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/ BARAK / 84

When I learned what was happening, I told my negotiators they were not to hold any further formal meetings during the four days Clinton would be away. Dennis’s initial response was frustration. Madeleine Albright’s was fury. They both made no secret of their view that I was needlessly stonewalling. It wasn’t until a few hours later that Madeleine apparently saw the stenographer’s record of my conversation with the President before he’d left, confirming the condition that Arafat accept the “pocket” at least as a basis on which to proceed. That evening, she apologized to me for the misunderstanding, and explained the mix-up to the full Palestinian and Israeli negotiating teams.

I spent most of the remaining three days in my cabin or, when the rain relented, walking through the woods. The Americans appeared to think I was sulking. I wasn’t. I was trying to find the least diplomatically damaging way to navigate the period until the President’s return. I couldn’t see showing up at Laurel at every mealtime, mingling and joking with the Americans and Palestinians, but refusing to enter into any form of negotiations. That would compound the awkwardness of the situation, and also be a direct affront to Madeleine. I liked and respected her. But I could not in good conscience help her out in her efforts to find at least some, informal, way of moving the summit along in Clinton’s absence. If Arafat had failed to show even a scintilla of movement with the President in the room, I knew there was no way that he was going to do so with the Secretary of State. For the Palestinian negotiators, who were predictably in favour of her efforts, the definition of “new ideas” was whatever further movement they might cajole out of our negotiators. Still, on day-three of Clinton’s absence, I got a note saying that Secretary Albright was on her way to my cabin. I didn’t want the needless diplomatic difficulty involved in again telling her I could not sanction free-wheeling, and decidedly one-sided, negotiations while Arafat hadn’t moved a single inch. So I made myself scarce. Fortunately, I was wearing sneakers. I told Danny to inform the Americans I was out jogging around the perimeter of the large Camp David estate, and went off to do just that.

I told my own delegation I was taking time out to assess where we stood. I did continue meeting with Gili Sher and Danny Yatom. Yet for much of time, I read. I also did a lot of thinking. I considered the “pocket” concessions I’d agreed to, the uncertainties and risks I’d been prepared to run, and the need to decide how to deal with the fact that Arafat, when he had engaged at all, had said “no”.

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