Author: Karagyozian Lena

ArmenPress
Jan 21 2005

ARMENIAN, GEORGIAN NGOs JOIN EFFORTS TO FIGHT HUMAN TRAFFICKING

YEREVAN, JANUARY 21, ARMENPRESS: Representatives of
non-governmental organizations of Armenia and Georgia, fighting
against organized crime, trafficking in human beings and illegal
migration have signed today in Yerevan a cooperation memorandum,
vowing to join their efforts to track down all such instances and
call perpetrators to account.
In February they will launch an Internet website and beginning
from June law-enforcement bodies of the two countries and relevant
government commissions will have to report about cooperation with
non-governmental organizations once in six months.
The regional network plans to participate actively in development
and discussions of national legislations, to provide legal consulting
and practical assistance to victims of trafficking and supervise the
so-called risky groups. Apart from this, Armenian and Georgian
organizations will seek cooperation with counterparts from the United
Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain, the main destinations of human
trafficking victims.

Before Tsunami, World Aid Helped Armenia

By STEVE GUTTERMAN
.c The Associated Press

GYUMRI, Armenia (AP) – The sliding doors of the battered Soviet
railroad car that Artak Akopian calls home reveal a small space almost
as icy as the outdoors. The makeshift quarters are decorated by little
but an old photograph of his mother, who was killed in the earthquake
that devastated Armenia in December 1988.

Akopian, then age 4, was at nursery school when the quake struck,
killing 25,000 people and leaving half a million homeless. Like the
tsunami that devastated southern Asia last month, the disaster focused
the world’s attention on the region and brought forth an outpouring of
aid.

“The aid was colossal, unexpectedly massive,” said Fadei Sarkisian,
who headed the government of Armenia at the time of the quake, when it
was a Soviet republic.

A look back at the aid effort shows successes and failures: More than
$1.2 billion of domestic and foreign aid was given for medical needs,
clothing, food and new housing. But thousands, like Akopian, remain in
substandard housing – 2,000 families according to government
estimates, some 7,000 families according to journalists who have
studied the problem.

The quake shook the mountains of northern Armenia just as Mikhail
Gorbachev was opening the Soviet Union to the West. He cut short a
summit with outgoing President Ronald Reagan – where he had announced
military cuts and pledged support for human rights – to rush home.

The international aid effort “wouldn’t have been so big without
Gorbachev. It was a milestone in the history of the Cold War,” said
John Evans, who is now U.S. ambassador to Armenia and was involved in
the earthquake relief effort. “The initial response – there was no
question about it – was all-out.”

Less than two weeks after the quake, Soviet authorities said they had
received $100 million in aid from 77 countries. An Armenian official
in the Central Committee of Armenia’s Communist Party at the time of
the quake said on condition of anonymity that earthquake-related aid
through 1992 totaled $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion. About 40 percent
came from abroad.

The United States sent heating stoves and search-dog teams. Britain
sent ultrasonic listening devices and fiber-optic cameras for
searching the rubble. Clothing and medical equipment came from around
the world.

Sarkisian recalled standing by rubble and hearing cries for help; but
he knew the powerful cranes needed to lift the concrete slabs on top
of them would take days to assemble. Two days after the quake, cranes
arrived from Italy and Germany, saving, he said, thousands of people.

Akopian’s mother was not among them. Along with his younger brother,
she was killed when the 6.9-magnitude quake destroyed their apartment.
Akopian’s father survived but became mentally unbalanced and later
died.

Now 20, Akopian lives with his aunt, her two children and his wife in
the cramped, corroding railroad car – part of a jumble of cargo
containers and other tiny shelters huddled in a hollow in Gyumri,
Armenia’s second-largest city, which was called Leninakan in the
Soviet era.

The hard-scrabble neighborhood illustrates the desperation that
persists despite the recovery effort that has restored a semblance of
normal life to Gyumri and even Spitak, a town where the quake left
only a handful of buildings standing and killed about half the
population of 20,000.

Gorbachev pledged to rebuild the devastated area, but the 1991 Soviet
collapse scuttled that effort and plunged Armenia into an economic
crisis.

As Armenians across the newly independent country chopped down trees
in parks and chopped up furniture to heat their homes, the
quake-stricken area become just another region where residents
struggled to survive. Into the early 1990s, the earthquake zone was
still shattered and demoralized.

Karlen Ambartsumian, who was deputy mayor of Gyumri when the quake
struck and now advises the current mayor, put part of the blame on a
decrease in foreign aid following the initial, emotionally driven
interest.

“It should have been more prolonged – not just to aid at the time
when the whole world is talking about it and then forget, but to
continue, step by step, doing what is needed at each stage,”
Ambartsumian said.

He said what’s needed most in Gyumri, where dozens of factories are
idle and unemployment is staggering, is aid in the form of job
creation.

“When a U.N. official asked me how much flour we needed, I told him:
Send us fishing rods, not fish,” said Simon Ter-Simonian, head of the
government’s humanitarian assistance department.

While Sarkisian said the aid effort in the quake’s wake was
well-coordinated, Ambartsumian said distribution was badly flawed and
that people who suffered the most missed a lot of the aid, which was
handed out while they were looking for loved ones’ bodies.

“Everybody sent aid, but nobody was able to organize its fair
distribution,” Ambartsumian said.

Sofia Airopetian, a 73-year-old Spitak resident, though, tells a
different story. She says the world never forgot the earthquake
victims and that she still receives food aid. Last year she moved out
of a cargo container and into one of several new apartments built
under a program funded by Armenian-American Kirk Kerkorian.

The new housing beneath the mountains that shadow Spitak augments
homes and hospitals built by foreign countries following the quake.

A U.S. Agency for International Development program has enabled more
than 7,000 families to move out of temporary housing, ridding Gyumri
of many of the metal shacks that survivor Gayane Markarian called a
constant reminder of the quake that killed her brother.

After 15 years in a temporary home near Akopian’s railroad car,
Markarian and her family of five are preparing to move back to their
old building, finally renovated after the quake. But her 18-year-old
son Vigen fears the lack of jobs will force him into the army.

Across the dirt road, 30-year-old Ella Voskanian said she, her mother
and 12-year-old daughter have no hope of leaving their dilapidated
metal container because they are not eligible for other housing for
bureaucratic reasons. At the time of the quake, they were registered
at a home that belongs to relatives.

“We have nowhere to go,” she said.

01/19/05 02:22 EST

Agency quotes Secretary Powell on support for Azeri territorial integrity

Turan news agency
18 Jan 05

BAKU

US Secretary of State Colin Powell sent a letter to Azerbaijani
Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov on 10 January.

The letter expressed the [US] stance on the UN General Assembly
discussions of the situation in the occupied territories of
Azerbaijan, as well as on the bilateral negotiations at the highest
level between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the Foreign Ministry’s press
centre has reported.

Powell described as “hopeful” the “important steps” taken in the
course of the Prague talks between the Armenian and Azerbaijani
foreign ministers, and during the meetings between the two countries’
presidents in Astana and Warsaw.

Powell also writes that Washington “unequivocally” supports
Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and is glad to take part in a
mission to monitor the situation on the ground, and “impatiently”
awaits the expert conclusion.

ARMENIA MAYBE OF LESS IMPORTANCE FOR RUSSIA, A RUSSIAN ANALYST SAYS

YEREVAN, JANUARY 17. ARMINFO. In return for Russia’s support, Armenian
President Robert Kocharyan expresses readiness to further favor the
strengthening of Russian economic presence in Armenia, writes Gennadiy
Sisoyev in his article in the Russian newspaper “Kommersant.”

In his words, in the establishment of relations with Yerevan, Russia
actively used the interest of President Robert Kocharyan in the
political support of Moscow in connection with activation of the
Armenian opposition after “rose revolution” in Georgia. The author
writes that in the course of implementation of the bilateral agreement
“Property for Debt,” the main part of power capacities of Armenia were
transferred under control of Russia (80% of energy generation in
Armenia). The Armenian monopolist in the sphere of gas, “ArmRosgasprom,”
is also controlled by Russian structures. And finally, the author
writes, full packages of shares of a number of enterprises of the
defense complex of Armenia have been transferred to Russia. Armenia’s
importance as a major strategic partner of Russia in the Transcaucasus
may considerably decrease if Moscow fails to maintain its influence on
Georgia, the analyst says.

He said that although the relations between Moscow and the new
authorities of Georgia overcame the phase of tension at the end of
2004, they are still unsatisfactory. As regards the relations with
Azerbaijan, the author says that the Kremlin is concerned that Aliyev
Jr. may correct the balanced policy of his father in direction of
closer cooperation with the West in order that Azerbaijan receives the
role of the regional leader. The author says that official Moscow is
dissatisfied that Baku avoids conclusion of a long-term agreement with
Russia on oil transit to supply the whole Caspian oil through the
pipeline BTC via Georgia and Turkey. Besides, Moscow is concerned over
lack of process in the sphere of military and technical cooperation
with Baku and suspects the new authorities of Azerbaijan in the secret
intention to change over to western standards of armament.

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Jan 14 2005

Companies dispatching cargo to Armenia determined

Azerbaijani businessmen and 5 Georgian companies involved in
transporting cargo to Georgia and then to Armenia through Azerbaijan
have been determined.
A criminal case has been started over the activity of these
companies, the names of which are not disclosed, the Georgian Customs
Department reports.
According to initial investigation, the Azerbaijani companies have
transferred goods, which were purchased from Kazakhstan and
Turkmenistan, to Armenia.
Azerbaijani ambassador to Georgia Ramiz Hasanov told local ATV
channel that he was not authorized to name these companies.
Under the agreement reached with the Georgian Ministry of Finance,
the Azerbaijani government is regularly informed about the further
destination of the transit consignments.*

FrontPageMagazine.com, CA
Jan 12 2005

What’s Wrong with Turkey?
By Gamaliel Issac
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 12, 2005

In my previous article, Turkey’s Dark Past I exposed the falseness of
the claims of Mustafa Akyol that `Turkey has had an Islamic heritage
free of anti-Westernism and anti-Semitism’ Mr. Akyol wrote a
rebuttal, What’s Right With Turkey, in which he argued that the
Turks have a great record when it comes to the Jews and that when the
Jews were expelled from Spain, they were welcomed by the Sultan. In
addition he writes that Jews expelled from Hungary in 1376, from
France by Charles VI in September 1394, and from Sicily early in the
15th century found refuge in the Ottoman Empire. Mustapha Akyol
points out that the blood libel and other such standard anti-Semitic
nonsense was unknown in Muslim lands until the 19th century and that
these were introduced to the Middle East by the “westernized” elite,
who had been infected by the anti-Semitic plague from its ultimate
source: Europe. He points out that Mr. Salahattin Ulkumen, Consul
General at Rhodes in 1943-1944, was recognized by the Yad Vashem as a
Righteous Gentile “Hassid Umot ha’Olam” in June 1990 for his efforts
to save Jews and how Marseilles vice-consul Necdet Kent, boarded a
railway car full of Jews bound for Auschwitz, risking his own life in
an attempt to persuade the Germans to send them back to France.

