Latest news with #Arafat
Irish Independent
6 days ago
- Politics
- Irish Independent
I led US talks for Bill Clinton with Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak – 25 years on, Israel now has its best chance for lasting peace in Gaza
In July 2000, we were optimistic about ending the conflict. Over the preceding seven years, since the beginning of the Oslo process – which provided mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation and called for the creation of a Palestinian Authority (PA) to negotiate peace with Israel – we had produced four partial agreements: the Gaza-Jericho Agreement, the Interim Agreement, the Hebron Protocol and the Wye River Memorandum. But in two weeks at Camp David, even as his negotiators signalled some flexibility, Yasser Arafat, the PA president, rejected every proposal we made. At one point he told Clinton that we would be walking in his funeral procession if he accepted what the US was asking. Arafat did allow his representatives space to negotiate afterward, and in December he and I met privately. He said he could accept the ideas I laid out for overcoming the gaps on the core issues of Jerusalem, refugees, borders and security. We brought Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams to Washington to try to finalise an agreement, and when they could not, both sides asked us to present a bridging proposal that became known as the 'Clinton parameters'. The death and destruction in Gaza has soured many Arab publics on Israel – and their leaders are mindful of this While Israeli leader Ehud Barak accepted them, Arafat did not. Instead, he reignited violence and the second intifada, a five-year uprising in which thousands died on both sides. There has been no political progress between Israelis and Palestinians since then, even though Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in 2005. The Abraham Accords in 2020, during Donald Trump's first term, marked the expansion of Arab-Israeli peace, with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco normalising relations with Israel. President Joe Biden sought to deepen the co-operation those accords promised. By 2023, the administration was on the verge of working out a pact with Saudi Arabia – the Saudis would get a defence treaty with the US and American support for an expansive nuclear-energy industry, in return for normalising relations and making peace with Israel. Hamas's onslaught on Israel on October 7, 2023, was motivated in part by the desire to kill the prospect of this deal. Saudi officials later told me that had Israel succeeded more quickly in defeating Hamas without destroying much of Gaza and killing so many people there, normalisation would have already taken place. But the death and destruction in Gaza has soured many Arab publics on Israel, and their leaders are mindful of this mood. At the same time, these Arab leaders are not unhappy that Israel has vastly weakened Iran and devastated its regional proxies. Iran's loss of much of its coercive capability – and its need to focus domestically on preserving the regime – creates an opportunity for peace and regional integration. Timing is to statecraft what location is to real estate: in other words, seize the moment Even with all the uncertainty in Lebanon and especially in Syria, the potential may exist to negotiate non-belligerency agreements, if not full normalisation, with Israel. Trump rightly wants to capitalise on the changed balance of power in the region to produce Saudi normalisation with Israel and expand the Abraham Accords. Timing is to statecraft what location is to real estate: in other words, seize the moment. But given Arab attitudes, nothing can happen until the war in Gaza ends and the Israeli military withdraws. Israel has already defeated Hamas as a military, but it seeks to ensure that the group no longer controls Gaza. For that, there must be an alternative to Hamas. At this point, neither the Trump administration nor prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has developed a credible 'day after' plan to prevent a vacuum in Gaza. Nor have the Arabs presented a credible plan for the demilitarisation of Gaza, despite the reality that there will be no serious reconstruction without it. No one will offer meaningful investment in Gaza if Hamas can reconstitute itself militarily, making certain that war will erupt again. Even if the current talks over creating a 60-day ceasefire are successful, nothing will change if it does not to lead to ending the war in Gaza, the release of all Israeli hostages, and the withdrawal of the IDF. If Netanyahu is to take advantage of the moment Israel's military achievements have created, he will need to accept both this and a transitional administration led by the UAE, Egypt, Morocco and the Saudis, with participation from the PA. The Arab leaders must assume the responsibility of making sure that the Palestinian Authority undergoes serious reforms: President Mahmoud Abbas assumes a ceremonial position, a newly empowered and internationally credible prime minister is appointed, and transparent financial, investment and budgeting processes are created and monitored by the World Bank. Gaza under the PA's leadership, even after a transitional period of two to three years, is an illusion without such changes. Without an end to Palestinian division and incitement, talk of a Palestinian state is little more than a slogan. Arab leaders must help deliver reforms, and a practical approach that begins to demonstrate that a Palestinian state won't be a failed state. As long as Israelis believe any Palestinian state will be dominated by Hamas or other extremists, they will be reluctant to embrace even the idea any time soon. History creates moments of opportunity, but they rarely last. With Iran and the forces that depend on conflict weakened, this is the chance to forge a new coalition of countries that favour social and economic progress instead of war. (© Bloomberg)
