Authors: Elliott Abrams
In the background something else was changing as well: The truce between Israel and Hamas was eroding. In October, the sum total of rockets and mortars fired into Israel had been two. In November, the total began to rise: the total was 193 for the month, a number the Israelis would never tolerate. On November 14, six Grad rockets were fired at the port of Ashkelon, a serious escalation; this was a new weapon imported from Iran. Whereas the Qassam could travel 2 or 3 miles, the Grad was a truck-launched rocket with a range of 10 to 15 miles. Tourgeman told me the cabinet was debating how to respond – and there would be a response.
Olmert nevertheless continued pushing the PA for a deal. On November 17, he met with Abbas again. The PA tried to cancel the meeting, but Olmert persuaded Abbas to go through with it. Look, Olmert had argued, forget Livni; the only possible new coalition will be of the right and led by Likud. But whatever you conclude with me will pass the Knesset, so let's do it. Abbas was not exactly running away from Olmert now, but was, I thought, simply humoring him. We would act if we could, Abbas told him; we would not wait – but you and we both have internal problems, after all. Still, Olmert pressed on: He told our new and extremely able ambassador to Israel, Jim Cunningham, that in the one-on-one meeting with Abbas they had agreed that Erekat and Tourgeman would continue to meet and seek an agreement. I could see Abbas agreeing to this happily, for it got him off center stage and let Erekat take some heat – or play out the clock.
Olmert came to Washington, for the last time as prime minister, on November 24, 2008. At a breakfast with our team, he was all optimism. There can still be an agreement, he told us, and everyone is wrong who says “Israeli politics” makes it impossible. Olmert told us he had made a proposal to Abbas, including Jerusalem; Israel would keep 6.5% of the West Bank and give the Palestinians land equal to 5.8%; the 0.7% difference was the link to Gaza. Negotiations are going to continue, he said. Now it was Condi's turn to be the voice of reason, and she told Olmert that it was very difficult for Abbas to close on an agreement. There were disputes and rivalries within Fatah and, of course, between Fatah and Hamas. How could Abbas sign, no matter what is on the table? That may be, Olmert replied, but let's be clear: The problem should not
be attributed to “Israeli politics.” We have acted. The political crisis in Israel did not stop us. There is an offer on the table.
What exactly was that offer? Olmert described it in interviews in 2010.
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The percentages were pretty much what he had told us in 2008: Abbas was offered just under 94% of the West Bank with land swaps to make up the 6% – less about 1% “credit” for the West Bank–Gaza link. The PA capital would be in east Jerusalem, and the Old City would be governed jointly by Israel, the Palestinians, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. There would be no “right of return,” but Israel would acknowledge the suffering of Palestinian refugees and
for humanitarian reasons agree to resettle in Israel something like 3,000–4,000 refugees a year for five years. According to Olmert, he made this offer on September 13, 2008, more than a month after his initial announcement that he intended to resign had made him a lame duck. (This contradicts the suggestion in Rice's memoir that the proposal was actually put to Abbas in May.
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And Saeb Erekat's recollection, noted later, is also that this Olmert proposal came only in November.) He claimed to have shown the Palestinians detailed maps of what would be the Palestinian state, including the location of the link between Gaza and the West Bank, and to have described in detail the arrangements in Jerusalem, specifying roads, tunnels, and bridges. He also claimed that the United States had agreed to accept 100,000 Palestinian refugees to help swing the deal.
Many of these claims seemed to me greatly overstated. At the time, I recall no Israeli statement or information suggesting that such details had been conveyed; on the contrary, the Palestinians were complaining precisely about the lack of such detail. As to the 100,000 refugees the United States agreed to accept, that claim was I thought very near to false. No doubt we were willing, if peace came, to help organize an international effort to provide compensation to some refugees or their descendants and to encourage many countries to take some of them – and we would do our part. When a Palestinian state was created, other Arab states would start pressuring Palestinian residents to get out and move to Palestine. Because that new state could hardly absorb all of them, offering them opportunities elsewhere would help the new state in its formative years. But no one in the administration “agreed” to accept 100,000 Palestinian refugees, nor could we have – because Congress and not the executive branch makes immigration policy, an immensely sensitive subject at any time.
