Mr. Malley, as Special Assistant to President Clinton for Arab-IsraeliAffairs, was a member of the US peace team and participated in the CampDavid summit. Mr. Agha has been involved in Palestinian affairs for morethan thirty years and during this period has had an active part inIsraeli- Palestinian relations.
In accounts of what happened at the July 2000 Camp David summit and thefollowing months of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, we often hearabout Ehud Barak’s unprecedented offer and Yasser Arafat’suncompromising no. Israel is said to have made a historic, generousproposal, which the Palestinians, once again seizing the opportunity tomiss an opportunity, turned down. In short, the failure to reach a finalagreement is attributed, without notable dissent, to Yasser Arafat.
As orthodoxies go, this is a dangerous one. For it has larger rippleeffects. Broader conclusions take hold. That there is no peace partneris one. That there is no possible end to the conflict with Arafat isanother.
For a process of such complexity, the diagnosis is remarkably shallow.It ignores history, the dynamics of the negotiations, and therelationships among the three parties. In so doing, it fails to capturewhy what so many viewed as a generous Israeli offer, the Palestiniansviewed as neither generous, nor Israeli, nor, indeed, as an offer.Worse, it acts as a harmful constraint on American policy by offering upa single, convenient culprit-Arafat-rather than a more nuanced andrealistic analysis.
(1) Each side came to Camp David with very different perspectives, whichled, in turn, to highly divergent approaches to the talks.Ehud Barak was guided by three principles. First was a deep antipathytoward the concept of gradual steps that lay at the heart of the 1993Oslo agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.In his view, the withdrawals of Israeli forces from parts of Gaza andthe West Bank during the preceding seven years had forced Israel to paya heavy price without getting anything tangible in return and withoutknowing the scope of the Palestinians’ final demands. A second axiom forBarak was that the Palestinian leadership would make a historiccompromise-if at all -only after it had explored and found unappealingall other possibilities.
An analysis of Israeli politics led to Barak’s third principle. Barak’steam was convinced that the Israeli public would ratify an agreementwith the Palestinians, even one that entailed far-reaching concessions,so long as it was final and brought quiet and normalcy to the country.But Barak and his associates also felt that the best way to bring theagreement before the Israeli public was to minimize any politicalfriction along the way. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had paid atremendous political (and physical) price by alienating the Israeliright wing and failing to bring its members along during the Osloprocess. Barak was determined not to repeat that mistake. Paradoxically,a government that believed it enjoyed considerable latitude concerningthe terms of the ultimate deal felt remarkably constrained on the stepsit could take to get there. Bearing these principles in mind helps us tomake sense of the Israeli government’s actions during this period.
To begin, Barak discarded a number of interim steps, even those to whichIsrael was formally committed by vari-ous agreements-including a thirdpartial redeployment of troops from the West Bank, the transfer toPalestinian control of three villages abutting Jerusalem, and therelease of Palestinians imprisoned for acts committed before the Osloagreement. He did not want to estrange the right prematurely or be (orappear to be) a “sucker” by handing over assets, only to be rebuffed onthe permanent status deal. In Barak’s binary cost-benefit analysis, suchsteps did not add up: on the one hand, if Israelis and Palestiniansreached a final agreement, all these minor steps (and then some) wouldbe taken; on the other hand, if the parties failed to reach a finalagreement, those steps would have been wasted. What is more, concessionsto the Palestinians would cost Barak precious political capital he wasdetermined to husband until the final, climactic moment.
The better route, he thought, was to present all concessions and allrewards in one comprehensive package that the Israeli public would beasked to accept in a national referendum. Oslo was being turned on itshead. It had been a wager on success-a blank check signed by two sideswilling to take difficult preliminary steps in the expectation that theywould reach an agreement. Barak’s approach was a hedge against failure-areluctance to make preliminary concessions out of fear that they mightnot.
Much the same can be said about Israel’s expansion of the West Banksettlements, which proceeded at a rapid pace. Barak saw no reason toneedlessly alienate the settler constituency. Moreover, insofar as newhousing units were being established on land that Israel ultimatelywould annex under a permanent deal-at least any permanent deal Barakwould sign-he saw no harm to the Palestinians in permitting suchconstruction. In other words, Barak’s single-minded focus on the bigpicture only magnified in his eyes the significance-and cost-of thesmall steps. Precisely because he was willing to move a great distancein a final agreement (on territory or on Jerusalem, for example), he wasunwilling to move an inch in the preamble (prisoners, settlements, troopredeployment, Jerusalem villages).
Barak’s principles also shed light on his all-or-nothing approach. InBarak’s mind, Arafat had to be made to understand that there was no”third way,” no “reversion to the interim approach,” but rather acorridor leading either to an agreement or to confrontation. Seeking toenlist the support of the US and European nations for this plan, heasked them to threaten Arafat with the consequences of his obstinacy:the blame would be laid on the Palestinians and relations with themwould be downgraded. Likewise, and throughout Camp David, Barakrepeatedly urged the US to avoid mention of any fall- back options or ofthe possibility of continued negotiations in the event the summitfailed.
