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/ BARAK / 85

Once it was clear to the Americans there would be no talks until the President
returned, however, Madeline began urging me to go see Arafat personally. The two
members of our team who were the least pessimistic about Camp David’s outcome,
Shlomo Ben-Ami and Yossi Ginossar, also said they thought it was a good idea. It
was they who’d pressed me to go see Arafat for tea and sweets earlier in the
summit. But that meeting had produced not even a glimmer of negotiating
flexibility from the Palestinian leader. Yossi had said at the time that it would help
the atmosphere, and pay dividends later on. But that hadn’t happened either.
“Madam Secretary,” I told Madeleine, “eating more baklava with Arafat isn’t
going to help. The situation is simple: he needs to answer whether he views the
President’s proposal as a basis for going forward.”

When Clinton returned, he promptly got back down to business: making one
last push to see whether a peace deal was possible. He phoned me around midnight
on the 24th of July, a few hours after he’d arrived. He told me he had sent an even
more far-reaching package to Arafat, expanding on my proposals. Now, all of the
outer Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem would come under Palestinian
sovereignty, in addition to the Muslim and Christian quarters in the Old City. And
Arafat would be given “custodial sovereignty” over the Muslim holy sites on the
Temple Mount. I didn’t object. Though it was further than I felt I could go, it was
within the spirit of my “pocket deposit”. The same ground rules still applied: these
were American proposals, which the President was telling Arafat he would try to
deliver if he accepted them as a basis for serious negotiations. But when Clinton
phoned me back, around 3:15 in the morning, it was to tell me that Arafat had
again said no.

The curtain had finally come down. What remained now was to clear up the set.
I did meet Arafat once more, in a joint session with President Clinton, but only for
closing statements. The President and I spoke as much in sorrow and frustration as
anger. Both of us said we thought an historic agreement had been within our grasp,
and that far-reaching proposals had been tabled to make it possible. Arafat
responded with words both of us had heard before: effusive toward Clinton,
rhapsodic about his “old partner” Rabin and fulsome in his ostensible commitment
to keep trying for peace. But it was just words. We knew he was not willing even
to talk about the kind of compromises a real, final peace would require.

The President’s remarks to the media were, by the standards of post-summit
diplomacy, unmistakably clear in making that point. He praised me and the Israeli

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