How can we reconcile the refuge provided by Turkey for the Jews of
Europe and the heroic efforts made by Turkish politicians such as Mr.
Ulkumen and Mr. Kent with the atrocities committed by the Turks
against the Armenians and against the Jews of Palestine which I
described in my article, “Turkey’s Dark Past?”

Akyol’s explanation is that what the West sees as an unjust massacre
of the Armenians was simply fighting between Turks and Armenians. In
his article “What’s Right With Turkey” he wrote: `What happened in
1915, and beforehand, was mutual killing in which the Armenian loss
was greater than that of the Muslims (Turks and Kurds), but in which
the brutality was pretty similar on both sides.’ Another rationale
for the Turkish `fighting’ provided by Mr. Akyol was that of Armenian
revolutionary agitation and aid given the invading Russians by
Anatolian Armenians.

In my article “Turkey’s Dark Past” I quote passages from Serge
Trifkovic’s book, The Sword of the Prophet, which convincingly
demonstrate that what happened at Smyrna was a massacre. Akyol argues
that Dr. Trifkovic is an unreliable source and that what happened at
Smyrna was simply fighting between the two sides. Mr. Akyol also
writes that Smyrna was an Ottoman city that was liberated by the
Turks from the occupying Greek army.

Akyol addressed my arguments about the role of Islam in the massacre
of the Armenians by referring the reader to two articles he has
written, two articles which do shed light on the massacres of the
Armenians but not in the way he intended.

In this article I will point out the errors in Akyol’s arguments and
provide an alternative explanation for the paradox of Turkish
tolerance to the Jews of Europe and cruelty to the Armenian
Christians. In addition I will discuss the paradox of the refuge
given the European Jews by the Turks in Anatolia in the context of
the intolerance of the Turks towards the Jews of Palestine. Finally
I will discuss the relevance of Turkish history to the question of
whether or not Turkey should be accepted into the European Union.

Smyrna, A Greek or an Ottoman City?

Akyol wrote that `The truth is that Smyrna (known as Izmir in
Turkish) was an Ottoman city that included a Greek quarter, and the
Turks were not invading Smyrna, they were liberating the city from
the occupying Greek army.’

Akyol’s argument that Smyrna was an Ottoman and not a Greek city
ignores over a thousand years of history. According to the
Encyclopedia Britannica Online:

`Greek settlement is first clearly attested by the presence of
pottery dating from about 1000 BC. According to the Greek historian
Herodotus, the Greek city was founded by Aeolians but soon was seized
by Ionians. From modest beginnings, it grew into a stately city in
the 7th Century, with massive fortifications and blocks of
two-storied houses. Captured by Alyattes of Lydia about 600 BC, it
ceased to exist as a city for about 300 years until it was refounded
by either Alexander the Great or his lieutenants in the 4th century
BC at a new site on and around Mount Pagus. It soon emerged as one of
the principal cities of Asia Minor and was later the centre of a
civil diocese in the Roman province of Asia, vying with Ephesus and
Pergamum for the title `first city of Asia.’ Roman emperors visited
there, and it was celebrated for its wealth, beauty, library, school
of medicine, and rhetorical tradition. The stream of Meles is
associated in local tradition with Homer, who is reputed to have been
born by its banks. Smyrna was one of the early seats of Christianity.

Capital of the naval theme (province) of Samos under the Byzantine
emperors, Smyrna was taken by the Turkmen Aydin principality in the
early 14th Century AD. After being conquered in turn by the crusaders
sponsored by Pope Clement VI and the Central Asian conqueror Timur
(Tamerlane), it was annexed to the Ottoman Empire about 1425.
Although severely damaged by earthquakes in 1688 and 1778, it
remained a prosperous Ottoman port with a large European population.

Izmir [Smyrna] was occupied by Greek forces in May 1919 and
recaptured by Turkish forces under Mustafa Kemal (later Kemal
Atatürk) on September 9, 1922. `

One problem with the encyclopedic summary above is that as a
necessary consequence of its brevity we do not realize what the
events described really entail. Here is what Marjorie Housepian
Dobkin, wrote about the first conquest of Smyrna in 1402 by Tamerlane
and his Muslim army in her book The Smyrna Affair.

`In 1402 Tamerlaine butchered the inhabitants and razed the buildings
in an orgy of cruelty that would become legendary. While the
inhabitants slept, his men stealthily undermined the city’s wall and
propped them up with timber smeared with pitch. Then he applied the
torch, the walls sank into ditches prepared to receive them, and the
city lay open to the invader. Smyrna’s would be defenders, the
Knights of Saint John, escaped to their ships by fighting their way
through a mob of panic-stricken inhabitants. They escaped just in
time, for Tamerlaine ordered a thousand prisoners beheaded and used
their skulls to raise a monument in his honor. He did not linger
over his victory – it was his custom to ravage and ride on. He rode
on to Ephesus, where the city’s children were sent out to greet and
appease him with song. ‘What is this noise?’ he roared, and ordered
his horsemen to trample the children to death.”

Corroboration of Mr. Trifkovic

Akyol argues that Mr. Trifkovic is not a reliable source yet there
are many independent sources that corroborate the excerpts of Mr.
Trifkovic’s book that I included in my previous article. I include a
corroboration of his account about the attack on Archbishop
Chrystostom in an appendix to this article.

Here are a few accounts not included by Mr. Trifkovic that
corroborate his argument that what happened at Smyrna was not just
fighting but rather a massacre of the infidel inhabitants of Smyrna
and the burning of the city by the Turks.

`Anita Chakerian, a young teacher at the [American Collegiate]
Institute, saw the Turkish guards dragging into the building large
sacks, which they deposited in various corners. They were bringing
rice and potatoes the men said, because they knew the people were
hungry and would soon have nothing left to eat. The sacks were not
to be opened until the bread was exhausted. Such unexpected
generosity led one of the sailors to investigate; the bags held
gunpowder and dynamite. On Tuesday night, wagons bearing gasoline
drums again moved through the deserted streets around the College…

“At 1:00 A.M. on Wednesday, Mabel Kalfa, a Greek nurse at the
Collegiate Institute, saw three fires in the neighborhood. At 4:00
A.M. fires in a small wooden hut adjoining the College wall and on a
veranda near the school were put out by firemen. At noon on
Wednesday a sailor beckoned Mabel Kalfa and Miss Mills to the window
in the dining room. ‘Look there,’ he said. ‘The Turks are setting
the fires!’ The women could see three Turkish officers silhouetted
in the window of a photographer’s shop opposite the school. Moments
after the men emerged, flames poured from the roof and the windows…
Said Miss Mills: ‘I could plainly see the Turks carrying tins of
petroleum into the houses, from which, in each instance, fire burst
forth immediately afterward.’

It was not long before all of Smyrna was on fire. Ms. Housepian
writes:

`The spectacle along the waterfront haunted Melvin Johnson for the
rest of his life. ‘When we left it was just getting dusk,’ he
remembers. ‘As we were pulling out I’ll never forget the screams.
As far as we could go you could hear `em screaming and hollering, and
the fire was going on… most pitiful thing you ever saw in your life.
In your life. Could never hear nothing like it any other place in
the world, I don’t think. And the city was set in a – a kind of a
hill, and the fire was on back coming this way toward the ship. That
was the only way the people could go, toward the waterfront. A lot
of `em were jumping in, committing suicide, It was a sight all
right.'”

Ms. Housepian wrote how:

`On the Iron Duke, Major Arthur Maxwell of His Majesty’s Royal
Marines, watching through binoculars, distinguished figures pouring
out buckets of liquid among the refugees. At first he took them to
be firemen attempting to extinguish the flames, then he realized, to
his horror, that every time they appeared there was a sudden burst of
flames. ‘My God! They’re trying to burn the refugees!’ he
exclaimed.”

Ms. Housepian included the account of reporter John Clayton who
wrote:

`Except for the squalid Turkish quarter, Smyrna has ceased to exist.
The problem for the minorities is here solved for all time. No doubt
remains as to the origin of the fire…The torch was applied by Turkish
regular soldiers.’

The Rebellion Excuse:

Akyol started his article by excusing the Armenian Genocide with the
excuse that the Armenians rebelled against the Turks and helped the
Russians.

One reason that this is a poor excuse is that the Armenians had every
reason to rebel against the Turks. Marjorie Housepian, describes
what Dhimmi life was like under the Turks.

“Beginning in the fifteenth century, Ottoman policy drove the most
unmanageable elements, such as the Kurds, into the six Armenian
provinces in the isolated northeast. Thereafter, the Armenians were
not only subjected to the iniquitous tax-farming system (applicable
to the Moslem peasants as well), the head tax, and the dubious
privilege of the military exemption tax, but also to impositions that
gave the semi barbarous tribes license to abuse them. The
hospitality tax, which entitled government officials ‘and all who
passed as such’ to free lodging and food for three days a year in an
Armenian home, was benign compared to the dreaded kishlak, or
winter-quartering tax, whereby – in return for a fee pocketed by the
vali – a Kurd was given the right to quarter himself and his cattle
in Armenian homes during the long winter months, which often extended
to half the year. The fact that Armenian dwellings were none too
spacious and the Kurdish way of life exceptionally crude proved the
least of the burden. Knowing that the unarmed Armenians had neither
physical nor legal redress, a Kurd, armed to the teeth, could not
only make free with his host’s possessions but if the fancy struck
him could rape and kidnap his women and girls as well.”

In addition the Turks would abduct Christian boys at an early age,
sequester them for military training and use them to quell unrest and
to fight their battles for them.

