What is Palestine be without Arafat?

[serryjw]

How will the Israeli conflict change?

[Selatius]

1. Things will deteriorate

The Israeli side will grow relatively stronger, while the Palestinian side will grow relatively weaker. I fear the Palestinians will fall into chaos when he dies, and there will be a power struggle, and I fear the extremists in the Likud Party will try and take advantage of Palestinian chaos by solidifying their hold in the West Bank under the guise of security when it's just nothing more than old fashioned colonialism.

[Davion]

2. Apologies for my former GOP stripes showing through but....

It will be a hellhole for a while, then someone will come forward who may negotiate in good faith, and then it will be.....

A COUNTRY!

[Gyre]

3. One hell of a lot better off

it's time for the Palestinians to try another course. The current one isn't working worth a damn. Sort of like things here only much, much, much worse.

Gyre

[Violet_Crumble]

4. What other course should they try?

Keeping in mind that the Sharon government is totally opposed to any negotiations or any resolution of the conflict other than the Palestinians giving up all claims to statehood and agree that living in isolated enclaves as stateless people with no rights among Israeli settlers who can continue to steal land and abuse Palestinians at will, what other course of action would there be?

Violet...

[leftyandproud]

5. please...

It is not Sharon that killed hopes for peace. Arafat was offered 98% of what he demanded by the old PM and he walked away.

98%

Imagine if the dems got that much of their agenda accepted by Bush.

[Violet_Crumble]

6. Sorry, but Sharon was and is opposed to negotiations...

..though of course hopes of peace were fading before his input, Sharon made sure the nails went in the coffin of the peace process with his deliberate provocation in taking a big bunch of troops with him to do a nice, 'innocent' visit to the Temple Mount. Then after he was elected PM, Sharon was the one who refused to continue the negotiations with the Palestinians that were looking promising and instead chose to opt for bloodshed and violence...

The old PM? Yr referring to Barak at Camp David with his so-called 'generous offer'? What exactly is it that Arafat was demanding that he was offered 98% of? Here's some facts. There was no offer on the table, and even the verbal (nothing was in writing, as you'd expect with offers of that sort of importance) 'offer' wasn't 98%. Considering Israel was going to annexe 9% of the West Bank, the maths isn't adding up. And Israel was going to retain control of the Jordan Valley and settlements, including Ariel. That would have broken up what territory there was left in the West Bank into two or three unconnected areas. At Camp David, there was no progress made at all on the right of return, and the 'generous offer' on Jerusalem was not sovereignty, but merely autonomy, where the Palestinians get a Palestinian local government, but Israel still retains sovereignty.

While Baraks negotiators (he refused to meet with Arafat while he was at Camp David) went much further than Israel had gone before when it came to offers, there was nothing generous about the 'generous offer' at Camp David. In fact, what came out of Taba was much more in the way of 'generous' (of course there's nothing generous about an occupier returning occupied land to the people who live there), but Ariel Sharon refused to be involved with negotiations, no matter how promising they were looking...

Violet...