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/ BARAK / 3
I’d met President Clinton briefly once before, when he received Syrian chief-of-
staff Hikmat Shehabi and me after our Blair House talks in 1994. But the Sharm
conference provided my first opportunity to spend time with him face-to-face.
When Peres and our delegation were about to leave, a Clinton aide approached and
said the President had asked whether I'd like to join him on the flight back to
Israel. Though as surprised as I was by the invitation, Shimon nodded at me to
signal it was okay, so I headed off for Air Force One. I spent most of the brief
flight talking to the President in the office space carved into the middle of the
plane. I would later discover that he quite often tried to engage with foreign
leaders’ colleagues or advisers on overseas trips, and not limit himself to summit
negotiations. It was part of his voracious appetite for information or insights which
he believed were essential to get a rounded understanding of the complexities of
the issues he was trying to address. Still, it was an extraordinarily fascinating 20
minutes. I got my first real look at Clinton’s natural gift for person-to-person
politics, as well as his mastery of both the detail and nuance of Israel’s
predicament, and of the wider conflict in the Middle East. Looking straight at me,
almost never breaking eye contact, he encouraged me to feel I had something of
value and importance to share with him. In fact, he created the impression that I
was the first sentient, intelligent human being he’d ever met. He made no grand
policy statements. Mostly, he asked me questions: what were the prospects of
Arafat reining in Hamas and Islamic Jihad? How were our relations going with
King Hussein? What was my view of the chances of concluding a peace with
Hafez al-Assad, despite his boycott of Sharm al-Sheikh? If Shimon did go on to
win the election, what new diplomatic opportunities could he as president, and we,
exploit in the search for peace? And, finally, what if Bibi won? I dare say this first
meeting was more memorable for me than for the president. But it would turn out
to provide a foundation for our joint efforts, in a few years’ time, to resolve the
very issues we’d talked about on Air Force One.
Though the summit restored a small opinion poll lead for Peres, that merely
reinforced Haim Ramon’s soccer-game strategy. I was more convinced than ever it
was wrong. Haim still wanted to ignore Bibi, but I pointed out that for at least one
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