The Prime Minister’s insistence on holding a summit and the timing ofthe Camp David talks followed naturally. Barak was prepared to have hisnegotiators engage in preliminary discussions, which in fact took placefor several months prior to Camp David. But for him, these were not thechannels in which real progress could be made. Only by insisting on asingle, high-level summit could all the necessary ingredients of successbe present: the drama of a stark, all-or-nothing proposal; the prospectthat Arafat might lose US support; the exposure of the ineffectivenessof Palestinian salami- tactics (pocketing Israeli concessions thatbecome the starting point at the next round); and, ultimately, thecapacity to unveil to the Israeli people all the achievements andconcessions of the deal in one fell swoop.
(2) In Gaza and the West Bank, Barak’s election was greeted with mixedemotions. Benjamin Netanyahu, his immediate predecessor, had failed toimplement several of Israel’s signed obliga-tions and, for that reasonalone, his defeat was welcome. But during his campaign, Barak had givenno indication that he was prepared for major compromises with thePalestinians. Labor back in power also meant Tel Aviv back inWashington’s good graces; Netanyahu’s tenure, by contrast, had seen agradual cooling of America’s relations with Israel and a concomitantwarming of its relations with the Palestinian Authority.
Palestinians were looking for early reassuring signs from Barak; hisfirst moves were anything but. His broad government coalition (anassortment of peace advocates and hard-liners), his tough positions onissues like Jerusalem, and his reluctance to confront the settlers allcontributed to an early atmosphere of distrust. Delays in acPalestinian concerns- such as implementing the 1998 Wye Agreement(which Barak chose to renegotiate) or beginning permanent status talks(which Barak postponed by waiting to name a lead negotiator) -wereparticularly irksome given the impatient mood that prevailed in theterritories. Seen from Gaza and the West Bank, Oslo’s legacy read like alitany of promises deferred or unfulfilled. Six years after theagreement, there were more Israeli settlements, less freedom ofmovement, and worse economic conditions. Powerful Palestinianconstituencies-the intellectuals, security establishment, media,business community, “state” bureaucrats, political activists-whosesupport was vital for any peace effort were disillusioned with theresults of the peace process, doubtful of Israel’s willingness toimplement signed agreements, and, now, disenchanted with Barak’srhetoric and actions.
Perhaps most disturbing was Barak’s early decision to concentrate onreaching a deal with Syria rather than with the Palestinians, a decisionthat Arafat experienced as a triple blow. The Palestinians saw it as aninstrument of pressure, designed to isolate them; as a delaying tacticthat would waste precious months; and as a public humiliation, intendedto put them in their place. Over the years, Syria had done nothing toaddress Israeli concerns. There was no recognition, no bilateralcontacts, not even a suspension of assistance to groups intent onfighting Israel. During that time, the PLO had recognized Israel,countless face-to-face negotiations had taken place, and Israeli andPalestinian security services had worked hand in hand. In spite of allthis, Hafez al-Assad-not Arafat-was the first leader to be courted bythe new Israeli government.
In March 2000, after the failed Geneva summit between Clinton andPresident Assad made clear that the Syrian track had run its course,Barak chose to proceed full steam ahead with the Palestinians, setting adeadline of only a few months to reach a permanent agreement. But bythen, the frame of mind on the other side was anything but receptive. Itwas Barak’s timetable, imposed after his Syrian gambit had failed, anddesigned with his own strategy in mind. Arafat was not about to oblige.
Indeed, behind almost all of Barak’s moves, Arafat believed he coulddiscern the objective of either forcing him to swallow an unconscionabledeal or mobilizing the world to isolate and weaken the Palestinians ifthey refused to yield. Barak’s stated view that the alternative to anagreement would be a situation far grimmer than the status quo createdan atmosphere of pressure that only confirmed Arafat’s suspicions -andthe greater the pressure, the more stubborn the belief amongPalestinians that Barak was trying to dupe them.
Moreover, the steps Barak undertook to husband his resources whilenegotiating a historical final deal were interpreted by the Palestiniansas efforts to weaken them while imposing an unfair one. Particularlytroubling from this perspective was Barak’s attitude toward the interimcommitments, based on the Oslo, Wye, and later agreements. Those whoclaim that Arafat lacked interest in a permanent deal miss the point.Like Barak, the Palestinian leader felt that permanent statusnegotiations were long overdue; unlike Barak, he did not think that thisjustified doing away with the interim obligations.
For Arafat, interim and permanent issues are inextricably linked-“partand parcel of each other,” he told the President-precisely because theymust be kept scrupulously separate. Unfulfilled interim obligations didmore than cast doubt on Israel’s intent to deliver; in Arafat’s eyes,they directly affected the balance of power that was to prevail oncepermanent status negotiations commenced.