In my own conversations with Olmert after he left office, he cited figures close to but slightly different from what he had told us in Washington in November 2008. He told me that he had proposed to Abbas that Israel would retain 6.3% of the West Bank, a figure that included the settlements near Jerusalem as well. He would do a one-to-one swap of Israeli territory equal to 5.8%, leaving 0.5% to be accounted for by the Gaza–West Bank link. As Olmert put it to me,
Abbas Says NoNow you tell me; 5.8 is only a half a percent less than 6.3. Add to it a safe passage from Gaza to the West Bank and
this is 1-on-1. And then I said, the Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem would be yours, the Jewish neighborhoods will be ours, and the Old City
will be administered by five nations, a consortium of five nations: the Saudis, Jordan, Palestinians, America, and Israel. I say, “If Saudi Arabia will agree to be part of this five-nations administrative committee, then basically the Saudis will recognize the State of Israel, which is a major breakthrough. Which is the beginning of, you know, opening up for the moderate Arab world.” Afterwards, you know, if Saudis can sit with Israel, governing Jerusalem, then why not the Emirates and why not the others and so on and so forth.…And then I said, “But, I will agree to have X number of people every year on an individual humanitarian basis.” When Abu Mazen asked me how many, I said from day one: a thousand a year for five years.…Now, between you and me, had Abu Mazen accepted to make a deal, 15,000 – 3,000 a year for five years – I’d have made the agreement, OK? You know, that we could tolerate. And, end of conflict and no more claims. And there will be an international force, maybe NATO intervention force on the Jordanian side to protect the border between the Palestinian state and Jordan. And that in between the international force, there will be non-uniformed Israelis in key positions to look into the Israeli interests and make sure that wrong things are not done, OK? This is what I proposed. Had I had more time, maybe we could reach an agreement.…I don't know. If not, I would have gone for a unilateral pullout.
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From what I knew then and later, these descriptions give an accurate picture of what Olmert had offered. What had been the response? In 2010, Erekat said Olmert's account was roughly accurate. Erekat told the press that “the Palestinians made a counter-offer, depositing their own map with the U.S. president three months later. He would not give details.” But, in fact, the details were missing because Erekat's story was wrong; we were never told of any counteroffer nor was any such map “deposited with the U.S. president” at the end of Bush's term. Erekat was perhaps more candid when speaking on Al Jazeera in March 2009:
The Palestinian negotiators could have given in in 1994, 1998, or 2000, and two months ago, brother Abu Mazen could have accepted a proposal that talked about Jerusalem and almost 100% of the West Bank.…Let me recount two historical events, even if I am revealing a secret. On July 23, 2000, at his meeting with President Arafat in Camp David, President Clinton said: “You will be the first president of a Palestinian state, within the 1967 borders – give or take, considering the land swap – and East Jerusalem will be the capital of the Palestinian state, but we want you, as a religious man, to acknowledge that the Temple of Solomon is located underneath the Haram Al-Sharif.” Yasser Arafat said to Clinton defiantly: “I will not be a traitor. Someone will come to liberate it after 10, 50, or 100 years. Jerusalem will be nothing but the capital of the Palestinian state, and there is nothing underneath or above the Haram Al-Sharif except for Allah.” That is why Yasser Arafat was besieged, and that is why he was killed unjustly.
In November 2008…Olmert offered the 1967 borders, but said: “We will take 6.5% of the West Bank, and give in return 5.8% from the 1948 lands, and the 0.7% will constitute the safe passage, and East Jerusalem will be the capital, but there is a problem with the Haram and with what they called the Holy Basin.” Abu Mazen too answered
with defiance, saying: “I am not in a marketplace or a bazaar. I came to demarcate the borders of Palestine – the June 4, 1967 borders – without detracting a single inch, and without detracting a single stone from Jerusalem, or from the holy Christian and Muslim places.” This is why the Palestinian negotiators did not sign.