Marjorie Housepian wrote about the Armenian `rebellions’ as follows:

`After the Treaty of Berlin, Hamid defiantly gerrymandered the
boundaries in the northern provinces, usurped Armenian lands, moved
in more Kurds, and increased the proportion of Moslems. When the
Armenians were driven to protest to Britain that the Porte [Turkish
Government] was breaking the terms of the treaty, Hamid denounced
them as traitors conspiring with foreigners to destroy the empire.
Yet it was not until 1887 that a number of Armenian leaders,
despairing of every other means, organized the first of two Armenian
revolutionary parties – the second was organized in 1890. The Church
discouraged revolutionary activity, fearing that it would lead to
nothing more than intensified bloodshed, and the people were on the
whole inclined to agree with their religious leaders. Small bands of
Armenian revolutionaries nonetheless staged a number of
demonstrations during the 1890’s and gave Hamid exactly the pretext
he sought. Declaring that the only way to get rid of the Armenian
question is to get rid of the Armenians, he proceeded to the task
with every means at hand. He sent masses of unhappy Circassians, who
had themselves lately been driven from Europe, into Eastern Anatolia
– where the Armenian population had already been reduced by massacre
and migration – and encouraged them, along with the Kurds, to attack
village after village. He roused the tribesmen to the kill by having
his agents spread rumors that the Armenians were about to attack
them, then cited every instance of self-defense as proof of rebellion
and as an excuse for further massacre. He sent his special Hamidieh
regiments to put down ‘revolts’ in such districts as Sassoun, where
the Armenians were protesting that they were unable to pay their
taxes to the government because the Kurds had left them nothing with
which to pay…’

Marjorie Housepian explained that the Armenians went great efforts
not to rebel. She wrote:

`In order to prove the rebelliousness of the victims it was necessary
first to provoke them into acts of self-defense, which could then be
labeled ‘Insurrectionary.’ A campaign of terror such as had been
practiced earlier in the Balkans was already under way in Armenian
towns and villages near the Russian border, and had been ever since
Enver’s impetuous winter offensive against the Russians had turned
into a disaster; Turkish leaders had publicly ascribed the defeat to
the perfidy of the Armenians on both sides of the Russo-Turkish
frontier. The Turkish Armenians, however, proved themselves
incredibly forbearing in the face of provocation. ‘The Armenian
clergy and political leaders saw many evidences that the Turks … were
[provoking rebellion] and they went among the people cautioning them
to be quiet and bear all insults and even outrages patiently, so as
not to give provocation,’ wrote Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador
to Turkey. ‘Even though they burn a few of our villages,’ these
leaders would say, `do not retaliate for it is better than a few be
destroyed than that a whole nation be massacred.”

Was the Turkish Destruction of Smyrna Vengeance?
Akyol wrote that the Turks were not invading Smyrna, they were
liberating the city from the occupying Greek army. He also wrote
that the Greeks had previously committed atrocities against the
Turks and that `The bloodshed in Smyrna in September, 1922 was an act
of vengeance.’ Undoubtedly vengeance played a role but that
explanation is incomplete. If the bloodshed in Smyrna was an act of
vengeance against the Greeks then why did the Turks also annihilate
the Armenian population of Smyrna? If atrocities committed by Greeks
during the re-occupation of Smyrna is the explanation for Turkish
atrocities, then why did the Turks commit atrocities against the
Armenians and Greeks in Smyrna before the Greek re-occupation? It
has been estimated that during the seven centuries of Turkish
presence in Asia Minor several millions of Greeks,… were
systematically massacred.

John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States
(1824-1828) had the following to say about the suffering of the
Greeks under the Turks:

`If ever insurrection was holy in the eyes of God, such was that of
the Greeks against their Mahometan oppressors… They were suffered to
be overwhelmed by the whole mass of the Ottoman power; cheered only
by the sympathies of all the civilized world, but without a finger
raised to sustain or relieve them by the Christian governments of
Europe; while the sword of extermination, instinct with the spirit of
the Koran, was passing in merciless horror over the classical regions
of Greece, the birth-place of philosophy, of poetry, of eloquence, of
all the arts that embellish, and all the sciences that dignify the
human character.’

The reason why the allies assigned Greece the responsibility to
administer Smyrna after World War I was stated by Alexander
Millerand, president of the Supreme Allied Council as follows:

`The Turkish government not only failed in its duty to protect its
non-Turkish citizens from the looting, violence and murders, but
there are many indications that the Turkish government itself was
responsible for directing and organizing the most cruel attacks
against the populations, which it was supposed to protect. For these
reasons, the Allied powers have decided to liberate from the Turkish
yoke all the lands where the majority of the people were non-Turks.”

Persecution against the Greeks in Turkey continues to this very day.

The Turkish Paradox

Why were the Turks so brutal to the Armenians and yet as Mr. Akyol
pointed out in his previous article, did they offer refuge to Jews
fleeing from European Nations. In order to understand this we need
to first understand the concept of Dhimma. Tudor Parfitt in his
book, The Jews in Palestine 1800-1882 (The Boydell Press, 1987)
explains that concept as follows:

`Dhimma is the relationship between the protector (in this case the
Sultan) and the protected (the Dhimmi) and was the dominant factor in
the status of the ahl al-kitab (People of the Book) i.e. Jews,
Christians, Sabeans, (sabi’un) and later Persian Zoroastrians, in the
Muslim state. Dhimma required the state to protect the life and
property of the Dhimmi, exempt him from military service and allow
him freedom of worship, while the Dhimmi was expected to pay the poll
tax(cizye), not to insult Islam, not to build new places of worship
and to dress in a distinctive fashion in order not to be mistaken for
a Muslim. In cases of civil and family law, non-Muslims had
judicial autonomy except in such cases which involved both a Dhimmi
and a Muslim, in which event the case would be tried before a Muslim
court (mahkama) where the Dhimmi’s legal testimony was
unacceptable…The measure of religious toleration that obtained under
Islam had to be purchased: and the price was a considerable one.”

One reason it was difficult to obey the Dhimma contract was that in
addition to infidels being required to pay exorbitant taxes they were
also required to live in lowliness and degradation. This was
explained by the Sultan of Morocco, Mulay Abd ar -Rahman in a letter
he wrote in 1841 to the French Consulate at Tangiers as follows:

`The Jews of Our fortunate Country have received guarantees from
which they benefit in exchange for their carrying out the conditions
imposed by our religious Law on those people who enjoyed its
protection: these conditions have been and still are observed by our
coreligionists. If the Jews respect these conditions, Our Law
prohibits the spilling of their blood and enjoins the protection of
their belongings, but if they break so much as a single condition,
[then] Our blessed Law permits their blood to be spilt and their
belongings to be taken. Our glorious faith only allows them the
marks of lowliness and degradation, thus the sole fact that a Jew
raises his voice against a Muslim constitutes a violation of the
conditions of protection.’

An example of the consequences of violating the Dhimma contract is
given by a letter written by Porter, a British ambassador to Turkey
to a colleague in London on June 3, 1758, about an unfortunate Jew
and an Armenian who thought the dress codes had been forgotten. I
include an excerpt below:

`This time of Ramazan is mostly taken up by day in sleep, by night in
eating, so that we have few occurrences of any importance, except
what the Grand Seignor [Sultan Mustafa III] himself affords us he is
determin’d to keep to his laws, and to have them executed, that
concerning dress has been often repeated, and with uncommon
solemnity, yet as in the former reigns, after some weeks it was
seldom attended to, but gradually transgress’d, these people whose
ruling passion is directed that way, thought it was forgot, and
betook themselves to their old course, a Jew on his Sabbath was the
first victim, the Grand Seignor going the rounds incognito, met him,
and not having the Executioner with him, without sending him [the
Jew] to the Vizir, had him executed, and his throat cut that moment,
the day after an Armenian follow’d, he was sent to the Vizir, who
attempted to save him, and and condemn’d him to the Galleys, but the
Capigilar Cheaia [head of the guards] came to the Porte at night,
attended with the executioner, to know what was become of the
delinquent, that first Minister had him brought directly from the
Galleys and his head struck off, that he might inform his Master he
had anticipated his Orders.’

Jews and Armenians as long as they meekly tolerated the depredations
of Dhimmitude and obeyed all the rules were generally not killed
outright because as jizya [tax] paying infidels they was considered a
valuable commodity. Joan Peters, in her book From Time Immemorial,
wrote how after the conquest of Alexandria, Caliph Omar received word
from his general describing the wealth they had just attained.

`I have captured a city from the description of which I shall
refrain. Suffice it to say that I have seized therein 4,000 villas
with 4,000 baths, 40,000 poll-tax paying Jews and four hundred places
of entertainment for the royalty.”

Akyol responded to two quotes from the Koran from my previous
article, by referring the reader to two articles he had written. In
one of those articles ` Still Standing For Islam and Against
Terrorism,” Mr. Akyol, quoted Karen Armstrong’s writings about the
aftermath of the fighting at Badr as follows:

`The Muslims were jubilant. They began to round up prisoners and, in
the usual Arab fashion, started to kill them, but Muhammad put a stop
to this. A revelation came down saying that the prisoners of war were
to be ransomed. `

The quote chosen by Akyol demonstrates that money was what kept the
Muslims from murdering the infidel. Ransom was why Muhammad put a
stop to the Muslim murder of the prisoners of war from Badr. Money
is the reason that subjugated people, who pay the jizya and karaj
taxes are not killed.

Another argument in Akyol’s article is that according to Islam there
is no compulsion in religion. Although Muslims have violated this
law frequently, a recent example being the forced conversion of the
wife of an Egyptian priest, there have actually been cases where they
have compelled infidels not to convert.

Bernard Lewis, in his book The Arabs in History, wrote that during:

`the time of `Abd al-Malik the Muslim government actually resorted to
discouraging conversion … in order to restore the failing revenues of
the state.”

In 1492, when Spain expelled the Jews, Sultan Bayazid II ordered the
governors of the provinces of the Ottoman Empire “not to refuse the
Jews entry or cause them difficulties, but to receive them
cordially.” This act of kindness may have at least in part been
motivated by financial need. The Sultan even said that: “the
Catholic monarch Ferdinand was wrongly considered as wise, since he
impoverished Spain by the expulsion of the Jews, and enriched
Turkey”.

Serge Trifkovic, in an article in Chronicles Magazine titled Turkey
in the European Union: a lethal fait accompli (10/29/04), argued that
tolerance did not play a role in the welcome extended to the Jews by
Sultan Bayazid II. He wrote:

`The act that resonates with modern Ottoman apologists was the
invitation to the Jews of Spain to resettle in the Sultan’s lands
after expulsion under Ferdinand and Isabella. They were invited not
because of the Turks’ ‘tolerance,’ however, but primarily because it
was necessary to replace the vast numbers of Christians who had been
killed, expelled, or reduced to penury, and thus to maintain the
Sultan’s tax base. The fact that the Ottoman Jews held a more favored
status within the Empire than the giaours (infidel Christian dogs) is
as much a reason for celebration of the Ottoman ‘tolerance’ as is the
fact that the Nazis were somewhat more ‘tolerant’ of occupied Slavs
than of the Jews…

“The Jews of Turkey as a whole did not violate the Dhimma contract.
The Armenians by rebelling and seeking assistance from foreign powers
did violate the contract. The Zionist movement also violated the
Dhimma contract by advocating an independent state of Israel. This
is one explanation for the paradox of Turkey giving refuge to Jews
and massacring Armenians and threatening to massacre Jews in
Palestine.

