In a last-ditch effort to end the bitter, century-old conflict in the Middle East before he leaves office, President Clinton announced on Wednesday that he will host an open-ended summit beginning Tuesday between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David.
Clinton had suggested that such a summit would make little sense until lower-level negotiators had made notable progress toward a peace agreement. But with time running out for all three heads of state, Clinton has now concluded that a summit may be the only way to make progress.
As a result, Clinton, Barak and Arafat will gather in a setting of enormous historical resonance, but they will meet with no guarantee of a sweeping, or even partial, peace deal.
In more ways than one, the session will be modeled on the go-for-broke 1978 Camp David summit between President Jimmy Carter and then-leaders of Egypt and Israel, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin. That meeting yielded the first Israeli-Arab peace treaty.
Clinton said a summit in which the leaders can hold in-depth discussions without distractions is now the only way to move forward.
“While Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have made real progress, crystallizing issues and defining gaps, the truth is they can take the talks no further at their level,” Clinton said Wednesday at the White House. “Movement now depends on historic decisions that only the two leaders can make.”
Israel has made peace with two of its neighbors, Egypt and Jordan, and moved closer to a deal with the Palestinians. But the remaining issues are extremely emotional, including the status of Jerusalem, the nature of a future Palestinian army, the fate of Israeli settlers and the future of Palestinian refugees.
“Etched in each side’s mind are intense fears and emotions, and a deep-seated commitment to defend their people’s interests,” Clinton said. “There are no easy answers, and certainly no painless ones.”
Yet the three leaders have compelling reasons for taking this gamble. A desire to play peacemaker has characterized Clinton’s foreign policy, and he has shown a particular commitment to the Middle East peace process. This could be his last chance for a historic breakthrough.
Barak, elected last summer on a peace platform, risks losing his shaky political support without a peace deal. Arafat has said he would declare a Palestinian state in mid-September, and clearly would rather do so as part of a peace agreement.
Much has been made of Clinton’s desire to crown his legacy with a peace deal in a region sacred to three major religions. But the impetus for the summit came largely from Barak, whose style is to take big chances by publicly setting high goals.
Clinton made clear he will be deeply involved in the summit, which has no scheduled end date. “I will be there a lot,” Clinton said of the meetings at his Maryland retreat. “And I’ll work as hard as I need to work.”
Not only are the three are taking a risk with a high-profile effort that could falter dramatically, a failure could spark new violence in the Middle East.
Whether they succeed, Arafat and Barak face the real danger of political demise and even assassination just for trying. Sadat, a hero of the first Camp David summit, was killed for making peace with Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was murdered for moving toward peace with the Palestinians.
The perils were highlighted by the swift reactions to the announcement on both sides. Natan Sharansky, Israel’s interior minister and leader of a Russian immigrant party, immediately quit Barak’s ruling coalition. And several top Arafat advisers pronounced themselves pessimistic about the prospects of peace.
Barak, in Paris for a meeting with French President Jacques Chirac, said the leaders have to take a chance. “We have to be able to seize the opportunity, exploit it, and try to put an end to the conflict, if it’s possible,” Barak said.
Arafat is the least enthusiastic of the three about a summit. His frustration with the pace of the talks led to his promise that he would declare a Palestinian state by mid-September. The summit will be held with time running short on what many see as the best chance for the Israelis and Palestinians to solve their 52-year conflict. Both sides feel pressure to push for an accord before Clinton leaves office and they have to start again with a new administration.
Last year, after Barak took office, the two sides set a deadline of Sept. 13, 2000 for a final peace agreement. As the endgame nears, each has struck a militant stand, with the Palestinians threatening to deploy their police on the borders and, in response, the Israelis threatening to annex most of the West Bank and roll out their tanks and attack helicopters.
“We have a president in office who is uniquely committed to achieving a peace agreement,” said Lewis Roth, assistant executive director of American Friends of Peace Now. “You have two leaders, in Barak and Arafat, who are known quantities and have put their cards on the table and at least have the basis for sitting down and trying to make a deal. There is a unique confluence of opportunities.”
The Middle East conflict began shortly after the first Jewish Zionists began moving to Palestine about a century ago. It intensified with a series of wars beginning in 1948 when Israel declared statehood. The first break in this bloody hostility came in 1978, when Sadat and Begin reached an agreement, under Carter’s prodding, at Camp David.
In 1993, Rabin and Arafat signed a joint “declaration of principles” in the White House Rose Garden, with Clinton nudging the two toward a reluctant handshake. Prospects for peace were given a boost with Barak’s election, though talks have stumbled since then.
In a sense, the broad outline of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement is clear: The Palestinians would establish a state on the territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Palestinians would recognize Israel and sign a peace treaty. But such a sketch belies the explosiveness of the remaining issues.
Most striking is that both sides consider Jerusalem sacred and claim it for their capital. Some have suggested making Abu Dis, an area outside the city limits that is part of Greater Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine. And in some reports, Barak would be willing to give the Palestinians limited control over Jerusalem’s Arab sectors and allow them to fly their flag over the Al Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques in the Old City.
The final borders of a Palestinian state still have to be drawn, but that is only the prelude to other problems. There are 170,000 Israeli settlers on the West Bank, and their fate must be determined.
At the same time, about 4 million Palestinian refugees claim the right to return to Israel, a right Israel is reluctant to recognize. Some have proposed that Israel could acknowledge this right of return but compensate most of the refugees through an international fund rather than allow them to reclaim homes within Israel.
Some suggest that the summit is most likely to yield a partial deal. “You have to be naive to expect that these permanent status issues that have defied solution over 52 years will be resolved in a day or two, or even over a few months,” said Kahlil Jahshan, vice president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
But others say the Palestinians are fed up and unwilling to accept yet another interim agreement. The symbolism of Camp David, where seemingly unbridgeable gaps between Jews and Arabs were crossed, is lost on no one.
“There is a symbolic symmetry in returning to Camp David,” Roth said. “It’s where the first formal peace agreement between Israel and an Arab state was struck. If the core element of the Israeli-Arab struggle could be resolved at Camp David, it would complete the circle.”