Memri
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Memri
Muhammad Rashid, Former Advisor to Yasser Arafat: The 'Right of Return' to Pre-1967 Israel Is Unrealistic; Despite Fiery Slogans, We All Knew That We Would Have to Give It Up to Get a Palestinian Stat
In a July 8, 2025 interview on Al-Arabiyah Network (Saudi Arabia), Muhammad Rashid, former financial advisor to Yasser Arafat, discussed the 2000 Camp David Summit between U.S. President Clinton, Palestinian Authority President Arafat, and Israeli Prime Minister Edud Barak. Rashid said that the independent Palestinian state discussed at the summit was accepted at the expense of the Palestinian right of return to the 1948 borders. According to Rashid, the talks focused instead on a solution for Palestinian refugees, allowing them to return and become citizens of a Palestinian state, receive compensation for their homes, or obtain citizenship in a third country. He said the right to return to homes in the pre-1948 borders was never on the table at Camp David. Rashid - who was born Khaled Salam to an Kurdish-Iraqi family - elaborated that the refugee issue was supposed to be resolved as part of a political peace framework, and that the return of 1.5–2 million Palestinians to places like Safad, Haifa, and Jaffa is unrealistic and off the table. 'The world has changed,' he said. He explained that while the Palestinian revolution was originally based on the right of return and the liberation of pre-1967 lands, circumstances had reduced the Palestinian demands to the June 4, 1967 borders. Rashid also said the Palestinians bear part of the responsibility for the collapse of the Camp David Summit. He added that when Arafat was under siege in the Muqata, he told him he regretted rejecting the Camp David offer and viewed it as a missed opportunity. He also said that the only other witness to that conversation was Nabil Abu Rudeineh.
Days of Palestine
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Days of Palestine
Israeli Genocide Escalates, More Civilians Killed in Gaza
DaysofPal—The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) intensified bombardment and destruction across Gaza last night, with dozens of Palestinians left killed and injured. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza reported Sunday evening that the number of martyrs and injured from March 18, 2025, until today stands at 7,450 martyrs and 26,479 injuries. It also announced that the total toll of the Israeli aggression has reached 58,026 martyrs and 138,520 injured since October 7, 2023. During the night, the IOF has intensified its crimes against the displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza, as some 15 civilians were killed and injured in the aid distribution center in Sthe Shakoush area in Rafah, whereas at least one civilian was killed and others were injured in Israeli bombing at displaced people at the gate of Asda'a Prison in northern Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. Moreover, the Israeli artillery also shelled the Al-Sham'a area in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood southeast of Gaza City, and shelling continued on the eastern areas of the city. It also bombarded areas around the Turkish slaughterhouse west of Khan Younis, accompanied by gunfire, where the Israeli warplanes targeted a home in the Batn al-Samin area southwest of Khan Younis. Furthermore, the IOF bombed the Shabab Gaza charitable kitchen, near the Al-Ahram resort on the seashore of Al-Qarara town, northwest of Khan Younis. In addition, the Israeli forces demolished several residential buildings east of Jabalia al-Balad in the northern Gaza Strip. More martyrs and injuries were also reported as a result of airstrikes targeting the homes of the Arafat, Al-Borno, Badawi, and Abu Ammo families in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood southeast of Gaza City. The civil defense said it cannot reach these areas because of the ongoing Israeli bombing. Shortlink for this post:
Arab News
02-07-2025
- Health
- Arab News
Pakistani pilgrim calls survival ‘a miracle' after his heart stopped five times during Hajj