“A report of the Chief Dragoman (Turkish-speaking interpreter) of the
British embassy regarding the 1894-96 massacres supports this
explanation. He wrote:

“…[The perpetrators] are guided in their general action by the
prescriptions of the Sheri [Sharia] Law. That law prescribes that if
the ‘rayah’ [Dhimmi] Christian attempts, by having recourse to
foreign powers, to overstep the limits of privileges allowed them by
their Mussulman [Muslim] masters, and free themselves from their
bondage, their lives and property are to be forfeited, and are at the
mercy of the Mussulmans. To the Turkish mind the Armenians had tried
to overstep those limits by appealing to foreign powers, especially
England. They therefore considered it their religious duty and a
righteous thing to destroy and seize the lives and properties of the
Armenians…”

Violation of the Dhimma contract is not the only reason the Armenians
of Turkey were massacred and the Jews of Palestine were threatened
with massacre. The Jews of Palestine, and the Armenians of Turkey
had one crucial thing in common that endangered them, Turkey was
occupying their homeland and they wanted to liberate their homeland.
The ultimate crime as far as the Turks were concerned was the
Armenian, and Jewish desire for freedom, because in addition to
violating the Dhimma contract, such freedom threatened the integrity
of their empire.

Liberation, the Root Cause of Turkish Revenge

Turkish vengeance occurred when they felt there was a threat to the
integrity of their empire. In April 1876 when Bulgarians fought for
their freedom, the Turks committed mass slaughter in Bulgaria,
killing 12000-15,000 Bulgarians.

Graber, in his book, Caravans to Oblivion, The Armenian Genocide,
explained how the threat of Armenian liberation led to revenge by the
Turkish authorities.

`It was in Geneva in 1887 that the first radical Armenian political
organization was born. It was called Hunchak, meaning ‘bell,’ and it
was revolutionary in its aims. It was followed in 1890 by the
foundation of the much more important and longer lived
Dashnakstutium. Both organizations called for an independent
Armenia…This was basically a new position for the Armenians. Its
effect on Abdulhamid was predictable. He felt he was faced with a
sinister revolution that he must use all his resources to combat.

“When Armenian resistance first arose in 1893, however, it was not
driven by urban radicals or intellectual leaders. Its voice was the
Armenian peasantry in Sassun, deep in the Armenian mountains. It was
not based primarily on a yearning for freedom; its cause was much
nearer to the hearts of a peasant society. The wandering Kurdish
tribes had been given tacit allowance by the sultan to extort the
peasant Armenian communities in the way that gangsters extort
protection money for use of their turf. According to the historian
Christopher J. Walker, `The Kurdish aghas [commanders] used to demand
from them a kind of protection tax – an annual due of crops, cattle,
silver, iron ore…agricultural implements or clothes… In many places
the Armenians were forced to pay double taxes…

“By 1892 Abdulhamid had authorized the formation of some thirty
regiments of Hamideye, each about five hundred men strong and each
composed of itinerant Kurds whose spoken or unspoken function was to
suppress the Armenians. To defend themselves against the
depredations of the Kurds and the corruption of the Turkish
officials, Armenian peasants in the Sassun district retreated into
the mountains and held out against successive attacks mounted by
Kurds and regular Turkish army units. …

“In the end, despite some early success, the Armenian peasants were
overrun and murdered – men, women and children – in their mountain
hideouts.’

The Armenian desire for national liberation ultimately led to their
destruction. Graber wrote that:

`In November 1914, the Russians published a declaration that promised
national liberation to the Armenians on the condition that they
oppose their Ottoman masters. Some Armenians answered the call;
small numbers of Armenian soldiers deserted from the Turkish army and
some in the areas of the battles gave assistance to the Russian
forces… In the winter of 1914-15, the Ottoman army mounted a major
attack against the Russians… Enver Pasha, who had assumed command of
the Third Army, made fatal errors which led to the loss of most of
his forces and the loss of wide stretches of territory to the Russian
army. There are those who point to Enver Pasha’s direct
responsibility for the military defeat as the motive for his search
for a scapegoat; the Armenians were accused of treachery by Enver
Pasha and his supporters. It was alleged that Armenian betrayal,
according to the Empire’s rulers, had caused the defeat… To this
day, the Turkish government claims the treachery of the Armenians as
the explanation for what subsequently befell them.

“During the night, between April 23 and April 24, 1915, the
Constantinople police broke into the homes of the Armenian elite in
the city. Two hundred thirty five Armenian leaders politicians,
writers, educators, lawyers, etc. – were taken to the police station
and then deported.’

The method of elimination by deportation is explained by Graber as
follows:

`The Young Turks had no railroad system to collect and dispose of
the Armenians. Despite the efforts to proceed with the construction
of the Berlin to Baghdad railroad, there were few miles of track
available, and the condition of most highways was appalling.
Consequently, those charged by the Teshkilati Mahsusa with the
responsibility of eliminating the Armenian community evolved a system
of such primitive brutality that even today, after our century has
witnessed the indiscriminate massacre of many millions, the
Ittihadist project still evokes the most fundamental feelings of
revulsion. There is no doubt that if a more sophisticated machinery
for slaughter had been available, the Young Turks would have used it.
Lacking such machinery, their system of eradication worked along the
following lines, as described by one scholar of the period:

“‘Initially all the able-bodied men of a certain town or village
would be ordered, either by a public crier or by an official
proclamation nailed to the walls, to present themselves at the Konak
[government building]. The proclamation stated that the Armenian
population would be deported, gave the official reasons for it, and
assured them that the government was benevolent. Once at the Konak,
they would be jailed for a day or two. No reason was given. Then
they would be led out of jail and marched out of town. At the first
lonely halting place they would be shot, or bayoneted to death. Some
days later the old men and the women and children were summoned in
the same way; they were often given a few days grace, but then they
had to leave. It was their misfortune not to be killed at the first
desolate place. The government’s reasoning appears to have been: the
men might pose a threat – leaders might spring up among them, who
would defy the order; but why waste valuable lead on women, old men
and children? Instead they were forced to walk, endlessly, along
pre-arranged routes, until they died from thirst, hunger, exposure,
or exhaustion.'”

Armenians were also slaughtered enroute. The following is a story of
a young girl, who was deported:

`I was twelve years old, I was with my mother. They drove us with
whips and we had no water. It was very hot and many of us died
because there was no water. They drove us with whips, I do not know
how many days and nights and weeks, until we came to the Arabian
Desert. My sisters and the little baby died on the way. We went to a
town, I do not know its name. The streets were full of dead, all cut
to pieces. They drove us over them. I kept dreaming about that. We
came to a place on the Desert, a hollow place in the sand, with hills
all around it. There were thousands of us there, many, many
thousands, all women and girl children. They herded us like sheep
into the hollow. Then it was dark and we heard firing all around. We
said, `The killing has begun.’ All night we waited for them, my
mother and I, we waited for them to reach us. But they did not come,
and in the morning, when we looked around, no one was killed. No one
was killed at all. They had not been killing us. They had been
signaling to the wild tribes that we were there. The Kurds came later
in the morning, in the daylight; the Kurds and many other kinds of
men from the Desert; they came over the hills and rode down and began
killing us. All day long they were killing; you see, there were so
many of us. All they did not think they could sell, they killed. They
kept on killing all night and in the morning – in the morning they
killed my mother.’

Jewish Liberation and The Revenge of the Turks

A declaration about Zionism released in January 25, 1915 by the
Turkish Authorities and published by Haherut, a Hebrew language
newspaper, demonstrates that Turkish hostility to Jews in Palestine
resulted from the threat of Jewish liberation. The declaration was:
`The exalted Government, in its resistance to the dangerous element
known as Zionism, which is struggling to create a Jewish government
in the Palestinian area of the Ottoman Kingdom and thus placing its
own people in jeopardy, has ordered the confiscation of all postal
stamps, Zionist flags, paper money, banknotes, etc., and has declared
the dissolution of the Zionist organizations and associations, which
were secretly established. It has now become known to us that other
mischief makers are maliciously engaged in libelous attempts to
assert that our measures are directed against all Jews. These have
no application to all of those Jews who uphold our covenant…We hope
and pray that they will be forever safe, as in the past…It is only
the Zionists and Zionism, that corrupt incendiary and rebellious
element, together with other groups with such delusionary
aspirations, which we must vanquish.’

Yair Auron, in his book The Banality of Indifference, Zionism and the
Armenian Genocide, wrote how the Turks almost annihilated the Jewish
community of Palestine because of the threat of Zionism. He wrote:

`In the spring of 1917, the small Jewish community in Palestine was
stunned by an order issued by the Turkish authorities for the
deportation of the 5,000 Jews from Tel Aviv to the small farming
villages in the Sharon Plain and the Galilee. This may have been the
beginning of a plan to deport the Jews in the villages and in the
Jerusalem region as an emergency war measure, and the decree aroused
grave concern about the future of the Jewish settlement in the
country. When the deportation order became known to the Nili
organization [a hebrew spy organization], its members publicized the
plan in the world press. American Jewry was shocked, and the nations
fighting against Turkey released reports on Turkish intentions to
exterminate the Jews in Palestine, as they had already done to the
Armenians. Public opinion in the neutral countries, as well as in
Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was outraged and Jamal Pasha
was forced to reconsider his plan of action.

Mustafa Kemal’s Reforms and Turkish Humanitarianism

Mustafa Kemal believed that Islam was responsible for Turkish enmity
toward the Western world as well as Turkish regression. In a speech
he gave in March 1923 he said:

“You know there is an unforgiving enmity between the societies of the
Muslim world and the masses of the Christian world. Muslims became
eternal enemies of Christians, and Christians those of Muslims. They
viewed each other as non-believers, fanatics. The two worlds
co-existed with this fanaticism and enmity. As a result of this
enmity, the Muslim world was distanced from the western progress that
took a new form and color every century. Because, Muslims viewed
progress with disdain and disgust. At the same time, the Muslim world
had to hold on to its arms as a result of this enmity that lasted for
centuries between the two groups. This continuous occupation with
arms, enmity, and disdain for western progress constitute another
important cause of our regression.”

