

Arafat's real bottom line was not the destruction of Israel... but a genuine two-state compromise settlement... it is a myth that Arafat "never made a counteroffer" and walked away from the bargaining table or that the negotiations broke down when the Palestinian Intifada broke out.

Slater presents himself as more knowledgeable than those who actually conducted the negotiations ― ignoring President Clinton's famous response to Arafat's compliment that Clinton is 'a great man.' Said Clinton: 'I am not a great man. I am a failure, and you have made me one.'
And Slater ignores the testimony of Dennis Ross, who directed the entire negotiating process during those years. In his recent book 'The Missing Peace', Ross recalls the end of the negotiations:

If there had been any hope for an agreement, it was gone now... Arafat was not going to say yes under any circumstances... As he had so often in his career, Arafat was seeking to have it both ways, creating the illusion of being positive by accepting the ideas, but practically rejecting them with his reservations. (p. 13)

Slater's article distorts this all-important aspect of the historical record ― the Palestinian rejection of Israel's far-reaching peace offer of 2000.

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