For those wondering, this is my best summary:
In 1993, the Oslo Accords were signed, creating the framework for a future Palestinian state. In 1995, Oslo II was signed, which divided the West Bank into three parts: Area A, Area B, and Area C. Area A is under full Palestinian control. Area B is under Palestinian civil control with Israeli security. And Area C is under full Israeli control. (It also divided Gaza into Areas A, B, and C. Gaza is supposed to be Area A, but due to a little thing known as "the government in charge of Gaza killed a thousand Israelis in one day", there is substantial Israeli presence.) Jewish Israelis are barred from entering Area A, for their own safety. (Arab Israelis are also theoretically barred, but this ban isn't enforced as strictly.) Area A includes most of the West Bank's population.
This was supposed to be temporary, renegotiated after five years.
So, five years pass, and Clinton gets together the leader of Israel, Ehud Barak, and the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, at Camp David to talk it out.
The Israelis really, really, want peace. Ehud Barak is begging for a deal.
As Robert Malley and Hussein Agha write in an article fairly critical of Israel and Barak, "Barak was eager for a deal, wanted it achieved during Clintonβs term in office, and had surrounded himself with some of Israelβs most peace-minded politicians." Malley and Agha continue later that "If there is one issue that Israelis agree on, it is that Barak broke every conceivable taboo and went as far as any Israeli prime minister had gone or could go". They criticize him for, seemingly, being too flexible and acquiescent: "Yet, at the same time, he gave clear hints that Israel was willing to show more flexibility if Arafat was prepared to βcontemplateβ the endgame" (in a negative context). According to them Barak made massive concessions: sovereignty over all Arab sectors of East Jerusalem, a Palestinian state in over 90 percent of the West Bank with land swaps to help compensate. These were huge and changing. According to them, Arafat demanded sovereignty over the Temple Mount, as opposed to Israel's proposal for Palestinian "permanent custodianship" -- the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism (it now has the Al-Aqsa Compound on top of it), was to be in Palestinian hands, and that was a red line for him.
"Barak apparently took the view that, faced with a sufficiently attractive proposal and an appropriately unattractive alternative, the Palestinians would have no choice but to say yes. In effect, each successive Palestinian βnoβ led to the next best Israeli assessment of what, in their right minds, the Palestinians couldnβt turn down." Agha and Malley write. This was to be a dangerous mistake. Arafat turned down offer after offer after offer, making no counter-proposals and suggesting, contrary to the archeological, historical, and even Muslim record, that the Second Temple was in Nablus. (Previously, I have referenced him as saying it was in Hebron; this was in error, and I apologize for saying so. I do not know how the two got mixed up in my mind.) Shockingly, this did not suggest to Barak and the Israeli negotiating team that he was a reliable partner.
In late September 2000, a few months after the talks collapsed, Ariel Sharon, the leader of the right-wing party Likud (who would later unilaterally withdraw from Gaza, paving the way for Hamas' rule, but that's another story), visited the Temple Mount. Again: this is the holiest site in Judaism, and is, as basically all accounts agree, the site of the destroyed Second Temple. Sharon did not pray there. Sharon did not do much of anything there. He merely existed on the Temple Mount as a Jew.
That is what started the Second Intifada (which was, at best, tolerated by Arafat), in which over a thousand Jews died. A Jew existing on the holiest site in Judaism.
As Hussein and Agha continue, in late December, in the middle of the Second Intifada, Clinton and Barak made yet another proposal, which they summarize as follows: "Palestine would have sovereignty over 94 to 96 percent of the West Bank and it would as well have land belonging to pre-1967 Israel equivalent to another 1 to 3 percent of West Bank territory. Palestinian refugees would have the right to return to their homeland in historic Palestine, a right that would guarantee their unrestricted ability to live in Palestine while subjecting their absorption into Israel to Israelβs sovereign decision. In Jerusalem, all that is Arab would be Palestinian, all that is Jewish would be Israeli. Palestine would exercise sovereignty over the Haram [Temple Mount/Har HaBayit] and Israel over the Western Wall[.]"
Israel gave and gave and gave so much, and what it got in return was suicide bombings.
That is the environment in which Sharon came to power. That is, in many ways, what destroyed the Israeli left and its promise of peace. Because they tried peace, they tried so very, very, hard for peace, they gave up so much that no one else would be expected to give up -- and what they got in return was death and terror and fear. That is what Israelis think of when they hear intifada.
And I am not excusing Benjamin Netanyahu or his actions, nor the abandonment of the peace process, nor Israel's admittedly heavy-handed response to the Second Intifada.
But if you don't understand why Israelis are skeptical of peace, if you don't understand the cause of this view, if you don't understand what caused the collapse of the peace talks -- why the hell should I listen to you? Why should I care?
You don't need to know the precise details of the negotiations. What you need to know is this:
In 2000, Israel tried peace and was rejected, and then a Jew visited the holiest site in Judaism, and a thousand Jews died for that, and, as that was happening, Israel still tried again with even better terms for Palestinians, and was still rejected.
