Detailed critique of Barak's "generous offer myth" by Uri Avnery
"According to Morris, [Barak] charged Arafat with 'lacking the character or will' to make a historic compromise, as did the late Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat in 1977-1979, when he made peace with Israel. Barak would have been well advised to drop this comparison. Sadat got all his territory back, to the very last centimeter. Arafat would have easily agreed to the same terms - as would have Assad.

"In a recent biography of Barak, entitled "Hara-kiri", Raviv Drucker, a reporter for the army radio station, gives a detailed, thoroughly researched account of Barak's reign. The overall picture is of a severely disturbed human being, whose mindset and emotional limitations have caused him to fail in so many of his relationships and endeavors. According to this account, his failure to establish contact with Arafat was no different from his failure in his dealings with everybody else, including his closest assistants.

"My own theory - which, of course, cannot be proved is that on assuming power, Barak believed that he had the right formula for ending the historic conflict. Knowing absolutely nothing about the Palestinians, indeed, never having had a serious discussion with Palestinians, he believed that if he offered them a state, they would accept all his conditions and gratefully kiss his hands. When this did not happen, he was furious and accused them of all possible crimes. The prejudices and stereotypes, born of 120 years of conflict and which exist in the conscious or unconscious mind of almost every Israeli, came to the fore and determined his reactions.

"At Camp David he got to the point were the real terms of the solution became apparent to him. These conflicted with all his traditional Zionist convictions, causing a severe case of cognitive dissonance. Consequently, like a person looking into an abyss, he drew back in panic at the last moment. This is the cause of his "freaking out" incident in Camp David. This is also the reason for his calling off the Taba talks unilaterally, on the eve of the final breakthrough."

Detailed critique of Barak's "generous offer myth" by Uri Avnery
"According to Morris, [Barak] charged Arafat with 'lacking the character or will' to make a historic compromise, as did the late Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat in 1977-1979, when he made peace with Israel. Barak would have been well advised to drop this comparison. Sadat got all his territory back, to the very last centimeter. Arafat would have easily agreed to the same terms - as would have Assad.

"In a recent biography of Barak, entitled "Hara-kiri", Raviv Drucker, a reporter for the army radio station, gives a detailed, thoroughly researched account of Barak's reign. The overall picture is of a severely disturbed human being, whose mindset and emotional limitations have caused him to fail in so many of his relationships and endeavors. According to this account, his failure to establish contact with Arafat was no different from his failure in his dealings with everybody else, including his closest assistants.

"My own theory - which, of course, cannot be proved is that on assuming power, Barak believed that he had the right formula for ending the historic conflict. Knowing absolutely nothing about the Palestinians, indeed, never having had a serious discussion with Palestinians, he believed that if he offered them a state, they would accept all his conditions and gratefully kiss his hands. When this did not happen, he was furious and accused them of all possible crimes. The prejudices and stereotypes, born of 120 years of conflict and which exist in the conscious or unconscious mind of almost every Israeli, came to the fore and determined his reactions.

"At Camp David he got to the point were the real terms of the solution became apparent to him. These conflicted with all his traditional Zionist convictions, causing a severe case of cognitive dissonance. Consequently, like a person looking into an abyss, he drew back in panic at the last moment. This is the cause of his "freaking out" incident in Camp David. This is also the reason for his calling off the Taba talks unilaterally, on the eve of the final breakthrough."