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Erekat's accounts varied somewhat according to the audience he was addressing, but the basic facts do seem clear: Olmert made an offer that would have reduced Palestinian territory by 0.7% from the 1949 armistice lines or “1967 borders” and included taking back thousands of refugees and ending Israeli sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem – and the Palestinians had not responded. They had not even bargained for better terms – making up the 0.7% or getting Israel to resettle a higher number of refugees as part of the “humanitarian” return of refugees, for example – or put a rival proposal on the table.
Abbas later tried to rewrite history, claiming late in 2010 that an agreement had been reached on security and borders. On borders, “the basis for peace would be an [Israeli] withdrawal to the 1967 borders, with an option for certain border corrections, as long as the [overall size of] the West Bank territories remained the same.” As to security, they “reached a full understanding that this [task] would be entrusted to a third party.…We spoke to Bush, and he agreed that the third party would be NATO.”
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There is no basis for these claims in the record or the memory of other participants. As Olmert's chief of staff, Yoram Turbowitz, recalled, the immensely complicated security issues were barely addressed, and Israel never agreed to abandon the eight-item list of security demands that Barak had given to Bush earlier that year when he visited Israel. In reaction to the Abbas claims, Turbowitz said,
They never agreed to anything. Clearly the security list was not acceptable to them. NATO forces were never seriously discussed, as it was never an option we considered, nor did it seem a plausible avenue. The same is true regarding the borders. There was Olmert's suggestion which was not met by their consent or their qualified consent. They were only interested in getting Olmert's proposal in writing, so they will be able in the future to use it as a benchmark. It was never given to them in writing nor was there any exchange of maps. It was all in an un-solidified phase.
Tourgeman has a similar recollection:
There was no agreement on the land swap and where it will be, no agreement of the worth of the Gaza–West Bank passage and in principle on the size of land Israel will keep. We said the major blocks are at least 6.3 percent, if not more, and they said not more than 1.9 percent. On foreign forces I don't recall that it was ever an option; in all our talks we said it cannot be an option, not NATO and not other forces. Our claim was always that an international force will be only observers and it will prevent the Palestinians from doing what they are obliged to do. We had the 8 points [of which Barak had spoken to President Bush] and didn't want to desert them.
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No one will ever know the exact words of the exchanges Olmert had with Abbas at that time, but their practice was that immediately after each session
Erekat and
Tourgeman were called in and briefed on what had transpired and told what follow-up was needed. It therefore seems highly unlikely that the exchanges Abbas reports (which in any event he does not claim were in one-on-one meetings with Olmert) transpired and that any genuine understanding was reached. In this, Erekat's March 2009 version may be closer to the truth. The Palestinian leadership did not agree to Olmert's offer.
Why not? First, who was Olmert to be making these offers? What was the point of a deal with him? Whom would it bind? Even if these offers seemed generous in Israeli terms, they would be attacked by many Palestinians; for example, many would say that Abbas had sold out the refugees if he signed an agreement that returned even as many as 15,000 of them to Israel but abandoned the others. Why take that risk, why expose yourself to such criticism, by signing an agreement with a lame-duck “caretaker” prime minister whose legal power to sign any agreement was quite unclear? You might take all the criticism and find that in the end you had no binding agreement at all.
Second, there were from the Palestinian point of view too many lacunae in this deal, too many key points where there was actually no meeting of the minds at all. Security was the most important point, and Olmert's own descriptions of what he offered are blank as to security conditions. The Palestinians knew that Israel had many detailed demands, so what would be their status if the PLO signed an agreement? And although Olmert was offering specific percentages, it was not clear to the Palestinians what territory he was proposing to offer them in swaps. Olmert showed Abbas a map, but Livni also showed a map. The problem was not that they looked different but that they looked very much the same, which caused confusion because Olmert claimed to be saying he would take only 6.3% (or, in some versions, 6.5%) of the West Bank while Livni said the number had to be 8 or 10%. So how could the maps be so similar? This kind of doubt also argued against agreeing to anything.