Arafat’s words were prophetic. Four months after Camp David, Palestinians and Israelis are at war. With more than 230 dead and 7,000 wounded, mostly Palestinians, both sides are finding new ways to escalate the conflict. Last week it included Palestinian drive-by shootings and ambushes on Israeli soldiers and settlers. Israelis are now routinely firing tank shells and missiles at Palestinian villages on the outskirts of Jerusalem. With no end in sight, summit participants are looking back and asking whether the bloodletting was somehow preordained by mistakes made at Camp David. Arafat, who agreed to the summit under fierce pressure from Clinton, blames the Israelis and the Americans for not heeding his warnings. But even intimates of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak are now openly questioning the wisdom of Camp David. “In retrospect, this was a colossal error,” says Joseph Alpher, whom Barak tapped as a special media adviser for the summit.
How did Israelis and Palestinians go from the cusp of a historic peace deal to the worst violence between them in two decades? Interviews with many of the key negotiators suggest the answers lie in the twists and turns of one dramatic day at Camp David. In the 24-hour period between July 17 and 18, Israelis and Palestinians finally confronted the sacred core of their 100-year conflict–Jerusalem. But the very attempt to resolve the dispute exposed the unbridgeable divide between Israelis and Palestinians. A NEWSWEEK reconstruction of that critical day reveals a tale of hubris and cultural misunderstanding, of bold initiatives–and flawed timing. But it is just as much a story of a clash between leaders with their conflicting strengths and weaknesses–Barak, the brilliant strategist and bumbling politician, and Arafat, the cunning tactician who lacks an overarching vision.
On Monday, July 17, Barak called the most important meeting of his political career. The entire Israeli delegation assembled at Dogwood, the prime minister’s cabin. Over soft drinks and cookies, they began a wrenching six-hour debate about Jerusalem. Chief negotiator Shlomo Ben Ami called it the “deepest discussion” he had ever participated in since entering politics. For many at the table, it was their first open admission that Jerusalem could be carved up. In the days before the summit, Barak reiterated publicly that he would not divide Jerusalem, the mantra of every Israeli prime minister since Israel captured the eastern part of the city from the Arabs in 1967. But quietly, as far back as December, NEWSWEEK has learned, Barak was contemplating a dramatic gesture. Under the tutelage of Reuven Merhav, a former Mossad agent who runs a think tank on Jerusalem, Barak methodically studied every aspect of the Jerusalem equation, poring over maps and analyzing demographics. “Barak was amazing,” says Merhav. “He realized very quickly that the question was how to redraw the map.” Before long, Merhav says, Barak had accepted the principle that some of Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhoods could be turned over to Palestinian control in exchange for Israeli annexation of Jewish neighborhoods within Palestinian East Jerusalem. By the spring, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were holding secret talks in a provincial city in Sweden. Officially, Barak had forbidden his team from negotiating the Jerusalem question. But in what one Israeli official called “corridor talks,” the Israeli negotiators presented the idea of a neighborhood swap and even showed their Palestinian counterparts a detailed map of their proposal.
But Barak first had to persuade some members of his own delegation at Camp David. Attorney General Elyakim Rubenstein and Dan Meridor, chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs Committee, both rejected any division of Jerusalem. “Ben-Gurion [Israel’s first prime minister] had to accept a state without Jerusalem. Arafat will have to do the same,” exclaimed Meridor. Barak, who had brought along Ben-Gurion’s autobiography and was reading archival documents from Israel’s early years, turned the point around–if Ben-Gurion could accept a state without Jerusalem, Israel could divide the city in order to finally end the conflict. It was a clear sign that Barak was positioning himself in history as the leader who knew how to make a painful compromise–a deal no other Israeli leader had been willing to make. Just in case, though, he had commissioned polls to check reaction at home. They showed that most Israelis were ready to take a chance on dividing the city if it meant ending the dispute once and for all. When the meeting ended, it was clear to the Americans that Israel was ready to cut a deal.
For Israelis, it was a revolutionary rethink, but for Palestinians it was a nonstarter. When Clinton took the proposal to Arafat that night, the Palestinian leader was furious. He derided the ideas as “entirely Israeli.” The Egyptians got back every last inch of Sinai, why should I give up Jerusalem, Arafat asked, referring to the original Camp David agreement between Egypt and Israel 20 years ago. He and other members of the Palestinian delegation were seething over a casual suggestion by Barak: in exchange for giving up de facto control over the Temple Mount, he wanted to build a small synagogue on the northeast corner of the ancient site. Barak viewed it as a small price for the Palestinians to pay, one that might allow him to pacify Israel’s powerful ultra-orthodox community. It underscored the cultural disconnect between the two sides. For the Palestinians, the proposal confirmed their worst suspicions: that the Israelis wanted a toehold on the Haram. The proposal puzzled even some members of Barak’s own team, who wondered quietly if he grasped the profound sensitivities surrounding the sacred area.
Later that night, Arafat hastily summoned his team to draft a response to President Clinton. Spread out around a conference table in the living room of Arafat’s Birch cabin, the Palestinian delegation labored over language. Arafat wanted this letter handwritten, perhaps to convey the gravity of the moment. At 3 a.m., Arafat’s chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, phoned the Americans to deliver the answer. Bruce Riedel, a National Security Council official, suggested they meet in the cafeteria. The American and Palestinian teams sat opposite each other, bleary-eyed, sipping weak instant coffee (“The worst coffee on earth,” recalls Erekat). The Palestinian negotiator, flanked by members of his own team, solemnly read and translated the letter out loud: “We consider that these ideas do not form the basis for negotiations.” Rydell’s response was quick and cutting: “So it’s all over.”
On his way back to Birch, Erekat realized the magnitude of what had just occurred. He would report back to Arafat, he decided, but would leave out Rydell’s reaction. “I wanted to keep hope alive,” Erekat said, “though I knew it was over.” And if the peace drive had ended, the fighting would not be far off.
