Israel/Palestine & the Myths and Realities of the 2000 Camp David Summit w/ Prof. Jeremy Pressman

Parallax Views w/ J.G. Michael

On this edition of Parallax Views, the University of Connecticut's Prof. Jeremy Pressman, Director of Middle East Studies at UConn and author of The Sword is Not Enough: Arabs, Israelis, and the Limits of Military Force, joins the show to discuss the myths of the 2000 Camp David Summit and Taba talks. During recent appearances in media programs such as Morning Joe w/ Joe Scarborough, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brought up the old trope that "the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" that is often invoked when discussing PLO leader Yasser Arafat and the 2000 Camp David Summit. This is used to say that Arafat failed the Palestinian people and "rejected an offer". It's also a talking point used to justify use of military force rather than pursuing a political solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. It forecloses on the possibility of a diplomatic solution or peace being achieved by saying the Palestinians are "not ready" for peace.

Prof. Jeremy Pressman wrote a researched, footnoted piece entitled "Visions in Collision: What Happened at Camp David and Taba?" that pushes back on this oversimplified narrative of the Clinton-era diplomatic negotiations between Israel and Palestinians. We'll dig into all the different areas of the 2000 Camp David Summit as well as dealing with the pre-history of it, specifically the Oslo Accords and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. We'll also compared Camp David to the Abraham Accords, cycles of escalatory violence, land swaps and the two-state solution, the Confederation model and the arguments against the two-state solution, the power asymmetry between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. concessions made by the Palestinians in negotiations, and much, much more.