Mustafa Kemal abolished the Caliphate, replaced Shariah rule with
penal codes based on European models, emancipated women, enforced
equality for all citizens regardless of religion, adopted modern
Western clothing and the Latin script, and abolished the religious
education system.

It is possible that Mustafa Kemal’s reforms improved the attitude of
the Turks toward Turkish Jews, and made possible the heroic and
humanitarian efforts made by men such as Salahattin Ulkumen to save
Turkish Jews from the Nazis during World War II.

The Failure of Democracy in Turkey

In 1924 and again in 1930 President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk approved
the formation of opposition parties in his effort to introduce
democracy in Turkey. As soon as the parties began to speak publicly,
they drew wide spread political support, and it became clear that
people were dissatisfied with the governments secularist and economic
policies. In both cases, the parties were promptly disbanded. The
next attempt to transition toward a multiparty democracy occurred in
1945. The president of Turkey, Ismet Inonu, agreed to allow a
multiparty system and opposition parties quickly formed. The
Democratic opposition party (DP), that supported bringing Islam into
politics won the election but opposition to it grew. The DP
responded with legislation that restricted freedom of speech and the
press. In 1960, the military overthrew the DP government. In the
next election Turkish voters voted in the successor parties to the
DP, the Justice Party and the New Turkey Party They essentially
put back into power the party that was ousted by the military in
preceding year. In 1995 Necmettin Erbakan was elected prime minister
of Turkey. His radicalism can be seen in a speech he gave to Kurds,
pleaded for their support “to save the world from European infidels.”
Three years later, the Constitutional Court banned the Welfare Party
on the grounds that it was engaged in fundamentalist activity and was
violating the secular principles of the Turkish constitution. In the
1999 elections most of the former members of the Welfare party were
reelected to parliament as members of the new Virtue party. Today,
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the Justice and Development Party is
prime minister even though he was sentenced to jail in 1998 for
inciting religious hatred. If it wasn’t for the military, Turkey
would probably have reverted to a Shariah state long ago. There are
many who complain that because of the military Turkey is not
democratic enough, the truth is that without the military Turkey
would not be democratic at all.

The opinions of the Turkish masses are moving against the United
States and Israel partly as a result of Prime Minister Erdogan
governments influence over the media according to an article by Soner
Cagaptay in the Middle East Quarterly. The growing influence of
Islam and the growing hostility toward Israel and the United States
is alarming because it indicates that Turkey is regressing from the
enlightenment that made possible the rescue of Jews during World War
II toward the dark ages of Turkey’s fundamentalist past.

Should Turkey be Accepted into the European Union?

The secular Turkish army has been a stabilizing force on Turkey in
the past but if Turkey joins the European Union it is unlikely to be
able to play this role. The Anatolia news agency quoted the
European Union envoy to Turkey, Ambassador Hansjorg Kretschmer, as
saying that `the European Turkey’s EU-inspired democracy reforms will
be incomplete if the country fails to curb the influence its powerful
army wields in politics’ If the influence of the army is eliminated
Europe may find itself with an Islamic army in its midst.

Some European Leaders in their eagerness to appease the Islamic world
are oblivious to this threat. New EU commissioner Olli Rehnn said on
Oct. 20 that “Turkey’s EU membership will open new horizons for both
Turkey and the Union and bring forth new challenges.” On the same day
Germany’s foreign minister Joschka Fischer went a step further and
declared that Turkish entry to the EU would be as important for
Europe as the D-Day invasion 60 years ago – a key way to liberate
Europe from the threat of insecurity from the Middle East and
“terrorist ideas.”

In light of these comments by European leaders, I think the most
suitable way to finish this article is with the final sentence of
Marjorie Housepian Dobkin’s book The Smyrna Affair.

`The course of history in recent years suggests that the ultimate
victims may be those who delude themselves.’

___________________________________________________

Appendix

Here is a corroborating account to that told by Serge Trifkovic about
the tragic attack on the Armenian Patriarch Chrysostomos as told by
Marjorie Housepian Dobkin. Archbishop Chrysostomos tried to protect
his Armenian flock from the depredations of the Turks, and when given
an opportunity to flee by an American friend refused to abandon them.
Marjorie Dobkin recounts his fate below:
`The Patriarch was walking slowly down the steps of the Konak when
the [Turkish] General appeared on the balcony and cried out to
waiting mob, ‘Treat him as he deserves!’ The crowd fell upon
Chrysostomos with guttural shrieks and dragged him down the street
until they reached a barber shop where Ismael, the Jewish proprietor,
was peering nervously from his doorway. Someone pushed the barber
aside, grabbed a white sheet, and tied it around Chrysostomos’s neck,
shouting, ‘Give him a shave!’

“They tore out the Patriarch’s beard, gouged out his eyes with
knives, cut off his ears, his nose, and his hands. A dozen French
marines who had accompanied Chrysostomos to the government house were
standing by, beside themselves. Several of the men jumped
instinctively forward to intervene, but the officer in charge forbade
them to move. ‘He had his hand on his gun, though he was trembling
himself,’ one of the men said later, ‘so we dared not lift ours.
They finished Chrysostomos there before our eyes.”

Associated Press Worldstream
January 11, 2005 Tuesday 12:24 PM Eastern Time

Armenia announces aid to tsunami-hit region

YEREVAN, Armenia

The government of Armenia plans to send about 25 million drams
(US$50,000, [euro]38,000) in aid supplies to tsunami-hit Sri Lanka,
officials said Tuesday.

About two-thirds of the amount would be in tents and other goods, and
the remainder is medicine including antibiotics, Deputy Foreign
Minister Armen Baiburtian said.

Armenian MP says Council of Europe report on Karabakh unbalanced

Hayots Ashkarh, Yerevan
11 Jan 05

Excerpt from Vaan Vardanyan’s report by Armenian newspaper Hayots
Ashkarh on 11 January headlined “It will be difficult in Strasbourg”

The Armenian parliamentary delegation will soon leave for Strasbourg
to take part in a PACE [Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe] session. We have interviewed the chairman of the Foreign
Relations Commission of the National Assembly, Armen Rustamyan, in
this connection.

[Hayots Ashkarh correspondent] Mr Rustamyan, [PACE rapporteur] David
Atkinson’s report on the Karabakh issue will be discussed at a PACE
plenary session. When will our delegation leave for Strasbourg? What
are your expectations from the discussion of this issue? [Passage
omitted]

[Armen Rustamyan] We should explain to the PACE delegates that it is
unacceptable to adopt a resolution when the representation balance
between the conflicting parties has been disturbed.

[Correspondent] Do you mean that NKR [Nagornyy Karabakh Republic]
representatives have not been invited to the Council of Europe to take
part in the discussions?

[Rustamyan] Yes, I do. Balance has really been disturbed in this
sense. It is not clear how the conflict can be discussed when one of
the directly involved parties does not take part in this discussion?
For this reason we have to put forward Karabakh’s positions as well,
noting that they are not Armenia’s but of a party to the conflict that
is being ignored.

When Armenia and Azerbaijan joined the Council of Europe and assumed
obligations, the Council of Europe was given the following task to
settle relations between the parties: to promote a peaceful
settlement, relieve tension and create conditions for
rapprochement. But if the provisions of the document that will be
adopted in PACE are not balanced, it may have an adverse effect that
will aggravate the situation.

[Correspondent] Do you think the Azerbaijani delegation is pleased
with Atkinson’s report and the [expected] resolution?

[Rustamyan] In some sense it is very advantageous to Azerbaijan
because it contains a number of points and unclear wording which can
be used in the future for propaganda ends. The major pitfall is that
according to the general logic of the document, the conflict has not
three but two parties – Armenia and Azerbaijan – but this does not
correspond to reality. At the same time, they hint using the vague
wording that one of the parties has occupied the territories of the
other.

In fact, the Azerbaijani delegation does not fight against this
document in any way. However, I am sure that by strengthening their
positions even more they will submit a package of changes so that in
the future they can use it to tamper with the essence of the
conflict. [Passage omitted]

JCPA.org,(Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
Jan 5 2005

WHAT IF BUSH INVITED SHARON AND ABU MAZEN TO CAMP DAVID?
THE PROSPECTS FOR NEGOTIATIONS IN THE POST-ARAFAT ERA
Dore Gold and David Keyes

At President Clinton’s failed Camp David peace summit in mid-2000,
Barak offered more than any Israeli prime minister in history. Yet
the talks exposed vast remaining disparities between Israel and many
of today’s post-Arafat Palestinian leaders on key issues that must be
considered before the Bush administration dispatches a “presidential
envoy” or risks convening yet another peace summit in the period
ahead:

Refugees: Several months after Camp David, Abu Mazen wrote: “The
right of return means a return to Israel, not to the Palestinian
state.” As recently as January 1, 2005, Abu Mazen reiterated: “We
won’t forget the right of return of refugees who have been exiled
from their land for more than half a century.” Palestinian officials
were, in fact, dismayed by President George W. Bush’s statements
about preserving Israel as a Jewish state, since they hoped that by
flooding Israel with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians they would
be able to demographically overwhelm its Jewish majority.

Borders: The Palestinians insisted that the June 1967 line be the
recognized international boundary and even demanded the Latrun
salient, which includes a section of the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem
highway. Additionally, the Palestinians rejected any Israeli
sovereignty over national consensus suburban areas just beyond the
municipal borders of Jerusalem, such as Maale Adumim and Givat Ze’ev.
According to the notes of EU Special Representative to the Peace
Process Miguel Moratinos from the Taba talks, the Palestinians “did
not accept proposals to annex (settlement) blocs” to Israel.

Jerusalem: Former Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami noted that Abu
Mazen, who had a reputation for moderation, suddenly became energized
at Camp David and rejected U.S. proposals for compromise on
Jerusalem. At the end of the Taba talks, even the status of the
Western Wall remained contested. According to Moratinos, the
Palestinians acknowledged Israel’s request for an “affiliation” with
the Western Wall, but did not explicitly accept Israeli sovereignty
over it.

Security Arrangements: Israel requested early warning stations in the
West Bank for security purposes and the right to deploy forces in the
event of an Arab coalition attack from the east. The Palestinians
insisted that no Israeli soldier be on any of their territory and
also rejected Israeli control of air space. Muhammad Dahlan explained
in Taba that the Arab world would not accept Israeli force
deployments inside a Palestinian state that were aimed at other Arab
states. Furthermore, the Palestinians made clear at Taba that they
would not accept a demilitarized Palestinian state, either.

In 2001, Abu Mazen admitted, “Had the Camp David summit been convened
again, we would have taken the same position” on the permanent status
issues. Abu Ala, too, expressed no regret at any missed opportunity,
asserting that he would not agree to what was offered at Camp David
“even if it were to be proposed in another 100 years from today.”

