Charles Krauthammer: Just making shit up.

Charles Krauthammer is not afraid to just make shit up if it serves his political purpose. Take this from today's opinion piece found here. [Krauthammer - Land Without Peace]

Israel, 2008. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert makes the ultimate capitulation to Palestinian demands -- 100 percent of the West Bank (with land swaps), Palestinian statehood, the division of Jerusalem with the Muslim parts becoming the capital of the new Palestine. And incredibly, he offers to turn over the city's holy places, including the Western Wall -- Judaism's most sacred site, its Kaaba -- to an international body on which sit Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Here are details of the proposal from the Israeli new organization, Haaretz, article of 2008, headlined as [PA rejects Olmert's offer to withdraw from 93% of West Bank]

"Under the proposal, Israel would return to the Palestinians 93 percent of the West Bank,"

and

"In exchange for West Bank land that Israel would keep, Olmert proposed a 5.5 percent land swap giving the Palestinians a desert territory adjacent to the Gaza Strip"

and

"Olmert has agreed with Abbas that the negotiations over Jerusalem will be postponed."

and

The security proposal includes a demand that the Palestinian state be demilitarized and without an army.

Krauthammer's paragraph sounds as if the Israelis had offered the moon to the Palestinians, including 100% of the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem but the article from the time shows that is not true. First of all,......Its clear the offer was not 100% percent but 93%. Though by giving the Palestinians some "desert land near Gaza" that total Palestinian land was bumped closer to 98%. Still that's only 93% of the West bank. Charles also misleads on Jerusalem as negotiations over it were still on the table, the 2008 article stating that, "negotiations over Jerusalem will be postponed".

The Krauthammer version of history sounds as if the Israelis had been giving ground since the Camp David offer of 2000, concluding with the Olmert's "Ultimate capitulation" (Charles words) offer of 2008 but Haaretz paint a different picture.

"Compared to previous Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the Olmert proposal falls between the one then prime minister Barak presented to Yasser Arafat at Camp David in July 2000 and the one he offered at Taba in January 2001

The offer also demands that the Palestine state be demilitarized? What would our founding fathers have told the British if they had agreed to American Independence if the US would remain demilitarized without an army?

Then, this from the Haaretz article, makes it seem as if Olmert's proposal was less than legitimate and that the Israeli's didn't take it seriously.

"But another Israeli official said Olmert was merely trying to establish his legacy. "There is going to be no agreement, period," he said on condition of anonymity."

Krauthammer is just making shit up to support Israel's view. He's an Israeli propagandist dressed up as a US opinion leader.

tnb