Four peace offers to Palestinians failed, WSJ letter rebuts Emanuel

A WSJ letter rebuts Rahm Emanuel's op-ed by citing four Israeli peace offers rejected by Palestinians since 2000.

Israeli prime ministers have offered Palestinians a state four times since 2000 — at Camp David, in the Clinton Parameters, through the Annapolis Process and in the 2009 Bar-Ilan speech — and each was met with rejection or continued terrorism, according to a Wall Street Journal letter published Thursday.

"Israeli prime ministers who have extended an olive branch have been met with unrelenting terrorism from their Palestinian partners," Rick Richman, a faculty member at American Jewish University in Los Angeles, wrote in the letter.

Richman's letter corrects a quote attributed to former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by Rahm Emanuel, the former U.S. ambassador to Japan and a potential 2028 presidential contender, in a July 6 op-ed. Rabin's actual March 16, 1994, demand on Yasser Arafat was to "fight terror as if there were no negotiations and conduct the negotiations as if there was not terror" — a directive Arafat never followed, Richman wrote. Neither Arafat nor his successor Mahmoud Abbas dismantled Hamas despite multiple promises to do so.

The exchange shows a deepening debate over U.S.-Israel policy as Emanuel, in a separate Tel Aviv speech Wednesday, called for sanctions on Israelis attacking Palestinians and warned that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policies risk eroding bipartisan American support for the Jewish state.

The four peace offers span three U.S. administrations. At Camp David in July 2000, President Bill Clinton brokered talks between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, offering a Palestinian state in roughly 95 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza. Arafat rejected the proposal without a counteroffer. The Clinton Parameters that followed in December 2000 offered a similar framework but collapsed amid the second intifada, which killed more than 4,000 people over five years.

The Bush administration's Annapolis Process in 2008 brought Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas close to a deal, with Olmert offering a Palestinian state on 93 percent of the West Bank with land swaps. Abbas did not accept. In June 2009, Netanyahu — in a speech at Bar-Ilan University — endorsed a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel, the first time an Israeli prime minister from the Likud party had done so. That offer also failed to produce a negotiated agreement.

Emanuel's Warning on U.S. Support

Emanuel's op-ed and subsequent Tel Aviv speech have reignited debate over the U.S.-Israel relationship. In his Wednesday address at Tel Aviv University, Emanuel warned that Israel's pursuit of a "Greater Israel" agenda and permanent control over the West Bank could erode the bipartisan American support that has long served as a cornerstone of Israel's national security. He called for a "fundamentally new and different approach" to the alliance, including sanctions on Israelis who attack Palestinian civilians or their property.

The last time a senior Democratic figure delivered such a pointed critique of Israeli policy in Tel Aviv was during the Obama administration, when then-Vice President Joe Biden in 2010 condemned Israel's announcement of 1,600 new settlement units in East Jerusalem during his visit. The U.S.-Israel relationship at that time saw a temporary cooling, with bilateral tensions lasting several months before normalization resumed.

Political Shift in Washington

The debate carries implications for U.S. domestic politics as well. Recent polls show a growing share of Americans perceive the United States as "too supportive" of Israel, a shift most pronounced among Democrats. A majority of Democrats now say Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, and a large share sympathize more with Palestinians than Israelis, according to recent surveys. Other expected 2028 Democratic presidential contenders, including Representative Ro Khanna of California and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, have repeatedly accused Israel of genocide and apartheid.

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