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Chirac, but the understanding was that Madeleine would be in charge. Far from showing any willingness to end the violence, Arafat at first simply lied. He said the Palestinian violence was in response to an unprovoked assault by Israeli troops, and demanded an international “protection” force. There was a particularly bizarre moment when I read out the names of individual Tanzim leaders whom we had intercepted organizing the attacks. Arafat pretended he’d never heard of any of them, almost as if I was reading from a zoology textbook about species of polar bears. This was a man who had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. What he really deserved was an Oscar.

But people were dying. Needlessly. We ended up agreeing to a US-led fact-finding commission, as well as a number of steps to separate the Palestinian attackers and Israeli units. I reaffirmed our policy of insisting that Israeli soldiers use live fire only if they felt their lives were under threat. Arafat undertook to order his security forces and Tanzim not to launch further attacks. He even phoned Gaza with what we were given to understand were explicit orders. But it was all for show, as we discovered when we were invited to the Elysée Palace to meet Chirac. The French President had clearly received advance word from Arafat about his demand for an international “protection” force, presumably with a role for the French. To my surprise and frustration, and Secretary Albright’s as well, Chirac insisted that no agreement was acceptable without that happening. Then, he turned to me, demanding to know why the violence had left nearly 400 Palestinians dead, but barely two dozen Israelis, if the Palestinians were the aggressors. “Mr President,” I said, “just several weeks ago we were prepared to go very far in order to put this entire conflict behind us. It is Mr Arafat who rejected the proposal, even as a basis for negotiations. Just a basis to seek peace. He then deliberately turned to terror. We are protecting ourselves, and our soldiers. Are you really saying that you’ll be happy for us to sign an agreement to end it only when another 350 Israelis are killed? I’m not playing that game. Arafat started this. He has to stop it. We know he can, and we hold him responsible if that does not happen.”

It did not happen. We tried all we could to prevent a further deterioration. I approved moves, in co-ordination with the Palestinian police, to lower our security profile where possible. We made sure Israeli police were not visible from the mosques on the Haram al-Sharif. But after the next Friday prayers, a crowd made its way to a police post at the edge of the Old City and attacked it. In Nablus, the burial site of Joseph had long been a source of tension. Shlomo Ben-Ami reached

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