Assuming the mantle of Mr. Rabin, Mr. Barak came to office inJuly 1999 trumpeting his intent to end the conflict with thePalestinians in short order. But then he chose to direct hisenergy at seeking peace with the Syrians, and ignored thePalestinians long enough to make them suspicious. He also broughtthe settlers’ representatives, the National Religious Party, intohis coalition and gave them the Housing Ministry, which led to asignificant expansion of the settlement enterprise.
Four years late by the original peacemaking timetable, the firstsubstantial final-status talks began secretly only in late March2000, after the Israeli-Syrian talks died. “It all started toolate and on the wrong footing,” said Mr. Larsen, the UnitedNations envoy.
As a signal of his good faith, Mr. Barak promised to transfer tothe Palestinians three Jerusalem-area villages, a promise thatwas relayed to Mr. Arafat by Mr. Clinton. Mr. Barak even wonParliament’s consent to do so. But, on the day of the vote, anintense spasm of violence erupted in the West Bank, which seemsin retrospect a harbinger of what was to come.
Mr. Barak indefinitely deferred the transfer because of theviolence. Both Mr. Arafat and, according to Mr. Malley, Mr.Clinton later said they felt burned by Mr. Barak’s brokenpromise.
Nonetheless, what became known as the “Stockholm track” consistedof 15 substantive sessions, culminating in three long weekends,two in Sweden and one in Israel. Israelis and Palestinians whotook part say now that the discussions were groundbreaking andthat the mood was positive. They made progress on the issues ofterritory, borders, security and even refugees, although therewere both advances and retreats on every issue.
In mid-May, the fact and the substance of the talks were leakedto Israeli newspapers, and what was printed about potentialconcessions caused political problems for both Mr. Barak and Mr.Arafat. That in effect brought the talks to a halt and led Mr.Barak to seek a summit meeting before the Palestinians consideredthe groundwork laid.
“Stockholm died once revealed,” Mr. Indyk, the former Americanambassador, said in an interview in June. “If Stockholm hadcontinued, it might have laid a better foundation for Camp David.But Barak felt the leaks would lead to the breakup of hiscoalition and he’d never get to the endgame.”
Mr. Ben-Ami said the negotiators had supported Mr. Barak’sdecision to push for an American-led summit meeting at thatpoint.
“We didn’t feel there was a purpose in eroding our positionsfurther before a summit where we’d have to give up more,” hesaid.
For other reasons, though, Mr. Ben-Ami said that in retrospect heconsidered it a pity that the Stockholm track was aborted.Referring to Abu Ala, he said: “The Palestinian negotiator therewas an extraordinarily talented and able man who had the trust ofthe chairman. And he liked discreet channels. The moment theycollapsed, he became an enemy of the process. He thought CampDavid was a show.”
The palpable displeasure of Mr. Abu Ala, whose given name isAhmed Qurei, at Camp David was considered by many to havecontributed to the talks’ failure – just as his subsequentleadership role at Taba was believed to have contributed togreater success there.
Mr. Abu Ala himself said Mr. Barak had doomed Camp David bycutting short the preparatory session. “We told him withoutpreparation it would be a catastrophe, and now we are living thecatastrophe,” Mr. Abu Ala said in an interview in Abu Dis, hisvillage in the West Bank. “Two weeks before Camp David, Arafatand I saw Clinton at the White House. Arafat told Clinton heneeded more time. Clinton said, ‘Chairman Arafat, come try yourbest. If it fails, I will not blame you.’ But that is exactlywhat he did.”
The Palestinians went to Camp David so reluctantly that thefailure of the talks should have been foreseen, many now say.”The failure of Camp David was a self-fulfilling prophesy, and itwasn’t because of Jerusalem or the right of return” of refugees,said Mr. Beilin.
Mr. Larsen agreed: “It was a failure of psychology and ofprocess, not so much of substance.”
The Palestinians felt that they were being dragged to the verdanthills of Maryland to be put under joint pressure by an Israeliprime minister and an American president who, because of theirseparate political time tables and concerns about their legacies,had a personal sense of urgency.