To take the simplest example: if Is-rael still held on to land that wassupposed to be turned over during the interim phase, then thePalestinians would have to negotiate over that land as well duringpermanent status negotiations. And while Barak claimed that unfulfilledinterim obligations would be quickly forgotten in the event that thesummit succeeded, Arafat feared that they might just as quickly beignored in the event that it failed. In other words, Barak’s seemed atake-it-or-leave-it proposition in which leaving it meant forsaking notonly the permanent status proposal, but also a further withdrawal ofIsraeli forces, the Jerusalem villages, the prisoner releases, and otherinterim commitments. Worse, it meant being confronted with the newsettlement units in areas that Barak self-confidently assumed would beannexed to Israel under a permanent status deal.
In many ways, Barak’s actions led to a classic case of misaddressedmessages: the intended recipients of his tough statements-the domesticconstituency he was seeking to carry with him-barely listened, whiletheir unintended recipients-the Palestinians he would sway with hisfinal offer- listened only too well. Never convinced that Barak wasready to go far at all, the Palestinians were not about to believe thathe was holding on to his assets in order to go far enough. For them, hisgoals were to pressure the Palestinians, lower their expectations, andworsen their alternatives. In short, everything Barak saw as evidencethat he was serious, the Palestinians considered to be evidence that hewas not.
For these reasons, Camp David seemed to Arafat to encapsulate his worstnightmares. It was high-wire summitry, designed to increase the pressureon the Palestinians to reach a quick agreement while heightening thepolitical and symbolic costs if they did not. And it clearly was aClinton/ Barak idea both in concept and timing, and for that reasonalone highly suspect. That the US issued the invitations despiteIsrael’s refusal to carry out its earlier commitments and despiteArafat’s plea for additional time to prepare only reinforced in his mindthe sense of a US-Israeli conspiracy.
On June 15, during his final meeting with Clinton before Camp David,Arafat set forth his case: Barak had not implemented prior agreements,there had been no progress in the negotiations, and the prime ministerwas holding all the cards. The only conceivable outcome of going to asummit, he told Secretary Albright, was to have everything explode inthe President’s face. If there is no summit, at least there will stillbe hope. The summit is our last card, Arafat said-do you really want toburn it? In the end, Arafat went to Camp David, for not to do so wouldhave been to incur America’s anger; but he went intent more on survivingthan on benefiting from it.
(3) Given both the mistrust and tactical clumsiness that characterized thetwo sides, the United States faced a formidable challenge. At the time,though, administration officials believed there was a historicopportunity for an agreement. Barak was eager for a deal, wanted itachieved during Clinton’s term in office, and had surrounded himselfwith some of Israel’s most peace- minded politicians. For his part,Arafat had the opportunity to preside over the first Palestinian state,and he enjoyed a special bond with Clinton, the first US president tohave met and dealt with him. As for Clinton, he was prepared to devoteas much of his presidency as it took to make the Israeli-Palestiniannegotiations succeed. A decision not to seize the opportunity would haveproduced as many regrets as the decision to seize it producedrecriminations.
Neither the President nor his advisers were blind to the growingdistrust between the two sides or to Barak’s tactical missteps. They hadbeen troubled by his decision to favor negotiations with the “otherwoman,” the Syrian president, who distracted him from his legitimate,albeit less appealing, Palestinian bride-to-be. Barak’s inability tocreate a working relationship with Arafat was bemoaned in theadministration; his entreaties to the Americans to “expose” and “unmask”Arafat to the world were largely ignored.
When Barak reneged on his commitment to transfer the three Jevillages tothe Palestinians-a commitment the Prime Minister hadspecifically authorized Clinton to convey, in the President’s name, toArafat-Clinton was furious. As he put it, this was the first time thathe had been made out to be a “false prophet” to a foreign leader. And,in an extraordinary moment at Camp David, when Barak retracted some ofhis positions, the President confronted him, expressing all hisaccumulated frustrations. “I can’t go see Arafat with a retrenchment!You can sell it; there is no way I can. This is not real. This is notserious. I went to Shepherdstown [for the Israeli-Syrian negotiations]and was told nothing by you for four days. I went to Geneva [for thesummit with Assad] and felt like a wooden Indian doing your bidding. Iwill not let it happen here!”
In the end, though, and on almost all these questionable tacticaljudgments, the US either gave up or gave in, reluctantly acquiescing inthe way Barak did things out of respect for the things he was trying todo. For there was a higher good, which was Barak’s determination toreach peace agreements with Syria and the Palestinians. As early as July1999, during their first meeting, Barak had outlined to Clinton hisvision of a comprehensive peace. He provided details regarding hisstrategy, a timetable, even the (astronomical) US funding that would berequired for Israel’s security, Palestinian and Syrian economicassistance, and refugee resettlement. These were not the words of a manwith a ploy but of a man with a mission.
The relationship between Clinton and Barak escapes easy classification.The President, a political pro, was full of empathy, warmth, andpersonal charm; the Prime Minister, a self-proclaimed political novice,was mainly at ease with cool, logical argument. Where the President’stactics were fluid, infinitely adaptable to the reactions of others,Barak’s every move seemed to have been conceived and then frozen in hisown mind. At Camp David, Clinton offered Barak some advice: “You aresmarter and more experienced than I am in war. But I am older inpolitics. And I have learned from my mistakes.”