During the Oslo years, the explicit declarations of Palestinian
leaders were often ignored and treated as statements for internal
consumption alone. Wishful thinking was frequently substituted for
hard analysis. This does not mean that in 2005 no “window of
opportunity” exists; rather, its actual size must be accurately
measured. Indeed, in the present context, a partial cease-fire is
more realistic than significant progress on any of the substantive
issues raised at Camp David in 2000. What emerges from the following
analysis is that a full-blown, final status peace accord between
Israel and the Palestinians is probably more remote today than five
years ago.

————————————————————————

Revisiting Past Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations
Arafat’s death has been heralded as marking the dawn of a new age and
a golden opportunity to revive negotiations between Israel and the
Palestinians. Since Arafat was the main obstacle to peace, the
thinking goes, the Arab-Israeli peace process can finally be put
“back on track.” Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher wrote
in the New York Times on December 30, 2004: “Arafat’s death makes a
comprehensive settlement feasible once again.”1 Thus, a renewed call
for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians has been placed
at the forefront of today’s political debate.

But is this assessment really correct? It assumes that Arafat stifled
his more moderate advisors, who are now rising to positions of
authority from which they will shake off his hard-line legacy. It is
certainly true that Arafat’s departure from the political scene was
fortuitous, yet the likelihood of productive negotiations today
remains in serious question. Many analyses of past
Israeli-Palestinian negotiating failures have focused on Arafat’s
negative role. It may therefore be instructive to revisit the past
negotiating history and examine the positions of other key
Palestinian players who are now likely to play a leading political
role in determining future Palestinian policies on peace.

Prior to the outbreak of the Palestinian violence in 2000, there were
several sets of negotiations that are worthy of review, including
pre-negotiations in Stockholm and the 2000 Camp David summit. Even
after the violence began there were the Taba talks in 2001. Some
revisionist historians have placed the blame for the failure of each
of these talks on tactical mistakes made by the parties involved: if
only the Palestinians were given more time to prepare for Camp David;
if only Barak had treated Arafat with more respect; if only the
negotiators had convened twenty-two times in Stockholm instead of
twenty. In fact, at that time, the gaps between the two parties on
nearly every major issue, from borders to Jerusalem to refugees to
security, were simply too wide to bridge.

Since the Camp David talks, the political landscape has changed
dramatically. Bush, Sharon, and Abu Mazen have replaced Clinton,
Barak, and Arafat. The Palestinian violence has resulted in the
deaths of thousands. The 9/11 attacks have occurred, and the Taliban
and Saddam Hussein regimes have been destroyed.

Negotiations are often risky ventures. Positions need to be soberly
assessed, the timing must be right, and all the parties must be
primed to reach a peaceful endgame. So what would happen if Bush
invited Sharon and Abu Mazen to Camp David today? Are the gaps still
unbridgeable?

Clinton’s Camp David Peace Summit
At President Clinton’s failed Camp David peace summit in mid-2000,
Barak offered more than any Israeli prime minister in history. Yet
the talks exposed vast remaining disparities between Israel and many
of today’s post-Arafat Palestinian leaders on key issues that must be
considered before the Bush administration dispatches a “presidential
envoy” or risks convening yet another peace summit in the period
ahead:

Refugees:
Israel agreed to the complete resettlement of Palestinian refugees in
a Palestinian state but not in Israel itself. Proposals for accepting
a minimal number of dispossessed Palestinians into Israel on
“humanitarian grounds” over a period of years were also discussed.
The Palestinians rejected this and demanded the unlimited return of
all refugees into Israel. Nabil Shaath told Clinton at Camp David
that the Palestinians anticipated that 400,000-800,000 Palestinian
refugees would be expected to go to Israel.2

In an article in the London Arabic daily al-Hayat, written several
months after Camp David, Abu Mazen clarified: “The right of return
means a return to Israel, not to the Palestinian state.”3 As recently
as January 1, 2005, Abu Mazen reiterated in Rafiah: “We won’t forget
the right of return of refugees who have been exiled from their land
for more than half a century.”4 Two days later, he repeated this
point, adding, “the day will come when the refugees return home.”5
Both Abu Mazen and Abu Ala explicitly reiterated their commitment to
the “right of return” when they presented their respective
governments to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2003.6

Borders:
Israel offered to withdraw from over 94 percent of the West Bank and
all of Gaza, conceding the long-standing principle of “defensible
borders” and instead accepting international forces in the Jordan
Valley. The Palestinians insisted that the June 1967 line be the
recognized international boundary and even demanded the Latrun
salient, which includes a section of the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem
highway. Additionally, the Palestinians rejected any Israeli
sovereignty over national consensus suburban areas just beyond the
municipal borders of Jerusalem, such as Maale Adumim and Givat
Ze’ev.7 According to the notes of EU Special Representative to the
Peace Process Miguel Moratinos from the Taba talks, the Palestinians
“did not accept proposals to annex (settlement) blocs” to Israel.8

Jerusalem:
Israel proposed making eastern Jerusalem the capital of a Palestinian
state. Yet the Palestinians rejected any territorial compromise over
the city; Palestinian spokesmen, such as Abu Ala, even laid claim to
the western half of Jerusalem as well. Former Foreign Minister Shlomo
Ben Ami noted that Abu Mazen, who had a reputation for moderation,
suddenly became energized at Camp David and rejected U.S. proposals
for compromise on Jerusalem.9 At the end of the Taba talks, even the
status of the Western Wall remained contested.10 According to
Moratinos, the Palestinians acknowledged Israel’s request for an
“affiliation” with the Western Wall, but did not explicitly accept
Israeli sovereignty over it.

Security Arrangements:
Israel requested early warning stations in the West Bank for security
purposes and the right to deploy forces in the event of an Arab
coalition attack from the east. The Palestinians insisted that no
Israeli soldier be on any of their territory and also rejected
Israeli control of air space. As will be clarified later, Muhammad
Dahlan explained in Taba that the Arab world would not accept Israeli
force deployments inside a Palestinian state that were aimed at other
Arab states. Furthermore, the Palestinians made clear at Taba that
they would not accept a demilitarized Palestinian state, either.

While Barak came to Camp David to negotiate, Arafat failed to present
a single idea or serious comment.11 No amount of skillful diplomacy
could have brought the parties together at that time; despite a
historic opportunity and heavy U.S. pressure, the Palestinians could
not be compelled to moderate their demands. Shlomo Ben Ami commented
that no rational Israeli leader could have concluded a deal at Camp
David.12 From the outset, the Palestinians knew that they would not
budge regarding key issues. Feisal Husseini, who held the PA’s
Jerusalem portfolio, and Assad Rahman, who held the refugee portfolio
on the PLO Executive Committee, did not even attend Camp David.13

President Clinton wrote that he believed Abu Mazen and Abu Ala would
have accepted his ideas for peace but didn’t want to be at odds with
Arafat.14 Unfortunately, Arafat’s successors have pledged to maintain
his main ideological goals. Muhammad Dahlan has warned, “I would
caution against the illusion that when there is a sharp transition
from Arafat to post-Arafat, the (Palestinian) mythological rules will
be broken. For there to be legitimacy, there needs to be continuity.
Those who come after Arafat will want to build their positions on the
basis of their being his successors.”15

A Moderate Abu Mazen?
Abu Mazen succeeded Arafat as chairman of the Palestine Liberation
Organization and is the Fatah faction’s candidate to become the next
Palestinian Authority chairman. Abu Mazen has become known for his
conclusion that the Palestinian reliance on violence as a political
tool was a tactical mistake. However, on issues of policy he is
extremely close to Arafat. He categorically demands the full right of
return for all Palestinian refugees, despite the clear danger this
would pose to the future of the Jewish state. He has rejected any
limitation on the number of refugees allowed to return to Israel,
“even if they [the Israelis] offered us the return of three million
refugees.”16

As recently as November 2004, Abu Mazen said, “We promise you
[Arafat] that our heart will not rest until we achieve the right of
return for our people and end the tragic refugee issue.”17 He also
rejected proposals to moderate Palestinian goals in exchange for
formal recognition of their state by the U.S. and a financial support
package of billions of dollars, saying, “we rejected these [offers]
and said that our rights are not for sale.”18

Regarding borders, Abu Mazen has said, “I will cut off my hand if it
signs an agreement in which even one centimeter of Palestinian
territory conquered in 1967 is missing.”19 This language contradicts
the very deliberate wording of UN Resolution 242, which calls for
negotiations to determine future borders, and ignores Israel’s right
to “defensible borders.” He even said in September 2000 that Israel
should not have sovereignty over the Jewish Quarter in the Old City
of Jerusalem or over the Western Wall.20

On the pre-Camp David preparations, Abu Mazen stated, “We made clear
to the American and Israeli sides several times that the Palestinian
side is unable to make concessions on anything” (authors’
emphasis).21 Thus, it should have come as no surprise when, after the
most generous offer in Israeli history, Abu Mazen claimed that Camp
David was “a trap, from beginning to end….We did not miss an
opportunity at all, but rather survived a trap that was set for
us.”22 Abu Mazen’s explanation for turning down the Israeli offer was
that it “never reached the level of our aspirations.”23 Furthermore,
he concluded, “I don’t feel any sense of regret. What we did was the
right thing to do.”24

Where, then, did Abu Mazen’s reputation for political moderation come
from? Part of this emanated from the mythology of the Oslo peace
process, with the famous Beilin-Abu Mazen document of October 31,
1995, which many observers felt proved that Israeli-Palestinian
differences were indeed bridgeable. Yet Abu Mazen personally told one
of the authors of this Jerusalem Viewpoints back in 1996 that there
never was a Beilin-Abu Mazen agreement, for Abu Mazen never signed
the document. Arafat called the document “a basis for further
negotiations,” which only meant that he hoped to lock in the Israeli
concessions that were made and continue the discussions to achieve
further concessions. The myth that Yossi Beilin and Abu Mazen struck
a detailed understanding, nevertheless, served as critical background
for the efforts of Israeli and U.S. negotiators to keep working at
the failed Camp David summit.

Arafat’s Sordid Legacy and the Question of Jerusalem
Arafat’s political legacy endures. Arafat had told an amazed Clinton
at Camp David that the ancient Jewish Temple never stood in Jerusalem
but rather in Nablus. Clinton understood, as Dennis Ross has noted,
that a formula for peace that denies the very foundation of the
Jewish religion is no solution at all, and only sows the seeds of
further hated and conflict.

