The disease of Camp David Revisionism is growing among respectable liberals. Robert Wright's fictional account has been embraced as "more right than wrong" by Joshua Micah Marshall, and a needed "palliative to the reflexively pro-Israel mainstream media" by the Hauser Report (which leads to the question when did Hauser start restricting himself to Fox News, the Washinton Times and the New York Post?) The problem with this new enlightened approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that it is completely divorced from the truth. According to Dennis Ross, who was at the center of the U.S. peacemaking efforts from Madrid to Camp David, the "conventional wisdom" that Arafat walked away from a state is exactly what happened. Here's an excerpt of his interview with Brit Hume:
HUME: What, in your view, was the reason that Arafat, in effect, said no?
ROSS: Because fundamentally I do not believe he can end the conflict. We had one critical clause in this agreement, and that clause was, this is the end of the conflict.
Arafat's whole life has been governed by struggle and a cause. Everything he has done as leader of the Palestinians is to always leave his options open, never close a door. He was being asked here, you've got to close the door. For him to end the conflict is to end himself.
This vision of Arafat's character lines up exactly with the portrayal of him gleaned from Thomas Friedman's masterful "From Beirut to Jerusalem." In 1982, he wouldn't commit fully to armed struggle or embrace diplomacy. In 1988, he wouldn't commit fully to recognizing Israel's right to exist. It is tortured logic indeed that tries to rewrite his abdication of leadership in Camp David for principled action. In the meantime, liberal pundits, more concerned with opposing their conservative rivals than truth, are triangulating their way to a dangerous moral chasm.
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