Yet in their political relations, the two men were genuine intimates.For all his complicated personality traits, Barak was deemed aprivileged partner because of his determination to reach a final dealand the risks he was prepared to take to get there. When these werestacked against Arafat’s perceived inflexibility and emphasis on interimcommitments, the administration found it hard not to accommodate Barak’srequests. As the President told Arafat three weeks before Camp Davidbegan, he largely agreed with the chairman’s depiction ofBarak-politically maladroit, frustrating, lacking in personal touch. Buthe differed with Arafat on a crucial point: he was convinced that Barakgenuinely wanted a historic deal.
The President’s decision to hold the Camp David summit despite Arafat’sprotestations illuminates much about US policy during this period. InJune, Barak-who for some time had been urging that a summit be rapidlyconvened-told the President and Secretary Albright that Palestiniannegotiators had not moved an inch and that his negotiators had reachedthe end of their compromises; anything more would have to await asummit. He also warned that without a summit, his government (at leastin its current form) would be gone within a few weeks.
At the same time, Arafat posed several conditions for agreeing to go toa summit. First, he sought additional preparatory talks to ensure thatCamp David would not fail. Second, he requested that the third Israeliterritorial withdrawal be implemented before Camp David-a demand that,when rebuffed by the US, turned into a request that the US “guarantee”the withdrawal even if Camp David did not yield an agreement (what hecalled a “safety net”). A third Palestinian request-volunteered byClinton, rather than being demanded by Arafat-was that the US remainneutral in the event the summit failed and not blame the Palestinians.
The administration by and large shared Arafat’s views. The Palestinians’most legitimate concern, in American eyes, was that without additionalpreparatory work the risk of failure was too great. In June, speaking ofa possible summit, Clinton told Barak, “I want to do this, but not undercircumstances that will kill Oslo.” Clinton also agreed with Arafat onthe need for action on the interim issues. He extracted a commitmentfrom Barak that the third Israeli withdrawal would take place with orwithout a final deal, and, in June, he privately told the Chairman hewould support a “substantial” withdrawal were Camp David to fail.
Describing all the reasons for Arafat’s misgivings, he urged Barak toput himself “in Arafat’s shoes” and to open the summit with a series ofgoodwill gestures toward the Palestinians. Finally, Clinton assuredArafat on the eve of the summit that he would not be blamed if thesummit did not succeed. “There will be,” he pledged, “nofinger-pointing.”
Yet, having concurred with the Palestinians’ contentions on the merits,the US immediately proceeded to disregard them. Ultimately, there wasneither additional preparation before the summit, nor a thirdredeployment of Israeli troops, nor any action on interim issues. AndArafat got blamed in no uncertain terms.
Why this discrepancy between promise and performance? Most importantly,because Barak’s reasoning-and his timetable-had an irresistible logic tothem. If nothing was going to happen at pre-summit negotiations-andnothing was-if his government was on the brink of collapse, and if hewould put on Camp David’s table concessions he had not made before, howcould the President say no? What would be gained by waiting? Certainlynot the prospect offered by Arafat-another interminable negotiation overa modest territorial withdrawal. And most probably, as many analystspredicted, an imminent confrontation, if Arafat proceeded with his planto unilaterally announce a state on September 13, 2000, or if thefrustration among the Palestinians-of which the world had had a glimpseduring the May 2000 upheaval-were to reach boiling point once again.
As for the interim issues, US officials believed that whateverPalestinian anger resulted from Israeli lapses would evaporate in theface of an appealing final deal. As a corollary, from the President ondown, US officials chose to use their leverage with the Israelis toobtain movement on the issues that had to be dealt with in a permanentagreement rather than expend it on interim ones.
The President’s decision to ignore his commitment to Arafat and blamethe Palestinians after the summit points to another factor, which is howthe two sides were perceived during the negotiations. As seen fromWashington, Camp David exemplified Barak’s political courage andArafat’s political passivity, risk-taking on the one hand, risk-aversionon the other. The first thing on the President’s mind after Camp Davidwas thus to help the Prime Minister, whose concessions had jeopardizedhis political standing at home. Hence the finger-pointing. And the lastthing on Clinton’s mind was to insist on a further Israeli withdrawal.Hence the absence of a safety net. This brings us to the heart of thematter-the substance of the negotiations themselves, and the realitybehind the prevailing perception that a generous Israeli offer met anunyielding Palestinian response.
(4) Was there a generous Israeli offer and, if so, was it peremptorilyrejected by Arafat?
If there is one issue that Israelis agree on, it is that Barak brokeevery conceivable taboo and went as far as any Israeli prime ministerhad gone or could go. Coming into office on a pledge to retain Jerusalemas Israel’s “eternal and undivided capital,” he ended up appearing toagree to Palestinian sovereignty-first over some, then over all, of theArab sectors of East Jerusalem. Originally adamant in rejecting theargument that Israel should swap some of the occupied West Bankterritory for land within its 1967 bord, he finally came artothat view. After initially speaking of a Palestinian state coveringroughly 80 percent of the West Bank, he gradually moved up to the low90s before acquiescing to the mid-90s range.