ISLAMABAD: On the Day of Arafat, as the Hajj sermon began under the blazing sun, Pakistani pilgrim Imran Khan collapsed, his heart stopping not once, but five times. Saudi authorities swiftly intervened, airlifting him to a nearby medical facility for life-saving treatment, prompting him to describe his survival weeks later as a 'miracle' and his new life as 'a precious gift from Allah.' Khan, a 42-year-old father of two from Haroonabad, a modest town in Punjab's Bahawalnagar District, had long dreamed of performing Hajj. Accompanied by his wife, he set out on the pilgrimage this year with a heart full of gratitude. Everything went smoothly — until June 5, the most important day of Hajj, when, standing on the sun-scorched plains of Arafat, he suffered a sudden cardiac arrest and was rushed to East Arafat Hospital in critical condition. Despite repeated resuscitation attempts, his heart stopped multiple times, putting his life at grave risk. After initial emergency care, he was airlifted again to King Abdullah Medical City in Makkah, still on a ventilator, where a team of specialized doctors treated him, and he eventually recovered. 'It is indeed a miracle that Allah has blessed me with a new life, a precious gift from Him,' Khan told Arab News over the phone from Jeddah. From the very beginning of his pilgrimage, he said, his heart carried a single, earnest prayer for good health, recalling how he repeatedly asked Allah to grant him a life of strength and well-being. 'Had this happened in Pakistan, such a level of care might not have been possible, and I may not have survived,' he added. Khan said he had a mild diabetes condition but no history of heart issues, and that before embarking on the Hajj journey, he underwent a medical checkup and was declared fully fit. While standing in Arafat during the Hajj sermon, Khan recalled he began to feel an intense chest pain followed by severe palpitations. Eventually, he lost consciousness after vomiting. 'When I regained consciousness nearly 17 days later, the doctors told me that my heart had stopped five times on that day,' he said, adding his treatment in Saudi Arabia was excellent, and truly of an international standard. After being airlifted by helicopter from the plains of Arafat to King Abdullah Hospital, he said a dedicated medical team treated him around the clock. 'At every critical moment, a full team of doctors was constantly attending to me,' he said, thanking the Saudi government for providing excellent life-saving treatment. 'The entire treatment was completely free of cost,' he continued. 'They did not take a single penny from me and provided everything from medicines to food and water.' Khan commended his wife for showing remarkable courage throughout the ordeal. 'She is still with me here in Jeddah and has stood by me every step of the way,' he said in an emotional tone. 'I also had two Pakistani friends with me, but I have not seen such strength and bravery even in men as my wife displayed in Saudi Arabia.' Khan said he would travel to Pakistan on July 8, as doctors had discharged him from the hospital and declared him fit to travel. 'It's now been five days since I was discharged from the hospital and I am currently in Jeddah, where my health is gradually improving,' he added. According to the Pakistan Hajj Medical Mission, a total of 239 Pakistani pilgrims with serious health issues were treated in Saudi hospitals this year, including both government and Saudi-sponsored private sector facilities. As of now, five patients remain admitted, with four of them on ventilators.
The Hindu
01-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
India's Shift on Palestine: From Nehru to Modi (2025)
Published : Jul 01, 2025 19:31 IST - 6 MINS READ I was accorded the privilege of a private audience with the Palestinian political leader Yasser Arafat when he visited New Delhi in January 1992. Rumours were afloat regarding the possibility of Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao imminently raising India's relationship with Israel to full diplomatic status. Referring to this, I told Arafat that only he could stop India from slithering down this perilous slope. Arafat listened but did not reply. The next day, I watched helplessly as Arafat sat next to Rao at a press conference as the Indian Prime Minister proclaimed the upgrade and Arafat applauded the decision. Also Read | Israel, the rogue nation the West keeps above the law What neither I nor most Palestinians—and much of the world—did not know then was that secret negotiations in Norway were on the verge of reaching the Oslo Accords. The Oslo Accords of 1993 opened the road to Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) return from exile in Tunisia to Gaza and the West Bank to run what in effect was Panchayati Raj in the Gaza Strip. No sovereignty, nothing that amounted to Poorna Swaraj or even self-defence, just a post-dated cheque the Israeli establishment had no intention of ever honouring. Arafat's hope was that if India had full diplomatic relations with Israel, it might help Palestine secure the 'two-state solution' promised them by the United Nations in its 1967 resolution. I was sure this was an illusion. So, when Arafat invited me to join the 50th anniversary commemoration in May 1998 of Al-Naqba, the Catastrophe that overtook Palestinians when Israel was proclaimed as a sovereign state, I was not surprised that non-PLO elements (including many of those who later formed Hamas) could not participate because Arafat had thrown most of their cadres into jail. This lay at the origins of