Where Arafat appears
208 total
…d told him I was going to delay the handover. I was not about to return the villages under gunfire, or reward Arafat for breaking even his existing security commitments. That meant that prospects for serious negotiations with the Palestinia...
… for the West Bank and in Gaza. President Clinton immediately got the American consul to deliver a message to Arafat, saying that the President expected him to intervene against any sign of violence. But Arafat’s reply was that, while he’d...
er than any previous Israeli leader to get peace with Syria, and with Arafat too. I might fail, but it would not be for lack of trying. I believed that even a “failure” would tell us something: whether the other side was truly ready for pea...
… the same conflict, requiring the same compromises. “The only difference will be the size of our cemeteries.” Arafat nodded occasionally. But he said little, beyond saying that he considered Rabin to have been a friend, and repeating his no...
…ged me to concentrate on the Palestinians instead. President Clinton kept stressing the importance of showing Arafat at least some movement on the Oslo front. In September 1999, I took a first, significant step in that direction. I agreed t...
…eplied. “It needs therapy.” In truth, I suspected that if we ever got near to a peace agreement with Assad or Arafat, even therapy might not help. But that was a main reason that I’d promised a referendum on any final peace deals. I believe...
consider in peace 327 / BARAK / 42 negotiations. The first stirrings of discontent had begun even before I went to see Clinton. On the basis of my commitment merely to try for peace, Arik Sharon had presented a no-confidence motion in the K...
West Bank, and we won’t ask for a single inch.” I replied in much the same vein when President Clinton urged me to help kickstart new talks with Assad by formally reaffirming Yitzhak’s “pocket deposit” on the Golan Heights. As with the Pale...
…be shared with at least a few of his closest policy aides and negotiators. Sooner or later, word would get to Arafat. When we did begin negotiations, he’d take whatever number I gave as a mere starting point. Still, I knew I had to signal t...
…nal peace deals might require. In the end, I realized that we might simply discover that Assad, and certainly Arafat, were not willing or ready to make peace. We might, initially at least, have to settle for a more incremental step. “Right...
…nal peace deals might require. In the end, I realized that we might simply discover that Assad, and certainly Arafat, were not willing or ready to make peace. We might, initially at least, have to settle for a more incremental step. “Right...
… spent the previous few, frustrating years trying alternately to urge, nudge and cajole him – and, of course, Arafat – toward implementing Oslo. Clinton did finally succeed in getting the Wye River agreement. But it, too, remained to be imp...
rying to make peace with Syria. That made my first visit to see President Clinton as Prime Minister especially important. * * * It was billed as a “working visit” and work we did. After a gala dinner for Nava and me in the White House, we h...
…gh assessment of the issues involved, and to reach a settled view with my negotiating team on how to proceed. Arafat seemed to accept the idea of a pause for reflection and planning. But he held firm in his opposition to any further delay i...
…: it would increase our negotiating leverage with the Palestinians. That would certainly not be lost on Yasir Arafat – one reason that I realized the importance of an early meeting with him, to convey my commitment to keeping the Oslo proce...
chief-of-staff. My first priority was to put in place the practical foundations for a successful election challenge against Bibi. Through Jean Frydman and other business supporters with the means and the desire to help, my brother-in-law, D...
ecause he hadn’t succeeded in forming a Labor government, people had called him a loser! “Mah? Ani loser?” he asked, using the English word. “Am I a loser?” “Yes! Yes!” came the shouts. 298 / BARAK / 13 Yet the saddest note came at the end....
… might be many things, he wasn’t stupid. He was already telling voters that while Peres was making deals with Arafat, ordinary Israelis were being left to wonder where the next terrorist would strike. He would surely ramp up the accusations...
… he’d ever met. He made no grand policy statements. Mostly, he asked me questions: what were the prospects of Arafat reining in Hamas and Islamic Jihad? How were our relations going with King Hussein? What was my view of the chances of conc...
…kers” in Sharm al- Sheikh with the participation not just of an equally concerned King Hussein, and of course Arafat, but leaders of Arab states from North Africa to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. The only significant holdout was Syria’s Hafez...