The Palestinians said they had been repeatedly told by theAmericans that the Israeli leader’s coalition was unstable; aftera while, they said, the goal of the summit meeting seemed to beas much about rescuing Mr. Barak as about making peace. At thesame time, they said, the Americans did not seem to takeseriously the pressures of the Palestinian public and the Muslimworld on Mr. Arafat. Like Mr. Barak, Mr. Arafat went to CampDavid dogged by plummeting domestic approval ratings.
Mr. Indyk, who is planning to write a book on the peace effortcalled “Unintended Consequences,” said Mr. Barak’s requirementthat Camp David produce a formal end to the conflict had put toomuch pressure on the summit meeting.
The discussions on some issues actually went backward during thetwo weeks at Camp David, Mr. Sher and Mr. Ben-Ami said. Mr. Shersaid he believed that it was because Palestinian negotiators hadkept Mr. Arafat in the dark about key details of the Stockholmtalks, which they deny. He said he and Mr. Ben-Ami had traveledto Nablus, in the West Bank, to see the Palestinian leadershortly before Camp David and were stunned to discover that Mr.Arafat did not know precisely what had been discussed.
The Israelis and the Americans describe a “bunker mentality” onthe part of the Palestinians at Camp David. In response, thePalestinians say that at one point Mr. Barak did not come out ofhis cabin, the Dogwood, for two days and that he refused to meetwith Mr. Arafat personally except for one tea.
“There was also one dinner in which Barak was on the right sideof Clinton and Arafat was on the left,” said Mr. Shaath, thePalestinian, adding in reference to Mr. Clinton’s daughter: “ButChelsea sat to the right of Barak all evening, and she receivedhis undivided attention. Why the hell did he insist on a summitif he did not intend to meet his partner for a minute?”
Western diplomats here say the Palestinians believed that theywere being manipulated by the Americans. They said Americanofficials had made a crucial mistake in trying to nurture specialrelationships with two younger-generation Palestinian officialswhom they thought were pragmatic: Muhammad Rashid, Mr. Arafat’sKurdish economic adviser, and Muhammad Dahlan, the Gazapreventive security chief. That angered the veteran Palestiniannegotiators, they said, who felt that the Americans were seekingto divide and weaken them.
In the middle of Camp David, one of the negotiators, Abu Mazen,flew back to the Middle East for his son’s wedding. He wasfurious about the American tactics, a European diplomat said, andpledged that Camp David would never succeed if such gamescontinued and that he would use the refugee issue to foil it, ifneed be.
Mr. Sher said the Palestinians had never put forward ancounterproposals to what the Israelis were suggesting. They justsaid no, he said. Mr. Malley, who was at Camp David, wrote in anop-ed piece in The New York Times in mid-July that the Americanmediators were “frustrated almost to the point of despair by thePalestinians’ passivity and inability to seize the moment.”
The two sides had discussed territorial swaps at Stockholm, inwhich the Palestinians would cede a percentage of the West Bankfor settlement blocs in exchange for territory elsewhere. Theycontinued the conversation at Camp David. But Mr. Abu Ala saidthe Israelis had talked of an unfair swap – annexing about 9percent of the West Bank and giving the Palestinians theequivalent of about 1 percent elsewhere.
“I said, Shlomo, I cannot loat the maps. Close them,” Mr. AbuAla said, describing a conversation with Mr. Ben-Ami. He declaredthat he would discuss only the 1967 borders. “Clinton was angryat me and told me I was personally responsible for the failure ofthe summit. I told him even if occupation continues for 500years, we will not change.”
But at Taba, the Palestinians were more than willing to look atmaps. Now the Israelis were talking about annexing 6 percent ofthe West Bank in exchange for land else where that was equivalentto 3 percent. That would have given the Palestinians some 97percent of the total land mass of the West Bank, which is muchcloser to their long-held goal that the Israelis should returnall the territories captured in 1967.
At Camp David, Mr. Ben-Ami said, the Israelis discovered verylate in the game how differently the two sides perceived thefinal status talks.
“That the Palestinians would agree to less than 100 percent wasthe axiom of Israeli politics since 1993,” he said.
Mr. Sher said most members of the Palestinian leadership “knewand agreed that this is a historic compromise that requires thePalestinians yielding on some issues – all except one: Arafat.”
