Maj.-Gen. (res.) Oren Shachor - who served as head of the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria in the early-to-mid 1990's, and was a senior member of the Israeli negotiating team with the PA under the Rabin and Peres governments - heard from Yasser Arafat as early as the summer of 1995 that war was one of his two alternatives. "He wasn't threatening," Shachor said, "but merely explaining the situation. He said that he had two alternatives to reach a Palestinian state - either via negotiations, as we were engaging in at the time, or war. He compared himself to Ben-Gurion [albeit not totally accurately]. Arafat also said that his side would be able to withstand 20,000 or 30,000 losses - he called them shahidim [martyrs], and said that it could even strengthen his side - but that we, the Israelis, would have a hard time bearing even 500 casualties." Speaking to Arutz-7 yesterday, Shachor refused to acknowledge that the Israeli negotiators were naive in not interpreting this as a threat that in fact later materialized.
Shachor feels that the two people who led to the failure of Oslo were Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak: "Barak's mistake was in going for 'all or nothing.' He demanded a resolution of the Jerusalem issue without realizing that this was an Islamic issue that Arafat had no mandate over, and he demanded a resolution of the refugees issue without realizing that this was an issue for the Arab countries and not for Arafat." Arutz-7's Yosef Zalmanson, in a follow-up interview, asked Shachor, "Why, then, did Israel sign the Oslo Agreements with someone who did not have the ability to bring about a permanent solution?"
Shachor explained that not everyone felt that the immediate purpose of Oslo was to reach a final agreement:
"I wasn't involved in Oslo at the beginning. We [the military officers] were against Oslo at first - then-Chief of Staff Ehud Barak, for instance, was against it - but later Rabin brought us in to fix it, to make it security-safe. Rabin instructed us not to deal with the issues of refugees and Jerusalem. My opinion is that we could have reached a solution without dealing with those issues: we would give them a minimal state, we would retain the Jordan Valley, we would lose only a few settlements - and then later on, we would see what to do about Jerusalem and the refugees... Shimon Peres [who was a major architect of Oslo and who took over as Prime Minister when Rabin was assassinated] saw Oslo as leading to a permanent solution, more so than myself or Rabin, and we had arguments on this - but later, after the terror of Feb.-Mar. '96, he started changing his mind..."
What should be done with Arafat now? Shachor feels he should have been expelled, regardless of what the boost it would have given his image, but "for now, after the Mukata siege ended the way it did, it's too late." As if to accentuate the point, a group of Israeli-Arabs, headed by MK Taleb a-Sana, met with Arafat today in Ramallah.
Shachor feels that the two people who led to the failure of Oslo were Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak: "Barak's mistake was in going for 'all or nothing.' He demanded a resolution of the Jerusalem issue without realizing that this was an Islamic issue that Arafat had no mandate over, and he demanded a resolution of the refugees issue without realizing that this was an issue for the Arab countries and not for Arafat." Arutz-7's Yosef Zalmanson, in a follow-up interview, asked Shachor, "Why, then, did Israel sign the Oslo Agreements with someone who did not have the ability to bring about a permanent solution?"
Shachor explained that not everyone felt that the immediate purpose of Oslo was to reach a final agreement:
"I wasn't involved in Oslo at the beginning. We [the military officers] were against Oslo at first - then-Chief of Staff Ehud Barak, for instance, was against it - but later Rabin brought us in to fix it, to make it security-safe. Rabin instructed us not to deal with the issues of refugees and Jerusalem. My opinion is that we could have reached a solution without dealing with those issues: we would give them a minimal state, we would retain the Jordan Valley, we would lose only a few settlements - and then later on, we would see what to do about Jerusalem and the refugees... Shimon Peres [who was a major architect of Oslo and who took over as Prime Minister when Rabin was assassinated] saw Oslo as leading to a permanent solution, more so than myself or Rabin, and we had arguments on this - but later, after the terror of Feb.-Mar. '96, he started changing his mind..."
What should be done with Arafat now? Shachor feels he should have been expelled, regardless of what the boost it would have given his image, but "for now, after the Mukata siege ended the way it did, it's too late." As if to accentuate the point, a group of Israeli-Arabs, headed by MK Taleb a-Sana, met with Arafat today in Ramallah.