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Strip for its commencement (without actually ordering its start
on the day and hour it began), or whether it had broken out com-
pletely spontaneously but had then been inflamed by specific,
local Israeli overreactions (or underreactions) to the violence and
by deliberate PNA incitement, with Arafat, as it were, riding and,
in various ways, guiding the tiger. What is clear is that Arafat and
his aides did nothing to douse the flames while occasionally pre-
tending, vis-à-vis Washington, that they were trying to.
The Americans moved to curb the eruption. By mid-December
they had readied a comprehensive bridging proposal of their own
(after first receiving a degree of assent to its terms from Barak).
Some critics then and later were to argue that Clinton should
have formulated and presented his proposals at the start or in the
course of Camp David, and not waited until December.
Be that as it may, on 23 December Clinton met Palestinian
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and Israeli representatives and handed them and published his
 Parameters or proposals for an Israeli-Palestinian peace. He
stipulated that the parameters must be accepted or rejected as a
package they included trade-offs in concessions by both sides
and in principle within four days. Each side could then negotiate
details  within the bounds of the parameters; but regarding
the principles, it was a take it or leave it offer. The parameters
were nonnegotiable.
The Clinton proposals, offering a two-state settlement, stipu-
lated that Israel must withdraw from between 94 and 96 percent
of the West Bank and, implicitly, 100 percent of the Gaza Strip,
in which the Palestinian Arab state would then be established. Is-
rael would compensate the Palestinians for the loss of the 4 6
percent of the West Bank that they would be  ceding with a
patch of Israeli territory amounting to  1 to 3 percent of the
West Bank as well as allowing the Palestinians a  safe passage
corridor between Gaza and the West Bank through Israeli terri-
tory. The 4 6 percent of the West Bank retained by Israel would
include the large settlement concentrations, such as the  Etzion
Bloc, which held some 80 percent of the territory s settlers.
The Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories should
be phased over thirty-six months, with an  international pres-
ence overseeing the process. Israel would retain a  small mili-
tary presence in the Jordan Valley for  another 36 months. Is-
rael would also retain three early warning facilities in the West
Bank, subject to review after ten years. A possible  emergency
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The History of One-State and Two-State Solutions
deployment of Israeli forces in the Jordan Valley (in case of
a threat developing from the east) and their routes of pas-
sage through the West Bank would need to be negotiated, as
would the Israelis use of Palestinian air space for training and
operations.
The Palestinian state that would be established should be
 non-militarised, but with a  strong Palestinian security force.
An international force would secure the future Palestine-Israel
border.
Jerusalem should be divided along ethnic lines. Arab-popu-
lated districts should be under Arab sovereignty and Jewish dis-
tricts under Israeli sovereignty:  This would apply to the Old
City as well.
As to the Temple Mount, Clinton proposed  to formalise the
Palestinian de facto control over the Haram, while respecting the
convictions of the Jewish people. This could be done by giving
the Palestinians  sovereignty over the Haram and . . . [Israel]
sovereignty over the Western Wall and the space sacred to Ju-
daism of which it is a part or over  the Western Wall and the
holy of holies of which it is a part. Alternatively, there could be
 Palestinian sovereignty over the Haram and Israeli sovereignty
over the Western Wall and  shared functional sovereignty over
the issue of excavation under the Haram or behind the Wall. 
Any excavation  beneath the Haram or behind the Western Wall
would require  mutual consent.
What this oblique language meant was that the Jews would
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The History of One-State and Two-State Solutions
have sovereignty over the Western Wall and some manner of
control or sovereignty over the interior of the Temple Mount
that presumably contains the remains of the Jewish First and
Second temples while the Arabs would have sovereignty over the
mount s surface area, on which sit the two sacred mosques. Such
a formulation met the Palestinian demand for sovereignty over
the Haram and the Jewish demand that irresponsible excavation
below the surface by the Muslims controlling the Mount be pre-
vented. In effect, Clinton was saying that Islam (the PNA) and
Judaism (Israel) would have to compromise and somehow share
sovereignty over that holiest of sites.
As to the refugees, Clinton proposed that Israel  acknowledge
the moral and material suffering caused to the Palestinian people
as a result of the 1948 war and that  compensation, resettlement
[and] rehabilitation of the refugees enjoy massive international
assistance. Regarding the question of the  Right of Return,
Clinton said he understood both  how hard it is for the Palestin-
ian leadership to appear to be abandoning this principle and, for
the Israelis, the impossibility of accepting the  right [of Arabs] to
immigrate to Israel . . . that would [demographically] threaten
the Jewish character of the state. Hence, the solution lay in  the
two-state approach of having a  State of Palestine as the home-
land for the Palestinian [Arab] people and the State of Israel as
the homeland for the Jewish people. What this meant, in prac-
tice, was that the Palestinian refugees would have the right of
return to the Palestinian state  without ruling out that Israel
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would accept some of these refugees  though not a sizable
number such as would threaten the Jewish character of Israel.
Clinton suggested that the two sides  recognize the right of the
Palestinian refugees to return either to  their historic home-
land or  to their homeland and that the refugees either resettle
in their host countries, resettle in the Palestinian state or in third
countries, or move to Israel but that any return to Israel  would
depend upon Israeli agreement. The two parties would have to
agree that this formula represented implementation of UN Gen-
eral Assembly Resolution 194, of December 1948, the resolution
to which the Palestinians anchored their insistence on  the right
of return.
Clinton said that an agreement based on these parameters
would mark  the end of the conflict and its implementation
[would] put an end to all claims. He expressed readiness to con-
tinue negotiations with the leaders  based on these ideas and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]