At the end of Camp David, the three parties agreed that thechemistry had been bad. That was about all they agreed on. TheAmericans were dejected, although months later Mr. Clintondescribed Camp David as a “transformative event” because itforced the two sides to confront each other’s core needs andallowed them to glimpse the potential contours of a final peace.
At the close of July 2000, however, the Israelis felt that theirgenerosity had been rebuffed. And the Palestinians felt that theywere being offered a state that would not be viable – “less thana bantustan, for your information,” Mr. Arafat said in a recentinterview.
“They have to control the Jordan Valley, with five early warningstations there,” Mr. Arafat said. “They have to control the airabove, the water aquifers below, the sea and the borders. Theyhave to divide the West Bank in three cantons. They keep 10percent of it for settlements and roads and their forces. Nosovereignty over Haram al Sharif. And refugees, we didn’t have aserious discussion about.”
Mr. Ben-Ami said he spent considerable time after Camp Davidtrying to explain to Israelis that the Palestinians indeed didmake significant concessions from their vantage point. “Theyagreed to Israeli sovereignty over Jewish neighborhoods in EastJerusalem, 11 of them,” he said. “They agreed to the idea thatthree blocs of the settlements they so oppose could remain inplace and that the Western Wall and Jewish Quarter could be underIsraeli sovereignty.”
Mr. Malley added that the Palestinians had agreed to negotiate asolution to the refugee issue that would not end up threateningIsrael’s Jewish majority. “No other Arab party that hasnegotiated with Israel – not Anwar el-Sadat’s Egypt, not KingHussein’s Jordan, let alone Hafez al-Assad’s Syria – ever cameclose to even considering such compromises,” he said.
In the public analysis, the summit meeting fell apart in bitterdisagreement over how to share or divide Jerusalem. Mr. Clintonrecently said it was the refugee issue that did it in. But Mr.Malley and others who took part said there were gaps on everyissue.
But at the end, Mr. Clinton praised Mr. Barak’s courage andvision and said Mr. Arafat had not made an equivalent effort.
Mr. Shaath said: “I personally pleaded with President Clinton:’Please do not put on a sad face and tell the world it failed.Please say we broke down taboos, dealt with the heart of thematter and will continue.’ “
“But then the president started the blame game, and he backedArafat into a corner,” he added
Mr. Ben-Ami expressed a similar sentiment. “At the end of CampDavid, we had the feeling that the package as such containedingredients and needed to go on,” he said. “But Clinton left usto our own devices after he started the blame game. He was tryingto give Barak a boost knowing he had political problems goinghome empty handed but with his concessions revealed. But in doingso he created problems with the other side.”
Mr. Arafat “rode home on a white horse,” Mr. Shaath said, becausehe showed Palestinians that he “still cared about Jerusalem andthe refugees.” He was perceived as having stood strong in theface of incredible pressure from the Americans and the Israelis.
Nonetheless, Mr. Erekat said he had traveled from Bethlehem toGaza preaching that “Camp David was good, Camp David wasprogress.” He also said Mr. Arafat had made such comments, but ifhe did, they were very quiet.
But after Camp David, negotiators plunged back into their work atthe King David Hotel. And the results were positive enough thatMr. Barak and Mr. Arafat held their upbeat dinner meeting, andthe Clinton administration summoned negotiators to Washington onSept. 27. On Sept. 28, Mr. Sharon visited the Temple Mount. OnSept. 29, the situation began disintegrating with a rapidity thatshocked everyone.
Each side blamed the other. The Israeli government has said thePalestinians initiated the uprising to force the Israelis to givethem what they could not get at Camp David. Mr. Arafat said in aninterview that Mr. Barak in effect conspired with Mr. Sharon “todestroy the peace process” once he could not get the Palestiniansto accept his offer. Mr. Arafat called Mr. Sharon’s visit to theTemple Mount “a vehicle for what they had decided on: themilitary plan.”
An international fact-finding committee headed by former SenatorGeorge J. Mitchell did not hold either side solely responsiblefor the breakdown and described a lethal dynamic on the groundthat grew from the behavior of both sides and took on adestructive life of its own. More than 650 people have beenkilled since Sept. 29, the over whelming majority of themPalestinians.
