Henry Kissinger, Israel & the PLO


Henry Kissinger, in his 3rd volume of his memoirs, 
"Years of Renewal" (1999), makes it clear, that he blames the
PLO in general, and Yasir Arafat in particular,  for the 
problems at the heart of the Israeli-PLO conflict. But 
Dr. Kissinger is "very heavily" criticized by Kathleen Christison, 
in her review of Dr. Kissinger's memoirs for the "Journal of 
Palestine Studies" [See NOTES below]. While clearly championing the 
PLO cause, Ms. Christison neverless reveals, through Dr. Kissinger's 
words, the more "fundamental" issues in the Israeli-PLO relationship 
and conflicts. - Michael Mincy

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These are excerpts from Ms. Christison's review:

Years of Renewal, by Henry Kissinger. New York: 
Simon and Schuster, 1999. 1079 pages. 
Notes to p. 1120. Index to p. 1151. $35.00 cloth.

"In this third volume of his memoirs, covering the final 
years of his term as secretary of state (from President 
Richard Nixon's 1974 resignation to the electoral defeat
of President Gerald Ford in 1976), Henry Kissinger
recounts an occasion in 1994 when he found himself 
sitting next to Yasir Arafat at an awards banquet for 
Arafat. He reminisced with the Palestinian leader about 
a period twenty years earlier when the so-called 
Jordanian option broke down. This negotiating option 
would have arranged for an interim agreement to return 
parts of the West Bank to Jordanian control. Although 
Arafat and Kissinger agreed that the territorial 
arrangement Arafat signed in 1993 as part of the 
Oslo accords was little different from Kissinger's 
Jordanian option, they disagreed over who ultimately
would have controlled the territory if the 1974 
plan had gone forward." 


     "Kissinger reminded Arafat that his specific intent, 
     far from turning territory over to PLO control, had been 
     to exclude the PLO from the West Bank. Arafat responded 
     that it would not have mattered; Jordan's King Hussein 
     would not have been able to hold on to the territory, 
     and the PLO would have been established there long since."

"Kissinger blames the Arabs for "guarantee[ing] a 
nineteen-year impasse on West Bank negotiations" 
(p. 383) but places no responsibility at all on Israel 
or the United States. Even though he makes it clear 
that Israel opposed the Jordanian option, even without 
PLO involvement, and categorically refused to negotiate 
with the PLO, he blames the Arabs, who issued the 1974 
Rabat summit decision declaring the PLO the "sole 
legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people, 
for the two-decade long failure to achieve a West Bank 
agreement." 

"Kissinger [expresses] unabashed sympathy for Israel 
and the Israeli perspective (he repeatedly refers to 
Israel's "haunting nightmares" [p. 424], laments that 
it had "no respite from wrenching decisions" in 
"seemingly endless negotiations" [p. 1031]......"

"Kissinger repeatedly indicates, moreover, that 
he believed that including the Palestinians would 
complicate matters. Against the judgment of most of 
his Middle East ambassadors, he concluded that engaging 
the PLO in the peace process would radicalize the process 
because the Palestinians, he shuddered, would "raise all 
the issues the Israelis can't handle" (p. 1053)."

NOTE:   Emphases by Michael Mincy
SOURCE: Reviewed by Kathleen Christison at:
        <a href="http://www.ipsjps.org/jps/113/br_christison.html">
        http://www.ipsjps.org/jps/113/br_christison.html</a>
        for: Journal of Palestine Studies
             Vol XXIX, No. 1, Autumn 1999, Issue 113
             http://www.ipsjps.org/

        Kathleen Christison is the author of:
        "Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on
        U.S. Middle East Policy" (University of California Press, 1999).