ABSTRACT
Abu Mazen, who after Arafat’s death four years later, became in January 2005 the first truly democratically elected chairman of the PA, vigorously supported the American initiative of “all or nothing” – rejecting any attempt to bring the Europeans into the picture. He saw a need for land swaps at a ratio of one to one, and in Jerusalem, a division according to the principle “what was Israeli to Israel and what Arab to the Palestinians.” The Muslim area of “Al Haram Al Sharif” would be under Palestinian sovereignty, and the Temple Mount, in its Jewish sense – under Israeli sovereignty. “All that is needed,” Abu Mazen told his counterparts, “is a creative formula.” He would not give up the Right of Return or mentioning UNGAR 194 but he was leaning toward a mechanism that would sterilize the right, through a committee comprised of the US, Israel and the Palestinians. In contrast to what many Israelis thought at the time, Abu Mazen did not oppose announcing the end of conflict and signing a FAPS. However he was not willing to take the reins in his hands and undertake the personal risk involved.