Even so, it is hard to state with confidence how far Barak was actuallyprepared to go. His strategy was predicated on the belief that Israelought not to reveal its final positions-not even to the UnitedStates-unless and until the endgame was in sight. Had any member of theUS peace team been asked to describe Barak’s true positions before oreven during Camp David-indeed, were any asked that question today-theywould be hard- pressed to answer. Barak’s worst fear was that he wouldput forward Israeli concessions and pay the price domestically, only tosee the Palestinians using the concessions as a new point of departure.And his trust in the Americans went only so far, fearing that they mightreveal to the Palestinians what he was determined to conceal.
As a consequence, each Israeli position was presented as unmovable, ared line that approached “the bone” of Israeli interests; this served asa means of both forcing the Palestinians to make concessions andpreserving Israel’s bargaining positions in the event they did not. Onthe eve of Camp David, Israeli negotiators described their purported redlines to their American counterparts: the annexation of more than 10percent of the West Bank, sovereignty over parts of the strip along theJordan River, and rejection of any territorial swaps. At the opening ofCamp David, Barak warned the Americans that he could not acceptPalestinian sovereignty over any part of East Jerusalem other than apurely symbolic “foothold.” Earlier, he had claimed that if Arafat askedfor 95 percent of the West Bank, there would be no deal. Yet, at thesame time, he gave clear hints that Israel was willing to show moreflexibility if Arafat was prepared to “contemplate” the endgame. Bottomlines and false bottoms: the tension, and the ambiguity, were alwaysthere.
Gradual shifts in Barak’s positions also can be explained by the factthat each proposal seemed to be based less on a firm estimate of whatIsrael had to hold on to and more on a changing appraisal of what itcould obtain. Barak apparently took the view that, faced with asufficiently attractive proposal and an appropriately unattractivealternative, the Palestinians would have no choice but to say yes. Ineffect, each successive Palestinian “no” led to the next best Israeliassessment of what, in their right minds, the Palestinians couldn’t turndown.
The final and largely unnoticed consequence of Barak’s approach is that,strictly speaking, there never was an Israeli offer. Determined topreserve Israel’s position in the event of failure, and resolved not tolet the Palestinians take advantage of one-sided compromises, theIsraelis always stopped one, if not several, steps short of a proposal.The ideas put forward at Camp David were never stated in writing, butorally conveyed. They generally were presented as US concepts, notIsraeli ones; indeed, despite having demanded the opportunity tonegotiate face to face with Arafat, Barak refused to hold anysubstantive meeting with him at Camp David out of fear that thePalestinian leader would seek to put Israeli concessions on the record.Nor were the proposals detailed. If written down, the American ideas atCamp David would have covered no more than a few pages. Barak and theAmericans insisted that Arafat accept them as general “bases fornegotiations” before launching into more rigorous negotiations.
According to those “bases,” Palestine would have sovereignty over 91percent of the West Bank; Israel would annex 9 percent of the West Bankand, in exchange, Palestine would have sovereignty over parts ofpre-1967 Israel equivalent to 1 percent of the West Bank, but with noindication of where either would be. On the highly sensitive issue ofrefugees, the proposal spoke only of a “satisfactory solution.” Even onJerusalem, where the most detail was provided, many blanks remained tobe filled in. Arafat was told that Palestine would have sovereignty overthe Muslim and Christian quarters of the Old City, but only a looselydefined “permanent custodianship” over the Haram al-Sharif, the thirdholiest site in Islam. The status of the rest of the city wouldfluctuate between Palestinian sovereignty and functional autonomy.Finally, Barak was careful not to accept anything. His statements aboutpositions he could support were conditional, couched as a willingness tonegotiate on the basis of the US proposals so long as Arafat did thesame.
(5) Much as they tried, the Palestinian leaders have proved utterly unableto make their case. In Israel and the US, they are consistently depictedas uncompromising and incapable of responding to Barak’s supreme effort.Yet, in their own eyes, they were the ones who made the principalconcessions.
For all the talk about peace and reconciliation, most Palestinians weremore resigned to the two-state solution than they were willing toembrace it; they were prepared to accept Israel’s existence, but not itsmoral legitimacy. The war for the whole of Palestine was over because ithad been lost. Oslo, as they saw it, was not about negotiating peaceterms but terms of surrender. Bearing this perspective in mind explainsthe Palestinians’ view that Oslo itself is the historic compromise-anagreement to concede 78 percent of mandatory Palestine to Israel. And itexplains why they were so sensitive to the Israelis’ use of language.The notion that Israel was “offering” land, being “generous,” or “makingconcessions” seemed to them doubly wrong-in a single stroke bothaffirming Israel’s right and denying the Palestinians’. For thePalestinians, land was not given but given back.