‘Too Late’ at Taba:Some Still Look to Eventual Peace
Both sides, in recent interviews, wondered aloud why Mr. Clintoncould not have presented his peace proposal at Camp David orimmediately afterward. In late December, when he finally did so,the timing was very tight. Mr. Clinton was due to leave thepresidency on Jan. 20, and Mr. Barak faced elections on Feb. 6.
The proposal offered more to the Palestinians than what was onthe table at Camp David, but they initially responded withskepticism. The plan was too vague, they said. In the midst oncemore of a violent relationship with Israel, they were notemotionally poised to abide by the political timetables of othersand to rush into a fuzzy deal, they said.
A European diplomat said the Palestinians did not understand theimminence and implications of a victory by Mr. Sharon; anothersaid they did not want to waste their time with Mr. Barak, whowas predicted to lose.
Still, in early January, Mr. Arafat visited Mr. Clinton at theWhite House. In a subsequent interview, he said he had suggestedthat the president summon Israeli and Palestinian negotiatorsimmediately for marathon talks. Mr. Arafat said he had told Mr.Clinton that he believed a deal was possible in 14 days.
Instead, the negotiators met later that month without theAmericans and without their leaders at the Taba Hilton on the RedSea. With the exception of Mr. Sher, who said Taba was littlemore than “good ambience,” most of the Israelis and Palestinianswhotook part felt that it was a very successful session.
“Peace seemed very possible at Taba,” Mr. Ben-Ami said. And Mr.Abu Ala said, “In Taba, we achieved real tangible steps toward afinal agreement.”
In Taba, the Israelis for the first time accepted the Palestinianprinciple of a return to 1967 borders, the Palestinians said. ThePalestinians therefore agreed to settlement blocs, provided therewould be a swap of equivalent land. Mr. Shaath said they were toend up with 10 percent more territory than they were offered atCamp David.
The Israelis also agreed for the first time to give thePalestinians full sovereignty over all Arab neighborhoods inJerusalem, both sides said, and to give the Palestinians airrights over their land. The two sides werestill grappling withthe precise terms under which Israel could retain small bases andradar posts in the Jordan Valley, at least transitionally.
Many Israelis believe that throughout the final-status talks, thePalestinians were inflexible in their demand that all refugees begiven the right of return to their former homes, which raisesexistential fears in Israel. But Mr. Beilin, the Israeli who ranthe negotiations on refugees at Taba, said the two sides wereexploring an “agreed narrative” that would defuse the explosivenature of this issue and protect the Jewish identity of Israel.They noted that about 200,000 Palestinians living in EastJerusalem would drop off the Israeli demographic rolls, and theydevised a mechanism giving refugees more financial incentive tosettle outside Israel.
Mr. Abu Ala said: “When other issues move, this will move. It’snot a deal breaker.”
The negotiations at Taba were interrupted by Mr. Barak after twoIsraelis were killed in the West Bank. The talks resumed and thenhalted again with the agreement to pick up after the elections.They never did.
“If Camp David was too little, Taba was too late,” Mr. Shaathsaid.
Mr. Larsen, the United Nations envoy, said he believed that afinal peace deal could have been hammered out after Taba if bothMr. Barak and Mr. Clinton had remained in office.
But that is a big if. Mr. Sher noted, for instance, that thestatus of Jerusalem’s holy sites — always a potential deal-breaker — was barely touched during the Taba sessions.
In any case, on leaving office, Mr. Barak declared that hissuccessor would not be bound by the negotiations that began withStockholm and ended with Taba. Similarly, Mr. Clinton said hispeace plan would expire when he stepped down.
Yet a year after Camp David, with the reality on the ground sotransformed by bloodshed, most of those who took part in orobserved the negotiations still believe that a permanent peaceagreement is possible.
Although they acknowledge little likelihood of final-status talksunder Mr. Sharon, they still believe in the inevitability of afuture agreement that is very near to what they were designing.
“Even at this darkest of hours, I believe that peace isachievable,” Mr. Erekat said in an interview in his Jerichooffice. “Clinton took us on a futuristic voyage. We have seen theendgame. It’s just a matter of time.”
Mr. Sher agreed. “I still think that peace is doable, feasibleand reasonable,” he said in his Jerusalem office, which isdecorated with photographs from Camp David. “That’s the tragedy,because the basis of the agreement is lying there in arm’sreach.”
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company