Barak's 2000 offer was not generous. In 1948 Palestinians owned 90% of the land. Since that time the majority of Palestinians have been driven from their land through Zionist violence and all are denied their basic human rights by Israel.

The "occupied territories" in the West Bank and Gaza constitute only a small amount of the lands that have been stolen from the Palestinians and occupied by the Israelis. Israel spoke of offering 95% of those "occupied lands" to the Palestinians. Yet, even if we accept Israel's definition of occupied territories a look at this plan shows that 95% is not accurate math. Under Barak's plan the Latroun area, Jerusalem, and the Dead Sea would remain under Israeli control. This means that in reality the offer then amounts to only 65% of the total area of the West Bank.

Barak also demanded that 80% of the present settlements in the "occupied territories" be annexed to Israel. This constitutes a drastic division of the West Bank into four isolated cantons. These cantons include the Ariel block between Nablus and Ramallah, the settlement block between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and the Gush Etzion block between Bethlehem and Hebron. These settlements are connected by bypass roads, which are not only under complete Israeli control but also swallow up thousands of acres of Palestinian lands. In addition, many of the settlements are built on Palestinian water aquifers, thus depriving Palestinians access to water resources.

On the small amount of land that the poor, oppressed, and exploited Palestinian people were offered they would have little to base an economy and in fact would remain dependent on the Zionist bourgeoisie for jobs much as blacks in Apartheid South African Bantustans were dependent on the white bourgeoisie for employment. With anti-Arab hatred and discrimination prevalent among Israeli employers this is not at all an attractive proposal for most Palestinians.

According to UN resolutions 242 and 338 Palestinians are now "allowed" to take back 22% of their land. Further more UN Resolution 194 calls for the right of Palestinian refugees to return. In addition, there are other UN resolutions, including Resolution 465, which declares that the Israeli settlements in the "occupied territories" are illegal and, as such, should be removed. Resolutions 478 and 252 have declared that the Israeli
annexation of Jerusalem is illegitimate.

Meanwhile Israel has refused to comply with international law or UN resolutions as the basis for a political settlement. Each one of these resolutions has been approved by the United Nations as well as the US. Even Israel accepted Resolution 194, as a prerequisite to being accepted as a member of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Yet Israel continues to violate this agreement by not allowing Palestinian refugees the right to return, while at the same time granting Jews from anywhere in the world the automatic right to immigrate.

During the second round of meetings at Camp David, Barak would not even consider the basic right of Palestinian refugees to return. In addition, he refused to accept that Israel has any political, legal, or moral responsibility for the plight of the Palestinians. He dealt with the refugee issue within the framework of individual cases of family reunification, which violates the Palestinian right to a homeland and also is against international law. This clearly illustrates Barak's attempt to relinquish all responsibility for the destruction of Palestinian villages and the violent purging of Palestinians from their homeland turning them into refugees around the world.

Through approving resolution 194 and subsequently ignoring it the Zionist government has shown its word to be meaningless and the US has shown its real policy towards Palestinians in the billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to the Zionist Israeli regime every year. Settlement building, oppression, and violence against the Palestinian people continued and in fact were stepped up, not decreased under Barak.

Clinton's proposal in those negotiations made the assumption that the settlements of extremist Zionists in Jerusalem and the surrounding area are legal. It divided the geographic and demographic unity of the city within the framework of complete Israeli control over all Jerusalem, including the so-called Palestinian self-rule areas in the "Arab Districts."

The Palestinians rejected these offers because for any solution to be acceptable or reasonable it must begin with Israel and the United States accepting and complying with international law. Barak and Clinton clearly rejected such a framework. Thus the negotiations came nowhere near restoring basic Palestinian rights and as such should not be characterized as, "more than he (Arafat) had reason to expect."

So where is the "generous offer" of the Israeli government? Was its rejection really a lost opportunity? All Israeli proposals were simply attempts to coerce the Palestinians to accept occupation under slightly different terms. When understood properly, this "generous offer" illustrates that Israel is neither serious about a political settlement nor interested in peace. Since the beginning of Intifada 2 (September 2000), Israel has been systematically destroying the Palestinian infrastructure, not to mention carrying out its policies of assassinations and collective punishment.

The current state of the situation has shown that Yasir Arafat's strategy of negotiations with the Israeli government has achieved nothing, that the Israeli government can not even keep their word on earlier agreements, and that there will not be peace for either the Palestinian or the Hebrew speaking population until the Israeli state is abolished and in its place a democratic secular Palestine is built with a separation of church and state where the civil rights of all nationalities are guaranteed. Only a socialist movement that represents the rights of the entire working class and speaks uncompromisingly against the discrimination and violence meted out to the Palestinians by the Israeli State will be capable of making such a revolutionary transformation. Likewise such a movement can not see the Hebrew speaking population as the enemy and must instead target the repressive apparatus of the Zionist state.