Yet this isn’t just Arafat’s contention. PA Minister for
International Planning and Cooperation Nabil Sha’ath has said,
“Israel demands control of the Temple Mount based on its claim that
its fictitious temple stood there.”25 PA negotiator Saeb Erekat also
claimed there is no proof that the Jewish Temple is at the site of
the Temple Mount.26 PA Prime Minister Abu Ala noted, “The Israelis
claimed that under the Mosques there is something that belongs to
them.”27 Even so-called moderate Abu Mazen stated that the Jews
“claim that 2000 years ago they had a temple. I challenge the claim
that this is so.”28

This denial of the core of Jewish history reflects a potent
xenophobia that permeates throughout Palestinian society. For
example, the PA minister for culture and information was infuriated
at the idea of allowing Jews to even pray on the Temple Mount,
arguing that the reaction from the Arab and Muslim world would be “a
thousand times worse” than the 1996 riots.29 Can one imagine a
similar proposal that denied Christians the right to pray at the
Vatican, or Muslims the right to pray at the Kaaba in Mecca?

Palestinian negotiator Hasan Asfour, who was a part of the Oslo
process since its inception, viewed allowing Jews to pray at the
Western Wall as “a Palestinian concession. They [Jews] should not
view this as a right.”30 Abu Ala dismissed any discussion of Israeli
rights to the Western Wall. “It is pointless to discuss [these]
details before Israel recognizes Palestinian sovereignty in
Jerusalem.”31 And he did not say “east Jerusalem.” This is classic
Arafat. In Ramallah in 2000, Arafat said that the demand for
sovereignty in Jerusalem “does not only refer to the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre and the Temple Mount Mosques, and the Armenian
quarter, but it is Jerusalem in its entirety, entirety, entirety”
(authors’ emphasis).32

Abu Ala’s position on Jerusalem is clear: “We want complete
Palestinian sovereignty on the Mount of Olives, on the tombs of the
prophets and on all that you call ‘The Holy Basin.”33 Similarly, Abu
Mazen stated that “Jerusalem must return to our sovereignty, and we
will establish our capital in it.”34

These statements are fueled and inspired by Palestinian religious
leaders with positions of great influence. For example, the mufti of
Jerusalem asserted that “no stone of the Al-Buraq [Western] Wall has
any relation to Judaism. The Jews began praying at this wall only in
the nineteenth century.”35

Former Arafat advisor Akram Haniya, who also participated in the Camp
David summit, warned that “[the Americans] are making a grave mistake
[if they] believe that Arafat can sign an agreement that does not
answer to their minimum national rights” (authors’ emphasis).36 The
demand for total sovereignty over Jerusalem is a maximalist position
disguised as a minimalist one that completely disregards the
centrality of Jerusalem to the Jewish people. Only by shedding this
facade of minimalism – a myth that was powerfully exposed at Camp
David – can negotiations progress.

The European Union as well bears a measure of responsibility for
fueling Palestinian irredentism. On March 1, 1999, the German
ambassador to Israel, whose country was serving as the rotating
president of the European Union, sent a Note Verbale to the Israeli
Ministry of Foreign Affairs reviving the UN General Assembly’s
outdated proposal for internationalizing Jerusalem. After seven Arab
armies invaded the nascent State of Israel and the UN did nothing to
protect Jerusalem, Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion,
declared the old UN proposal “null and void.” Still, the Germans were
prepared to state in 1999: “The European Union reaffirms its known
position concerning the specific status of Jerusalem as a corpus
separatum. Abu Ala seized this opportunity to challenge Israeli
sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem, stating, “The [EU’s] letter
asserts that Jerusalem in both its parts – the western and the
eastern – is a land under occupation.37

In 2002, the head of Israeli military intelligence, Major General
Aharon Ze’evi (Farkash), noted: “According to the assessment of the
Intelligence Branch, it is impossible to reach an agreement with
Arafat on the ‘end of conflict,’ even if Israel would agree to the
implementation of the right of return, withdrawal to the ’67 borders,
division of Jerusalem, and handing over the Holy Places to
Palestinian rule.”38 Former Prime Minister Barak said IDF
intelligence gave the Camp David talks a less than 50 percent chance
of succeeding.39

After Camp David, Abu Ala stated that “in order for an additional
summit to be convened, the Israeli position must come closer to the
Palestinian position, rather than the other way around.”40 Abu Ala’s
position regarding borders is that the Palestinian “state has
internationally recognized borders, which are the borders set in the
[1947] partition resolution.”41 Ironically, it was the Palestinians
who rejected the 1947 UN partition plan.

Some in the Arab world understood the enormity of Barak’s offer at
Camp David and the lengths to which Israel was willing to go for
peace. Prince Bandar, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington, placed
the blame squarely on Arafat, saying, “Clinton…really tried his
best…and Barak’s position was so avant-garde that it was equal to
Prime Minister Rabin…it broke my heart that Arafat did not take
that offer.”42 The long-serving Saudi ambassador believed Barak’s
offer indeed met the Palestinians’ “minimum national rights.”

The Questions of Security and Land
The need for an Israeli security presence in the West Bank,
especially the right to deploy in an emergency, is a security
imperative founded on the historical reality of repeated attacks by
surrounding countries and cross-border incursions. Nevertheless,
Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan categorically rejected any
such arrangement. Dennis Ross writes, “Mohamed Dahlan was dead set
against any Israeli or foreign presence in the border crossing and
rejected the idea that the Israelis should have guaranteed access
routes into the West Bank.”43 Ross seems genuinely surprised that
Dahlan was most resistant on security – the issue on which he
expected the least difficulty in reaching a compromise.44

Dahlan’s hard line on security was additionally surprising because he
came from the younger generation of Palestinian leaders who were
expected to be more pragmatic than the old PLO ideologues. But that
clearly was not the case. In fact, the main security issues were not
resolved at Camp David, including early warning stations, control of
air space, demilitarization, Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley,
and management of border crossings. Even on the issue of Israeli
emergency access to the West Bank, Ross writes that the parties faced
“basic disagreements.”45

During the Taba talks, Gilead Sher noted that on security issues,
“the main disputes remained.”46 Similarly, Shlomo Ben Ami wrote,
“Regarding security the Palestinians opposed the fundamental
assumptions of the [Clinton] outline, and practically are retreating
from what was conceded at Camp David….’You have no need,’ [Dahlan]
says, ‘for emergency deployment areas; the Arabs world will not
accept this kind of deployment in the territory of the Palestinian
state against another Arab state.'”47

Regarding Israel’s territorial offers as well, the gaps were
unbridgeable. In discussing the Israeli offer of 3 percent of Israeli
territory in exchange for annexing 6 percent of the West Bank, Ben
Ami concluded: “we reached the end of our ability to show further
flexibility.”48 Yet Abu Ala viewed this formula as unacceptable.49 At
Taba, Abu Ala expressed dismay at an Israeli map that showed the
annexation of the Latrun salient. He continued, “we have a problem
with Gush Etzion and there is no chance that we can accept the
annexation of [Jerusalem suburbs] Maale Adumim, Givat Ze’ev, and Har
Homa [within municipal Jerusalem] to Israel.”50

“Only Arafat”
Chief U.S. negotiator Dennis Ross, in his 840-page account of Camp
David and the peace process, The Missing Peace, wrote: “Whenever my
exasperation with Arafat was reaching its limits, Abu Mazen, Abu Ala,
or Mohammed Dahlan (or Yossi Ginossar) would remind me that only
Arafat had the moral authority among Palestinians to compromise on
Jerusalem, refugees, and borders….Often Abu Mazen or Abu Ala or
other Palestinian negotiators would tell me ‘You prefer dealing with
us because you see us as more moderate, but we cannot deliver, only
he can.'”51 Thus, even if Abu Mazen or Abu Ala were moderate and
willing to compromise on primary issues, by their own account, they
would not be able to carry out such agreements. It is vital to
recognize the inherent limitations of the PA.

Furthermore, it remains an open question whether Abu Mazen will act
to disarm the radical groups. On January 1, 2005, he told a campaign
rally in Rafiah in Gaza that the Palestinian leadership had a duty to
protect militants wanted by Israel and indicated that he did not
intend to crack down on them.52 This view is shared by Abu Mujahed,
one of the local commanders of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in Balata
near Nablus, who said, “We don’t believe that Abu Mazen will allow
anyone to confiscate our weapons.”53

This would be in line with Abu Mazen’s previous record when he was PA
prime minister during the short-lived hudna (temporary cease-fire) in
the summer of 2003, when he stated, “Cracking down on Hamas, Jihad,
and the Palestinian organizations is not an option at all.”54

Israel’s Post-Arafat Position
For more than four years, Israel has been subject to a relentless
barrage of suicide bombings, sniping attacks, and Kassam rockets.
Over 1,000 Israelis have been killed and thousands more have been
injured. Throughout this period the Palestinian Authority either
explicitly aided terrorism or did nothing to curb it. Israel cannot
disregard the record of the past four years and cede its very real
security needs for defensible borders, early warning stations,
intelligence-gathering capabilities, and freedom of movement.

Were Israel to withdraw from the Jordan Valley, for example, then
many of the armaments today being used by insurgents in Western Iraq
and Saudi Arabia could be diverted to the hills of the West Bank.
During the Oslo years, Israel was prepared to take risks based on the
hope that Palestinian intentions had changed. This time Israel will
not take the same risks, but will instead preserve its defensive
capabilities, particularly those pertaining to territory.

Israel’s claim has been bolstered by President Bush’s April 14, 2004,
letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon recognizing Israel’s right to
“defensible borders” that would enhance Israel’s own self-defense
capabilities instead of using the kinds of international forces
envisioned in President Clinton’s post-Camp David proposals. In
short, today, after four years of bloodshed and painful losses,
Israel has more robust requirements for its defense compared to what
was being considered in 2000.

Camp David III: Slim Chance for Success
In 2001, Abu Mazen admitted, “Had the Camp David summit been convened
again, we would have taken the same position” on the permanent status
issues.55 Abu Ala, too, expressed no regret at any missed
opportunity, asserting that he would not agree to what was offered at
Camp David “even if it were to be proposed in another 100 years from
today.”56 He also insists that all Palestinian refugees should return
to their homes in Israel, saying, “the principle of the right of
return is sacred.”57

True, Abu Mazen does not wear Arafat’s military uniform; he has
openly stated that violence does not serve the Palestinian interest;
whether he will crack down on armed groups still remains extremely
doubtful. Nevertheless, even his most forthcoming statements do not
indicate that Abu Mazen has rejected Arafat’s political legacy in any
way, and that he is more prepared to show flexibility on key issues
that separate Israel from the Palestinians.

