The Truth

Bill Clinton speaking in Michigan last night about the Israel-Palestinian peace offer on the table at the end of his administration; an offer the Israelis agreed to and the Palestinians rejected.  As a reminder, the pro-Hamas demonstrators in the United States reject the idea of a two state solution.  They are not demonstrating for peace.

What Clinton says is not new news.  We were aware at the time of the terms of the offer and were shocked when Arafat turned it down.  It's good though to see Clinton willing to speak the truth all these years later.

Not mentioned in his remarks was his, and the rest of the American delegation's, shock when Arafat informed them there was never a Jewish temple in Jerusalem and that was just a made up claim by the Jews.  The truth is the opposite; it is the Muslim claim of Mohammad's visit to the Temple Mount that is a myth; an excuse for a occupying colonial military cult to demonstrate its supremacy over the Christians and Jews who preceded them by building the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque; however, it is a myth Jews have been willing to accept if it would bring peace.

When the Oslo Peace Accords were announced in 1994 I thought it a worthwhile risk for Israel to take.  I was wrong.  Readmitting Arafat and the PLO to the West Bank was a terrible mistake and it was a mistake to agree to an Accord that was all process with no clear substantive mutual understandings of end point parameters by the parties.

The Second Intifada, launched by Arafat after walking away from the deal, also destroyed the Israeli peace movement, as it became clear that there was no fundamental agreement between Palestinian and Jews about how to make peace and many Israeli participants felt betrayed.

Listen to the audio.  There is a mistake at the end of the text where Clinton actually says "Judea and Samaria".

Bill Clinton On the Palestinians:

“And the only time Yasser Arafat didn't tell me the truth was when he promised me he was gonna accept the peace deal that we had worked out, which would have given the Palestinians a state on 96% of the West Bank and 4% of Israel, and they got… pic.twitter.com/kQZrqdU3zW

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) October 31, 2024

In retrospect the last time this country had a decent domestic policy at the federal level was from 1994 to 1998 when Clinton was president with a Republican Congress.  They worked together and were on the verge of possibly even bigger things on getting this country on a long-term path to financial stability when the combination of Bill's personal lack of discipline and the most idiotic and self-defeating political choices by the GOP ended it all.