Even during the period following the Oslo agreement, the Palestiniansconsidered that they were the ones who had come up with creative ideasto address Israeli concerns. While denouncing Israeli settlements asillegal, they accepted the principle that Israel would annex some of theWest Bank settlements in exchange for an equivalent amount of Israeliland being transferred to the Palestinians. While insisting on thePalestinian refugees’ right to return to homes lost in 1948, they wereprepared to tie this right to a mechanism of implementation providingalternative choices for the refugees while limiting the numbersreturning to Israel proper. Despite their insistence on Israel’swithdrawal from all lands occupied in 1967, they were open to a divisionof East Jerusalem granting Israel sovereignty over its Jewish areas (theJewish Quarter, the Wailing Wall, and the Jewish neighborhoods) in clearcontravention of this principle.
These compromises notwithstanding, the Palestinians never managed to ridthemselves of their intransigent image. Indeed, the Palestinians’principal failing is that from the beginning of the Camp David summitonward they were unable either to say yes to the American ideas or topresent a cogent and specific counterproposal of their own. In failingto do either, the Palestinians denied the US the leverage it felt itneeded to test Barak’s stated willingness to go the extra mile andthereby provoked the President’s anger. When Abu Ala’a, a leadingPalestinian negotiator, refused to work on a map to negotiate a possiblesolution, arguing that Israel first had to concede that any territorialagreement must be based on the line of June 4, 1967, the President burstout, “Don’t simply say to the Israelis that their map is no good. Giveme something better!” When Abu Ala’a again balked, the President stormedout: “This is a fraud. It is not a summit. I won’t have the UnitedStates covering for negotiations in bad faith. Let’s quit!” Toward theend of the summit, an irate Clinton would tell Arafat: “If the Israeliscan make compromises and you can’t, I should go home. You have been herefourteen days and said no to everything. These things have consequences;will mean the end of thpeace process…. Let’s let hell breakloose and live with the consequences.”
How is one to explain the Palestinians’ behavior? As has been mentionedearlier, Arafat was persuaded that the Israelis were setting a trap. Hisprimary objective thus became to cut his losses rather than maximize hisgains. That did not mean that he ruled out reaching a final deal; butthat goal seemed far less attainable than others. Beyond that, much hasto do with the political climate that prevailed within Palestiniansociety. Unlike the situation during and after Oslo, there was nocoalition of powerful Palestinian constituencies committed to thesuccess of Camp David. Groups whose support was necessary to sell anyagreement had become disbelievers, convinced that Israel would neithersign a fair agreement nor implement what it signed. Palestiniannegotiators, with one eye on the summit and another back home, went toCamp David almost apologetically, determined to demonstrate that thistime they would not be duped. More prone to caution than to creativity,they viewed any US or Israeli idea with suspicion. They could not acceptthe ambiguous formulations that had served to bridge differences betweenthe parties in the past and that later, in their view, had beeninterpreted to Israel’s advantage; this time around, only clear andunequivocal understandings would do.
Nowhere was this more evident than in the case of what is known as theHaram al-Sharif to Palestinians and the Temple Mount to Jews. TheAmericans spent countless hours seeking imaginative formulations tofinesse the issue of which party would enjoy sovereignty over thissacred place-a coalition of nations, the United Nations SecurityCouncil, even God himself was proposed. In the end, the Palestinianswould have nothing of it: the agreement had to give them sovereignty, orthere would be no agreement at all.
Domestic hostility toward the summit also exacerbated tensions among thedozen or so Palestinian negotiators, which, never far from the surface,had grown as the stakes rose, with the possibility of a final deal andthe coming struggle for succession. The negotiators looked over theirshoulders, fearful of adopting positions that would undermine them backhome. Appearing to act disparately and without a central purpose, eachPalestinian negotiator gave preeminence to a particular issue, makingvirtually impossible the kinds of trade-offs that, inevitably, acompromise would entail. Ultimately, most chose to go through themotions rather than go for a deal. Ironically, Barak the democrat hadfar more individual leeway than Arafat the supposed autocrat. Lackinginternal cohesion, Palestinian negotiators were unable to treat CampDavid as a decisive, let alone a historic, gathering.
The Palestinians saw acceptance of the US ideas, even as “bases forfurther negotiations,” as presenting dangers of its own. The Camp Davidproposals were viewed as inadequate: they were silent on the question ofrefugees, the land exchange was unbalanced, and both the Haram and muchof Arab East Jerusalem were to remain under Israeli sovereignty. Toaccept these proposals in the hope that Barak would then move furtherrisked diluting the Palestinian position in a fundamental way: byshifting the terms of debate from the international legitimacy of UnitedNations resolutions on Israeli withdrawal and on refugee return to theimprecise ideas suggested by the US. Without the guarantee of a deal,this was tantamount to gambling with what the Palestinians consideredtheir most valuable currency, international legality. The Palestinians’reluctance to do anything that might undercut the role of UN resolutionsthat applied to them was reinforced by Israel’s decision to scrupulouslyimplement those that applied to Lebanon and unilaterally withdraw fromthat country in the months preceding Camp David. Full withdrawal, whichhad been obtained by Egypt and basically offered to Syria, was now beinggranted to Lebanon. If Hezbollah, an armed militia that still considereditself at war with Israel, had achieved such an outcome, surely anational movement that had been negotiating peacefully with Israel foryears should expect no less.