the later electoral defeat of the PLO by Hamas in 2007, a political elimination of Palestine's true freedom fighters, a move backed and welcomed by the Zionist leaders of Israel. The PLO and Arafat himself were expelled to the West Bank to pay the price of their appeasement. It did not stop the Zionists from poisoning Arafat, as believed widely by Palestinians of all political hues. Nehru's moral vision It is now clear that Jawaharlal Nehru was absolutely right on two counts in not according full diplomatic recognition to Israel: first, because according statehood to Israel recognised the reality of Israel (not driving the Jews into the sea, as some Arab extremists were propagating); second, not according full diplomatic recognition till either Israel became a composite, secular state (as India was constitutionally becoming) in which Jews and Arabs could live and grow together or, failing that ideal solution, a separate sovereign state had been constituted for the Palestinians in their homeland. Without either solution, Nehru predicted that the issue would fester, as all partitions imposed by the departing colonial power have done. In essence, he presciently foresaw that the partition of Palestine was a legacy of imperialism and would cause endless conflict unless colonial divide-and-misrule were replaced by independent national unite-and-rule in peace and harmony. This was the ethical, moral and, indeed, Gandhian way forward. 'Nehru presciently foresaw that the partition of Palestine was a legacy of imperialism and would cause endless conflict unless colonial divide-and-misrule were replaced by independent national unite-and-rule in peace and harmony.' While the Rao/Arafat path was a strategic mistake, the twist given to it by Modi/Jaishankar lacks all moral vision. They have made India the abject camp-follower of a felon indicted on 34 counts by his domestic courts, and another declared a war criminal by the International Court of Criminal Justice. As a man is known by the company he keeps, so are governments. The Mahatma would have shuddered at his beloved country abstaining on a UN vote (carried by a huge majority of our erstwhile comrades in the Non-Aligned Movement) condemning Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza, and then urging de-escalation on Iran after its sovereignty was violated on every canon of international law, instead of urging their two best friends, the indicted felon and the war criminal, to de-escalate. It is also comical to hear India's Prime Minister urging 'dialogue and diplomacy' in West Asia after adamantly eschewing both with Pakistan, exhorting others that this is 'not an era of war' when initiating hostilities in our own neighbourhood, and recommending 'de-escalation' to others while keeping Operation Sindoor open-ended. No wonder everyone in the world condemns 'terrorism' but none, notwithstanding Shashi Tharoor's charm offensive, are ready to identify Pakistan as the sponsor of the Pahalgam outrage. By contrast, it was Nehru that even his international critics turned to ensure the armistice in Korea in 1953; the conclusion of the 1954 Indo-China agreements in Geneva; peacekeeping in Gaza after the trilateral Israeli-French-British invasion of Nasser's Egypt in 1956; and to resolve the proxy war in the Congo on the morrow of its independence from Belgium in 1960. It was also to Nehru's India that the international community turned to ensure peacekeeping in a Cyprus torn asunder by Turkish and Greek differences. The world recognised Nehru's India as a true peacemaker, even as they mock the humbug peace-making to which the Modi government has reduced India. Also Read | India's interest is in seeing Israel-Iran conflict de-escalate: Navdeep Suri They have doubtless noted the return to the moral compass of the Indian National Congress signalled by Sonia Gandhi's recent article in The Hindu where she unambiguously states that 'the world expects and needs leadership that is grounded in facts and diplomacy, and not by force and falsehoods', where 'moral responsibility and diplomatic leverage act as a bridge for de-escalation and peace'. Pointing out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi 'has all but abandoned India's long-stranding and principled commitment to a peaceful two-state solution', she deplores 'New Delhi's silence on the devastation in Gaza and now on the unprovoked escalation against Iran', a nation, she reminds us, that has stood with us in 'steadfast support, including on Jammu and Kashmir, at crucial junctures'. The Modi government's foreign policy thus reveals 'a disturbing departure from our moral and diplomatic traditions'. One hopes Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Xi Jinping (and Zohran Mamdani, the new kid on the block) will note that while the Modi aberration has the support of but one-third of Indian electors, the INDIA bloc position, as articulated by Sonia Gandhi, represents well over half and nearly two-thirds of India's voters. India will yet survive Modi—and the world will yet survive Trump and Netanyahu. Mani Shankar Aiyar served 26 years in the Indian Foreign Service, is a four-time MP with over two decades in Parliament, and was a Cabinet Minister from 2004 to 2009.
