What if Shimon Peres won the 1996 Israeli elections?

Zeus

Banned
Would Israel and the Palestinians have a peace treaty by now? The reason I am asking this is because the previous threads on this topic were devoid of much content.
 
well, that depends on if you think Arafat was actually interested in making peace. One of the cliches of Middle Eastern Politics is that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. At Camp David in 2000, Ehud Barak offered Arafat the best deal he could ever get from any Israeli government, and he turned it down. That doesn't augur well for Peres's chances, but 1996 was different from 2000.
 

Zeus

Banned
well, that depends on if you think Arafat was actually interested in making peace. One of the cliches of Middle Eastern Politics is that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. At Camp David in 2000, Ehud Barak offered Arafat the best deal he could ever get from any Israeli government, and he turned it down. That doesn't augur well for Peres's chances, but 1996 was different from 2000.

Arafat said that he would accept the Clinton peace plan in 2002 and again in 2004.

http://articles.cnn.com/2002-06-21/...i-forces-israeli-tanks-and-troops?_s=PM:WORLD
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jun/19/israel

Of course, this could have just been empty talk and bluffing from Arafat. However, does anyone here think that Arafat would have been persuaded to moderate sooner and agree to stop terrorism had Peres won in 1996? Or would we just see the start of the second Intifada several years sooner?
 
Had Peres won in '96 - or had Rabin lived and won - then Oslo would likely have remained relatively on track, and final status negotiations would have commenced much sooner.

That said, it's highly unlikely even a Peres or Rabin-led government would have made an initial offer sufficient for the Palestinians. Remember that Barak's offer was considered generous, and it included annexation of 9% of the West Bank (with a 1% land swap), Israeli control of Palestine's borders and airspace, annexation of a long strip of territory east of Jerusalem, with Israeli control of the road connecting the southern and northern West Bank. Say what you will about Arafat, but no Palestinian leader could accept something like that.

The key difference here might be that the Barak negotiations at Camp David were very much an 11th Hour affair. There had been no prior negotiations about final status issues until Camp David, because Barak had put off the Palestinian issue to focus on a peace accord with Syria which fell apart over access the Sea of Galilee. Barak's coalition was about to collapse too, so final status negotiations were something of a hail-Mary for him, under conditions that were hardly ideal for a peace accord.

Had Peres or Rabin been in power and final status negotiations commenced on schedule and after prep work, then perhaps the rejection of the initial offer wouldn't have been followed by the process' complete collapse, and subsequent negotiations, perhaps around the time of OTL Camp David and Taba would have produced a viable plan.
 
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