The Palestinians’ overall behavior, when coupled with Barak’s convictionthat Arafat merely wanted to extract Israeli concessions, led todisastrous results. The mutual and by then deeply entrenched suspicionmeant that Barak would conceal his final proposals, the “endgame,” untilArafat had moved, and that Arafat would not move until he could see theendgame. Barak’s strategy was predicated on the idea that his firmnesswould lead to some Palestinian flexibility, which in turn would justifyIsrael’s making further concessions. Instead, Barak’s piecemealnegotiation style, combined with Arafat’s unwillingness to budge,produced a paradoxical result. By presenting early positions as bottomlines, the Israelis provoked the Palestinians’ mistrust; by subsequentlyshifting them, they whetted the Palestinians’ appetite. By the end ofthe process, it was hard to tell which bottom lines were for real, andwhich were not.
(6)The United States had several different roles in the negotiations,complex and often contradictory: as principal broker of the putativepeace deal; as guardian of the peace process; as Israel’s strategically; and as its cultural and political partner. The ideas it putforward throughout the process bore the imprint of each.
As the broker of the agreement, the President was expected to present afinal deal that Arafat could not refuse. Indeed, that notion was thepremise of Barak’s attraction to a summit. But the United States’ability to play the part was hamstrung by two of its other roles. First,America’s political and cultural affinity with Israel translated into anacute sensitivity to Israeli domestic concerns and an exaggeratedappreciation of Israel’s substantive moves. American officials initiallywere taken aback when Barak indicated he could accept a division of theOld City or Palestinian sovereignty over many of Jerusalem’s Arabneighborhoods-a reaction that reflected less an assessment of what a”fair solution” ought to be than a sense of what the Israeli publiccould stomach. The US team often pondered whether Barak could sell agiven proposal to his people, including some he himself had made. Thequestion rarely, if ever, was asked about Arafat.
A second constraint on the US derived from its strategic relationshipwith Israel. One consequence of this was the “no-surprise rule,” anAmerican commitment, if not to clear, at least to share in advance, eachof its ideas with Israel. Because Barak’s strategy precluded earlyexposure of his bottom lines to anyone (the President included), hewould invoke the “no-surprise rule” to argue against US substantiveproposals he felt went too far. The US ended up (often unwittingly)presenting Israeli negotiating positions and couching them asrock-bottom red lines beyond which Israel could not go. Faced withArafat’s rejection, Clinton would obtain Barak’s acquiescence in asomewhat improved proposal, and present it to the Palestinians as, onceagain, the best any Israeli could be expected to do. With the US playingan endgame strategy (“this is it!”) in what was in fact the middle ofthe game (“well, perhaps not”), the result was to depreciate the assetsBarak most counted on for the real finale: the Palestinians’ confidencein Clinton, US credibility, and America’s ability to exercise effectivepressure. Nor was the US tendency to justify its ideas by referring toIsraeli domestic concerns the most effective way to persuade thePalestinians to make concessions. In short, the “no-surprise rule” helda few surprises of its own. In a curious, boomerang-like effect, ithelped convince the Palestinians that any US idea, no matter howforthcoming, was an Israeli one, and therefore both immediately suspectand eminently negotiable.
Seven years of fostering the peace process, often agaidifficultodds, further erodedthe United States’ effectiveness at this criticalstage. The deeper Washington’s investment in the process, the greaterthe stake in its success, and the quicker the tendency to indulge eitherside’s whims and destructive behavior for the sake of salvaging it. USthreats and deadlines too often were ignored as Israelis andPalestinians appeared confident that the Americans were too busy runningafter the parties to think seriously of walking away.
Yet for all that, the United States had an important role in shaping thecontent of the proposals. One of the more debilitating effects of thevisible alignment between Israel and the United States was that itobscured the real differences between them. Time and again, and usuallywithout the Palestinians being aware of it, the President sought toconvince the Prime Minister to accept what until then he hadrefused-among them the principle of land swaps, Palestinian sovereigntyover at least part of Arab East Jerusalem and, after Camp David, overthe Haram al-Sharif, as well as a significantly reduced area of Israeliannexation. This led Barak to comment to the President that, on mattersof substance, the US was much closer to the Palestinians’ position thanto Israel’s. This was only one reflection of a far wider pattern ofdivergence between Israeli and American positions-yet one that hassystematically been ignored by Palestinians and other Arabs alike.
This inability to grasp the complex relationship between Washington andTel Aviv cost Arafat dearly. By failing to put forward clear proposals,the Palestinians deprived the Americans of the instrument they felt theyneeded to further press the Israelis, and it led them to question boththe seriousness of the Palestinians and their genuine desire for a deal.As the President repeatedly told Arafat during Camp David, he was notexpecting him to agree to US or Israeli proposals, but he was countingon him to say something he could take back to Barak to get him to movesome more. “I need something to tell him,” he implored. “So far, I havenothing.”
