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Syrians. Then to Geneva to see Assad, “where I felt like a wooden Indian, doing your bidding. I will not let it happen here. I will simply not do it.”

I tried to keep my voice steady when I replied. I explained that the issues we were addressing went to the heart of Israel’s interests, its future security, its identity and definition as a nation. I had a responsibility to tread carefully. Then, my voice rising too, I came back to what I felt was the real problem. Arafat and his negotiators had been sitting and waiting for me and my team, and probably Clinton as well, to deliver more and more concessions with no sign that they were willing to move on anything. “I find that outrageous,” I said. I did not expect Arafat to respond with equal concessions. After all, Israel had most of the tangible assets. “But I did expect him at least to take a small step once we had taken ten. We have not seen even this. This is the kind of behavior parents would not tolerate in their own children! We don’t expect Arafat to accept this, but I do expect him to present a counter-position.”

Clinton remained adamant he couldn’t go to Arafat with a retreat from our earlier ideas. “My negotiating team moved beyond my red lines,” I told him. The overnight talks were supposed to be non-binding and assumed that both sides would make a genuine attempt to get an agreement. “I can’t see any change in Arafat’s pattern. We take all the risks.” I said I doubted that Arafat expected to hear that we had decided to “give him Jerusalem.” In any case, the Israeli public hadn’t given me a mandate to do that. But I would still move in Arafat’s direction, if and when I got any sign he was willing to do the same.

The President’s anger eased. He suggested he caucus with his negotiators and figure out what to do next. I felt bad about what had happened: not about the list of questions, or my insistence that we could not offer major concessions with no sign of reciprocity. But I did regret that it had left the Americans so frustrated, and Clinton so angry. He had invested not just huge amounts of time and brainpower, but political capital, in the search for peace.

He phoned me at about 3:30 in the morning and asked me to come back. This time, I went alone. We sat on the terrace of Aspen. He said again he couldn’t go to Arafat with the list we’d drawn up. But having met with his negotiators, he suggested they draft a more forthcoming list of their own – consistent with what Shlomo and Gili had proposed. I agreed, as long as they kept in mind that it had to be something I could ultimately live with, and that it be presented to Arafat as an

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