Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital city is a critical issue currently testing the strength of Ehud Olmert’s government. Just before the Knesset began its winter session, Olmert’s top deputy, Haim Ramon, proposed packaging Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem within a future Palestinian state. Regarding the Old City, Ramon suggested a “special regime” be responsible for managing the holy sites. Israel, he said, would retain control over the Jewish quarter and the Western Wall, as well as other Jewish holy sites.

The prime minister followed up on Ramon’s proposal by telling parliament that he would not “look for excuses to block peace efforts” (Associated Press, October 9). He said Israel would have to give up some of its “deepest desires” to obtain peace.

Predictably, Palestinians reacted to these enormous concessions by demanding much more. “We are talking about full control” over the Old City, said Adnan al-Husseini, an aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas—including the Wailing Wall (New York Sun, October 12). President Abbas followed that up by demanding a full Israeli withdrawal from all territory acquired during the 1967 war. “We have 6,205 square kilometers in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,” Abbas said in an interview with Palestine tv. “We want it as it is” (Associated Press, October 10).

As it is, of course, half a million Jews reside in those “occupied” territories. It would be like the Gaza disengagement50 times over. It’s no wonder Olmert’s approval ratings are so low—and Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s are on the upswing.

Olmert’s plan for re-dividing Jerusalem has sharply divided members of the Knesset, as highlighted by Netanyahu’s parliamentary speech on October 8. “According to the government’s plan,” he said, “Israel will withdraw to the 1967 lines, hand over half of Jerusalem to the Palestinians and relinquish Israeli control over the holy sites in the city. Let there be no confusion—this is the plan. All attempts to disguise it are futile.”

He pointed to Israel’s most recent retreats as proof that withdrawing further would have disastrous results. Leaving Lebanon and Gaza enabled Iran to set up bases on Israel’s northern and southern frontiers. “And now,” said Netanyahu, “the government plans a further withdrawal in Judea and Samaria—a move that will inevitably create in the center of the country a third Iranian base that will threaten Jerusalem and the entire coastal plain. These three tentacles of the Iranian octopus will thus envelop Israel from every side!”

If Prime Minister Olmert’s plan of appeasement sounds familiar, it’s because it mirrors Ehud Barak’s proposal at Camp David in 2000. With considerable pressure applied by an American president in the final year of his second term, Barak offered Yasser Arafat East Jerusalem, most of the Old City and control of the Temple Mount in hopes of securing a promise of peace.

Today, it’s the same lady—and she didn’t even bother to change her dress. The American president is now George W. Bush, who, heading into the final year of his presidency, seems just as desperate for a last-minute peace agreement as his predecessor was. And following in the footsteps of Madeline Albright, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has stated, “Frankly, it’s time for the establishment of a Palestinian state.” Ehud Olmert is playing the part of Ehud Barak, who now serves as Olmert’s defense minister. Yasser Arafat has been replaced by his trusted assistant of 40 years, Mahmoud Abbas. And the venue—Camp David—has been relocated to Annapolis, Maryland—assuming present-day negotiations don’t break down before the late-November summit. So the faces have changed, but the principal terms of the peace agreement are exactly the same.

During the Camp David summit in 2000, Yasser Arafat had been offered East Jerusalem and most of the Old City, including custodianship of the Temple Mount. He demanded more: “I will not agree to any Israeli sovereign presence in Jerusalem, neither in the Armenian quarter, nor in the al-Aqsa Mosque, neither on the Via Dolorosa, nor in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. They can occupy us by force, because we are weaker now, but in two years, ten years, or one hundred years, there will be someone who will liberate Jerusalem” (memri, Aug. 28, 2000).

For Arafat, the peace talks had been nothing more than a charade. Israel offered one concession after another in order to keep momentum going for negotiations. But Arafat never conceded anything, and after talks broke down, he launched the second intifada. He called it “the al-Aqsa intifada,” implying that the Temple Mount was somehow in grave danger.

Incredibly, Ehud Barak responded to Arafat’s war by sending Israeli negotiators to Taba, Egypt, in January 2001, offering Arafat complete sovereignty over the Temple Mount. He tried to appease the Palestinian Authority, which had sanctioned the intifada, even as the war was raging! Arafat ignored the offer and unleashed more than 500 suicide attacks against Israel over the next five years.

The Camp David-Taba disaster gives a perfect preview of what will result from the latest round of Israeli concessions. In fact, Palestinian officials are already issuing threats of a third intifada. “If the talks fail,” said Palestinian chief negotiator Ahmad Qurei, “we can expect a third and much more severe intifada” (Jerusalem Post, October 11). Another official with close ties to Abbas, Azzam al-Ahmed, said the repercussions of failure at Annapolis “will be more dangerous than what happened after the failure of Camp David” (ibid., October 2).

And what would constitute failure, from the Palestinian perspective? The Post cited another Palestinian official who referred to Camp David. He said the second intifada began when the Palestinians realized Israel was “not serious about achieving peace.”

Isn’t it unbelievable? Like Arafat, Abbas and his emissaries speak of Israel’s unprecedented—some would say suicidal—concessions at Camp David and Taba as insincere, cynical attempts to pretend that it wants peace. And yet, the popular misconception today among left-wing media elites is that Israel is the main obstacle to peace. In actual fact, Israelis are so desperate for peace that they are recycling policies that have already been tried, tested and failed! And this time, they are offering the same concessions without asking for anything in return.

Noting the one huge difference between today and the 2000 talks, Caroline Glick wrote, “Seven years ago, Barak’s offer of territory was based on the expectation that in exchange for territory the Palestinians would eschew terror and live at peace with Israel. Today, after seven years of war that was largely directed by Fatah, after Hamas’s takeover of Gaza and Iran’s takeover of Hamas, this expectation is no longer realistic. By offering Barak’s concessions for a second time, Olmert isn’t simply offering land. He is sending the message that Israel neither expects nor demands that the Palestinian state live at peace with Israel” (ibid., October 4).

Give them what they want and expect virtually nothing in return—that’s how desperate the Olmert government is for peace. Yet even that won’t satisfy the Palestinians. And it might well result in Olmert getting booted from office.