Don't blame Arafat

[Classical_Liberal]

What the evolving controversy now increasingly confirms is what a few dissident Israelis contended from the outset: the charge that Arafat "instigated" or "orchestrated" the intifada would be more aptly directed at the Israeli officials, politicians and military leaders who levelled it. For these people actually wanted the intifada, were preparing for it and, when it came, fanned its flames with the massively disproportionate use of force against unarmed Palestinian demonstrators and stone-throwers.

Sharon, who held Oslo to be "the greatest misfortune ever to have befallen Israel" and considered the intifada the opportunity to destroy it, was foremost among them. But, his "generous offer" notwithstanding, the "moderate" Barak, Sharon's political rival but admiring military disciple, was among them too.

In the first place it was not Arafat who blew up Camp David. Robert Malley, Clinton's adviser at the conference, and others have long since exhaustively debunked this for the almost ludicrously partisan myth it was. In their view, Barak himself contributed more to the collapse than Arafat.

And now comes Malka, the former intelligence chief, who flatly asserts that the evaluations of Arafat's intentions and actions on which Barak, and later Sharon, relied were "erroneous", and deliberately so. They were the handiwork of one man, who occupied a key position in the Israeli policy-making process: Amos Gilad, the head of the military intelligence research department. He presented "national security assessments" to the government. Crucially, he only did so orally, because, as he put it, "they don't read......

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,1263416,00.html