Clinton’s 1998 Middle East Summit Negotiations with Arafat – Stalled Peace Talks

/ BARAK / 82 issues raised by our proposals and showing a willingness to find common ground would we have any hope of success. No recess, Clinton said. He needed a straight answer. Again, not full acceptance necessarily, but agreement to treat the proposals as a basis for negotiating an Israeli-Palestinian peace. Arafat’s answer came shortly before dawn. It was “no”. Clinton couldn’t quite believe it. He went back to see Arafat, telling him he was making an error on the scale of 1948, when the Palestinians had rejected the partition of Palestine and the creation of an Arab state; or in 1978, when by negotiating on the basis of Sadat’s Palestinian-rights framework, they would have ended up with a mere 5,000 Israeli settlers on the West Bank instead of nearly 200,000. What most astonished Clinton was that Arafat was saying no even to using the package as a basis for negotiations. Still, Arafat would not budge. As Palestinian negotiators tried to salvage things by suggesting another trip by Madeleine and Dennis to the Middle East, it was clear that even the Americans were fed up. They knew that one side, at least, had been trying to get an agreement. They couldn’t understand why Arafat was unwilling even to accept the “pocket” proposals as a basis for further talks. When Yossi Ginossar, our most reliable conduit, went to see Arafat, he found him sitting alone and, in Yossi’s description, “paralyzed.” Clinton finally decided to have one last go. When he did, Arafat not only remained unwilling. To the President’s astonishment, he insisted that the ancient Jewish temple hadn’t been in Jerusalem at all, but in the West Bank city of Nablus. I was getting a bite to eat in the dining room in Laurel Lodge when Madeleine showed up. She didn’t bother defending Arafat. She was as frustrated as I was. Her message was that after the summit, it was important not to make things worse. A negotiating process had to be kept alive. Then, Clinton sat down with me. He delivered a similar message, but with even greater feeling. “You’re smarter than I am,” he joked. “You’re certainly experienced in war, and I’m not. But I’m more experienced in politics, and there are a few things I’ve learned along the way. The most important is not to corner your adversaries, and not to corner yourself. Always leave yourself a way out. Don’t lock yourself into a losing option.” I could see that he was right. I also believed, as strongly now as before the summit, that Israel’s own interests and its security were not served by an unresolved conflict with the Palestinians. The problem was that, in the absence of an equal commitment on Arafat’s side, any continued negotiating process seemed futile. 368 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028216