Where Arafat appears
208 total
…years, rather than our proposal in pre-summit talks for 30 years. Then, explicitly, we proposed a question to Arafat to confirm my understanding with Clinton that the “right of return” would apply not to Israel proper, but to a Palestinian...
…ink Clinton expected a formal offer from us. Since I’d been guided by his request for a list of questions for Arafat, however, that is what we came to him with. As we’d discussed, I wanted finally to elicit some sign of whether Arafat, too,...
… to put off leaving for a further day. Then, he asked me to draw up a list of questions for him to present to Arafat so that we could solidify our understanding of how far he was ready to go for peace. I had Shlomo get busy on the list of q...
…s of the team, under Shlomo Ben-Ami, to draft a paper based on our discussion. Since I knew that Clinton, and Arafat too, could do nothing of substance until I’d resolved how far to go on Jerusalem, I went to see the President. I told him a...
… shouldn’t “run the Al-Aqsa mosque.” He was also in favor of agreeing to what Clinton had asked of me: giving Arafat a base in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. His one caveat was that we should not do any of this unless it was part of a...
decision now if we could, however difficult or reluctant Arafat was as a negotiating partner. If we waited, we’d end up having to deal with Islamists: Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Oded Eran, the career diplomat whom I’d put in charge of frustra...
…favored, only that it was essential that we made the decision now if we could, however difficult or reluctant Arafat was as a negotiating partner. If we waited, we’d end up having to deal with Islamists: Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Oded Eran,...
…que complex. “But without damaging your sovereignty,” he argued, “we have to find a way to draw a picture for Arafat that includes some measure of Palestinian control in part of the city.” “Could you agree to Arafat having an office, maybe,...
…ng would end up at around 90 to 92 percent. The trade-off, he said, would be a limited, “symbolic” land swap. Arafat also wanted control of the Jordan Valley, but had agreed to begin negotiating on Israeli security needs there as soon as po...
…ieve we are left to prepare for war.” I told the President he didn’t even need to phone me after hearing from Arafat if all he offered was some clever half-reply. Only if it was serious and substantive. I also reminded him that while he’d p...
…old the President that I still believed that we were facing a “moment of truth.” But only if he could “shake” Arafat, and get him to sense the enormity of the stakes – an independent Palestinian state, versus more, and undoubtedly deadlier,...
…for the G-8 summit, and we were negotiating only with ourselves. Knowing that the President planned to go see Arafat, I sat down and wrote him a note – emotional not just because I did it quickly, but because of how deeply let down I felt b...
Laurel Lodge. Marine guards were posted at the doors, with orders that neither negotiating team was to leave until morning without notifying the President’s staff. Mother Nature provided a further incentive to stay inside, since it was agai...
…ht. Their task would be to search honesty for the outlines of a possible peace agreement. They were to update Arafat and myself and then report to Clinton the next day. Then, we’d see where we were. I agreed to send Shlomo and Gili Sher, my...
…ver got to the real substance of a possible deal. “But I can’t do what you’ve asked me,” I replied. “Not when Arafat is simply holding firm and not showing a willingness even to look for compromises.” Fortunately for my relationship with th...
…ready to consider the tough decisions necessary to make it possible. At Camp David, I was not against meeting Arafat as a matter of principle. I simply felt the time for such a meeting, if it came, would be at the moment that we saw at leas...
out the Palestinians were unhappy with it too, but for another reason. On the lookout for validation of Arafat’s insistence that Camp David was an Israeli “trap”, they were convinced that the paper had Israel’s fingerprints all over it. Tha...
…ind a way to live together side by side with mutual respect, and to create a better future for our children.” Arafat said he hoped that the peace Begin and Sadat had made at Camp David would prove an auspicious example. “With the help of Pr...
…t I believed ought to be possible. For that to happen, I told the President, I believed it was essential that Arafat truly understood the importance of what was at stake. Not just the cost of failure, but what was potentially on offer: the...
…nments were also a surprise. I was given the one that Anwar Sadat had at the first Camp David summit in 1978. Arafat got Menachem Begin’s. Still, the cabins themselves, each named for a tree, were large and pleasant. Mine was called Dogwood...
