"From a high roof to a bottomless pit"

From a distance they looked like storks, big white birds circling in flight above a freshly ploughed field in the valley. Later the same day an ardent birdwatcher told me they were Great Egrets (Egretta Alba). As they soared higher before flying south I considered how our hopes for a peaceful settlement of the Arab-Israeli Conflict had soared only to plunge to an abysmal depth.

In retrospect the millennium year held promise of a new age; some people believed it would herald the second coming of the Messiah, or the dawn of a messianic era. Perhaps it would be a turning point, a harbinger of a better world.

This was the year when Pope John Paul II slipped a note in a cranny in the Wailing Wall and conducted a Mass in a field at Korazim overlooking the Mount of the Beatitudes and the Sea of Galilee. There was every reason to believe that the Oslo process would continue and culminate in a two state solution ending over a hundred years of Arab-Jewish conflict in the region called Palestine.

This was a year when Israel finally left Lebanon and came ever closer to the goal of true peace with all its neighbours

In July Palestinian and Israeli delegations met at Camp David. The Israeli premier Ehud Barak was sure this was an historic moment. In his address to the Knesset shortly before his departure he quoted from Ecclesiastes: "To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven... A time for war, and a time for peace…”. He was wrong.

Late in September an outbreak of violence in areas of the West Bank and Gaza escalated to a full-blown uprising which became known as the Intifada al Aqsa. It is doubtful if as claimed the visit made by Ariel Sharon and other Knesset members to the Temple mount sparked off the violence, however it did provide a very convenient rallying point for Yasser Arafat.

Some time in October 2000 I received a number of anxious letters and e-mails from friends and relatives asking me to explain what was happening in Israel.

In many countries biased news media coverage presented distorted and inaccurate reports of what was happening here. My concerned friends and relatives requested more information, I responded and nine years later I am still responding. Throughout this period I have tried to describe the events that occurred as I observed them. My accounts are drawn from a broad-based personal data bank, a composite of newspaper articles, radio and television interviews and talk-shows. I’m a good listener and an avid reader, always ready to garner ideas and opinions. This gathering process extends to lectures I have attended and conversations with friends. This is a layman’s opinion written by an ordinary man who lives in the Jezreel Valley, Israel.

In December 2000, talks were held with Israeli and Palestinian teams in Washington hosted by President Clinton who presented a bridging proposal to the parties aimed at ending the Intifada al Aqsa. That proposal was taken up at marathon talks between Israeli and Palestinian delegations which were held late in January 2001 at Taba in Sinai . The Clinton administration had already left office and the Bush team was not yet engaged. This was also the end of the peace process during the Barak government, and effectively the end of the entire Oslo Peace Process that started in Madrid in 1991. The Barak government continued to offer concessions to the Palestinians, but neither the Israeli public nor the Knesset supported these positions. Ten days later Ariel Sharon won a landslide victory in the Knesset elections.

The heady state of exhilarating expectancy sensed by many people in the peace camp before the meeting at Camp David was replaced by a feeling of utter despair after the collapse of the talks at Taba. One observer used an Aramaic expression adopted in Hebrew to describe this change of mood. It was like “falling from a high roof to a bottomless pit.”

However it wasn’t a total anticlimax. There were a few occasions when optimists clung to every new peace initiative.

In 2002 Alexis Keller a professor of political science at the University of Geneva proposed a framework for a new peace accord. Hoping to break the stalemate, prominent Israeli and Palestinian figures took up Keller’s suggestion and launched a non-official peace negotiation with the support of the Swiss government. They went beyond the step-by-step negotiations brokered by the United States in the “Road Map” plan. The Geneva initiative sought a comprehensive agreement that would resolve the most divisive issues, such as the status of Jerusalem, the status of the settlements, and an arrangement for the refugees. This project resulted in the Draft Permanent Status Agreement, also known as the Geneva Accord, published in October 2003. The “Accord” was officially launched on December 1,2003 at a ceremony in Geneva . The new initiative was led by Israeli politician Yossi Beilin, one of the architects of the Oslo Process and Yasser Abed Rabbo a former Palestinian Authority minister. Both emphasised that the Geneva Accord does not obligate either of their respective governments, even though Abed Rabbo was a minister at the time of the signing.

The Geneva Accord failed to make any real headway among Israelis and Palestinians and the Road Map failed to make progress beyond the first initial stages.

The divisive issues remain as insoluble as ever. The Geneva Accord and the Road Map are mentioned occasionally but for all intents and purposes they have been thrown to “the dustbin of history.”

Rabbi Nahum Ish Gamzu famed as Rabbi Akiva’s mentor is best known for his stoical acceptance of personal and national tragedy. “Gam zu l’Tova” (It’s all for best) was his succinct response. Reviewing the past nine years of fluctuating rooftop optimism and bottomless pit pessimism it’s hard to dismiss this period with a philosophical “It’s all for the best.”

Nevertheless have a good weekend.

Beni 5^th of November, 2009.