Ultimately, the path of negotiation imagined by the Americans-get aposition that was close to Israel’s genuine bottom line; present it tothe Palestinians; get a counterproposal from them; bring it back to theIsraelis -took more than one wrong turn. It started without a realbottom line, continued without a counterproposal, and ended without adeal.
(7) Beneath the superficial snapshot- Barak’s offer, Arafat’s rejection-liesa picture that is both complex and confusing. Designed to preserve hisassets for the “moment of truth,” Barak’s tactics helped to ensure thatthe parties never got there. His decision to view everything through theprism of an all- or-nothing negotiation over a comprehensive deal ledhim to see every step as a test of wills, any confidence-buildingmeasure as a weakness-displaying one. Obsessed with Barak’s tactics,Arafat spent far less time worrying about the substance of a deal thanhe did fretting about a possible ploy. Fixated on potential traps, hecould not see potential opportunities. He never quite realized how farthe prime minister was prepared to go, how much the US was prepared topush, how strong a hand he had been dealt. Having spent a decadebuilding a relationship with Washington, he proved incapable of using itwhen he needed it most. As for the United States, it never fully tookcontrol of the situation. Pulled in various and inconsistent directions,it never quite figured out which way to go, too often allowing itself tobe used rather than using its authority.
Many of those inclined to blame Arafat alone for the collapse of thenegotiations point to his inability to accept the ideas for a settlementput forward by Clinton on December 23, five months after the Camp Davidtalks ended. During these months additional talks had taken placebetween Israelis and Palestinians, and furious violence had broken outbetween the two sides. The President’s proposal showed that the distancetraveled since Camp David was indeed considerable, and almost all in thePalestinians’ direction. Under the settlement outlined by the President,Palestine would have sovereignty over 94 to 96 percent of the West Bankand it would as well have land belonging to pre-1967 Israel equivalentto another 1 to 3 percent of West Bank territory. Palestinian refugeeswould have the right to return to their homeland in historic Palestine,a right that would guarantee their unrestricted ability to live inPalestine while subjecting their absorption into Israel to Israel’ssovereign decision. In Jerusalem, all that is Arab would be Palestinian,all that is Jewish would be Israeli. Palestine would exercisesovereignty over the Haram and Israel over the Western Wall, throughwhich it would preserve a connection to the location of the ancientJewish Temple.
Unlike at Camp David, and as shown both by the time it took him to reactand by the ambiguity of his reactions, Arafat thought hard beforeproviding his response. But in the end, many of the features thattroubled him in July came back to haunt him in December. As at CampDavid, Clinton was not presenting the terms of a final deal, but rather”parameters” within which accelerated, final negotiations were to takeplace. As at Camp David, Arafat felt under pressure, with both Clintonand Barak announcing that the ideas would be off the table-would “departwith the President”-unless they were accepted by both sides. With onlythirty days left in Clinton’s presidency and hardly more in Barak’spremiership, the likelihood of reaching a deal was remote at best; if nodeal could be made, the Palestinians feared they would be left withprinciples that were detailed enough to supersede internationalresolutions yet too fuzzy to constitute an agreement.
Besides, and given the history of the negotiations, they were unable toescape the conclusion that these were warmed-over Israeli positions andthat a better proposal may still have been forthcoming. In thisinstance, in fact, the United States had resisted last-minute Israeliattempts to water down the proposals on two key items-Palestiniansovereignty over the Haram and the extent of the territory of thePalestinian state. All told, Arafat preferred to continue negotiatingunder the comforting umbrella of international resolutions rather thanwithin the confines of America’s uncertain proposals. In January, afinal effort between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in the Egyptiantown of Taba (without the Americans) produced more progress and somehope. But it was, by then, at least to some of the negotiators, toolate. On January 20, Clinton had packed his bags and was on his way out.In Israel, meanwhile, Sharon was on his way in.
Had there been, in hindsight, a generous Israeli offer? Ask a member ofthe American team, and an honest answer might be that there was a movingtarget of ideas, fluctuating impressions of the deal the US could sellto the two sides, a work in progress that reacted (and therefore wasvulnerable) to the pressures and persuasion of both. Ask Barak, and hemight volunteer that there was no Israeli offer and, besides, Arafatrejected it. Ask Arafat, and the response you might hear is that therewas no offer; besides, it was unacceptable; that said, it had betterremain on the table.
Offer or no offer, the negotiations that took place between July 2000and February 2001 make up an indelible chapter in the history of theIsraeli- Palestinian conflict. This may be hard to discern today, amidthe continuing violence and accumulated mistrust. But taboos wereshattered, the unspoken got spoken, and, during that period, Israelisand Palestinians reached an unprecedented level of understanding of whatit will take to end their struggle. When the two sides resume their pathtoward a permanent agreement-and eventually, they will-they will come toit with the memory of those remarkable eight months, the experience ofhow far they had comeand how far they had yet to go, andwith thesobering wisdom of an opportunity that was missed by all, less by designthan by mistake, more through miscalculation than through mischief.