Moreover, Palestinian leaders such as Abu Ala have yet to overcome
their fundamental rejection of Israel’s right to maintain its Jewish
character. After President Bush referred to Israel as a Jewish state
at the 2003 Aqaba summit, Abu Ala said Bush’s words “aroused great
concern among us. These words should not have been said….These are
definitions that will bring the region into turmoil.”58 Abu Ala has
even voiced interest in “starting new negotiations on Haifa, Jaffa,
and Safed.”59

Diplomatic initiatives must be preceded by a very careful assessment
of the real positions of the parties in order to first ascertain
whether bridgeable differences actually exist. Unfortunately, during
the Oslo years, the explicit declarations of Palestinian leaders were
often ignored and treated as statements for internal consumption
alone. Wishful thinking was frequently substituted for hard analysis.
This does not mean that in 2005 no “window of opportunity” exists;
rather, its actual size must be accurately measured. Indeed, in the
present context, a partial cease-fire is more realistic than
significant progress on any of the substantive issues raised at Camp
David in 2000. What emerges from the foregoing analysis is that a
full-blown, final status peace accord between Israel and the
Palestinians is probably more remote today than five years ago.

* * *

Notes
1. Warren Christopher, “Diplomacy That Can’t Be Delegated,” New York
Times, December 30, 2004.
2. Shlomo Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard: A Voyage to the
Boundaries of the Peace Process (Tel Aviv: Yediot Ahronot Books,
2004) (Hebrew), p. 215.
3. Al-Hayat (London), November 23, 2003, cited by Yael Yehoshua, “Abu
Mazen: A Political Profile,” MEMRI Special Report No. 15, April 29,
2003.
4. Arnon Regular, “‘We Won’t Forget the Right of Return,’ Abu Mazen
Says and Earned Praise in Rafiah,” Ha’aretz, January 2, 2005.
5. Ibrahim Barzak, “Abbas Pledges Palestinian Refugees Will Return to
Homes in Israel, Endorsing Stand That Has Torpedoed Peace Efforts,
AP/San Diego Union Tribune, January 3, 2005;

6. ; and “Yasser
Arafat and Ahmad Qurei (Abu ‘Alaa) Speeches to PA Legislative Council
Prior to Vote on New Government,” MEMRI, January 15, 2004.
7. Charles Enderlin, Shattered Dreams: The Failure of the Peace
Process in the Middle East, 1995-2002 (New York: Other Press 2002),
p. 353.
8. Ha’aretz, February 17, 2002.
9. Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, p. 190.
10. Enderlin, Shattered Dreams, p. 354.
11. Dennis Ross, The Missing Peace (New York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 2004), p. 705.
12. Itamar Rabinovich, Waging Peace (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 2004), p. 163.
13. Uri Horowitz, “Camp David 2 and President Clinton’s Bridging
Proposals – The Palestinian View,” Jaffee Center for Strategic
Studies, January 2001;
14. Bill Clinton, My Life (London: Hutchison, 2004), p. 944.
15. Maariv, April 6, 2001; Dore Gold, “Jerusalem in International
Diplomacy,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, May 2001, p. 53.
16. Yigal Carmon and Aluma Solnik, “Camp David and the Prospects for
a Final Settlement,” MEMRI, August 4, 2000, quoting Al-Ayyam, July
30, 2000; ;ID=IA3500
17. Ewen MacAskill, “Blair May Visit Israel to Revive Peace Process,”
Guardian, November 24, 2004;
,2763,1358070,00.html
18. Carmon and Solnik, “Camp David and the Prospects for a Final
Settlement,” quoting Al-Ayyam, July 30, 2000.
19. Yotam Feldner, “The (Revised) Palestinian Account of Camp David,
Part II: Jerusalem and Territorial Withdrawal,” MEMRI, September 7,
2001, quoting Al-Quds, November 11, 1998;
;Area=conflict&ID=IA6901
20. Abu Mazen’s speech at the meeting of the PLO’s Palestinian
Central Council, September 9, 2000;

21. “Abu Mazen: Had Camp David Convened Again, We Would Take the Same
Positions, Part I,” MEMRI, August 1, 2001, quoting Al-Ayyam, July 28,
2001;
;ID=SP24901
22. Saul Singer, “Who’s Fault Was the Failure of Camp David,”
Jerusalem Viewpoints no. 474, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs,
March 15, 2002;
23. “Abu Mazen: Had Camp David Convened Again, We Would Take the Same
Positions, Part I.”
24. Palestinian National Authority, August 2, 2001, quoting Al-Ayyam,
July 28, 2001;
25. Ricki Hollander, “CNN.com Mangles Facts in Jerusalem Feature,”
September 1, 2003, quoting Al-Ayyam, July 27, 2000;
;x_context=3
26. Carmon and Solnik, “Camp David and the Prospects for a Final
Settlement,” quoting Ha’aretz, July 27, 2000.
27. Carmon and Solnik, “Camp David and the Prospects for a Final
Settlement,” quoting Al-Ayyam, July 30, 2000.
28. Yael Yehoshua, “Abu Mazen: A Political Profile,” MEMRI, April 29,
2003, quoting Kul Al-Arab, August 25, 2000;
;ID=SR01503
29. Amnon Kapeliouk, “Camp David Dialogues,” Le Monde Diplomatique,
September 2000;
30. Gold, Jerusalem in International Diplomacy, p. 52, quoting Voice
of Palestine, September 17, 2000.
31. Carmon and Solnik, “Camp David and the Prospects for a Final
Settlement,” quoting Al-Quds, July 25, 2000.
32. Carmon and Solnik, “Camp David and the Prospects for a Final
Settlement,” quoting Al-Hayat Al-Jadida.
33. Gilead Sher, Just Beyond Reach: The Israeli Palestinian
Negotiations 1999-2001 (Tel Aviv: Yediot Ahronot, 2001) (Hebrew), p.
410.
34. Yehoshua, “Abu Mazen: A Political Profile.”
35. “East Jerusalem and the Holy Places at the Camp David Summit,”
MEMRI, August 28, 2000, quoting Kul Al-Arab, August 18, 2000;
;Area=conflict&ID=SP12100
36. Carmon and Solnik, “Camp David and the Prospects for a Final
Settlement,” quoting Al-Ayyam, July 29, 2000.
37. Gold, Jerusalem in International Diplomacy, p. 33.
38. Singer, “Who’s Fault Was the Failure of Camp David,” quoting
Maariv, January 23, 2002.
39. Benny Morris, “Camp David and After: An Exchange – 1. An
Interview with Ehud Barak,” New York Review of Books, June 13, 2002;

40. Yigal Carmon and Aluma Solnik, “Camp David and the Prospects for
a Final Settlement, Part II: Reactions and Implications,” MEMRI,
August 7, 2000, quoting Al-Ayyam, July 30, 2000;
;ID=IA3600
41. “Abu Ala: ‘The Borders of the Palestinian State Are Those Set By
the 1947 UN Partition Plan,'” MEMRI, December 21, 1998, quoting
Al-Hayyat Al-Jadida, December 21, 1998;
;Area=conflict&ID=SP1898
42. Rabinovich, Waging Peace, p. 166.
43. Ross, The Missing Peace, p. 703.
44. Ross, The Missing Peace, p. 725.
45. Ross, The Missing Peace, pp. 702-703.
46. Sher, Just Beyond Reach, p. 406.
47. Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, p. 432.
48. Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, p. 435.
49. Ben-Ami, A Front Without a Rearguard, p. 432.
50. Sher, Just Beyond Reach, pp. 404-405.
51. Ross, The Missing Peace.
52. Greg Myre, “Abbas Sees Duty to Shield the Militants,” New York
Times, January 2, 2005;

53. Khaled Abu Toameh, “Interview with a Gunman,” Jerusalem Post,
January 3, 2005;
ull&cid=1104643912526
54. Nadia Abou El-Magd, “Defiant Abbas Rules Out Crackdown on
Militants,” Associated Press, July 24, 2003;

55. Yehoshua, “Abu Mazen: A Political Profile,” quoting Al-Ayyam,
July 28, 2001.
56. Y. Yehoshua and B. Chernitsky, “Ahmad Qurei’- Abu ‘Alaa: A Brief
Political Profile of the Nominated Palestinian Prime Minister,”
MEMRI, September 18, 2003, quoting Al-Watan, July 25, 2001;
;Area=conflict&ID=IA14703
57. Yehoshua and Chernitsky, “Ahmad Qurei’- Abu ‘Alaa,” quoting
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, December 20, 2000.
58. “Interview with PLC Head Ahmad Qurei (Abu Alaa),” MEMRI, July 3,
2003, quoting Al-Nahar, June 12, 2003;
;ID=SP53403#_edn1
59. Yehoshua and Chernitsky, “Ahmad Qurei’- Abu ‘Alaa,” quoting
Al-Nahar (Jerusalem), June 28, 1996.

* * *

Dore Gold is President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
Previously, he served as Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations
(1997-1999), Foreign Policy Advisor to former Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, and advisor to Prime Minster Ariel Sharon. He was involved
in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations between 1996 and 1998 in both the
Hebron Protocol and the Wye Plantation Conference. He is the author
of Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global
Terrorism (Regnery, 2003), and Tower of Babble: How the United
Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos (Crown Forum 2004).

David Keyes is specializing on terrorism at the Jerusalem Center for
Public Affairs and is assisting Dr. Dore Gold. His most recent
Jerusalem Viewpoints, “Will a Gaza ‘Hamas-stan’ Become a Future
al-Qaeda Sanctuary?” (November 2004), was co-authored with Maj.-Gen.
(res.) Yaakov Amidror.

Azerbaijan Cites ‘Positive’ Talks On Disputed Region

RFE/RL Armenia Report
Tuesday, 04 January 2005

Baku, 4 January 2005 (RFE/RL) — Azeri President Ilham Aliyev has said
efforts to resolve the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict over the disputed
Nagorno-Karabakh region are entering a new, positive, phase.

Aliyev made his remarks yesterday at a meeting of Azerbaijan’s Security
Council. He said Azerbaijani officials are using all means to ensure
negotiations with Armenia develop “positively.”

Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian exclave in Azerbaijan, has been de
facto independent since Armenian-backed forces won control over the
territory in 1994 following a six-year war.

Despite a cease-fire, Armenian-backed forces and Azerbaijani troops
continue to face off across a demilitarized zone, and shooting
occasionally erupts.

The two countries are involved in an international effort to reach a
peaceful settlement, sponsored by the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

(with additional AP reporting)