West Asia At War: Repression, Resistance and Great Power Games

by Talmiz Ahmad

Both Clinton and Barak were also pressuring Arafat to accept Israeli proposals – for Barak, success in the negotiations was crucial for his political survival, but, given the polarized state of Israeli politics and the passions whipped up by the settlers, the rabbis and their American supporters, there were severe limits on what he could offer. His role at Camp David was closely monitored by the settlers, who threatened him with dire consequences were he to make territorial concessions. As distinguished Israeli commentators Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar have noted, the failure of Camp David II was ‘a political and psychological victory for the settlers’.40 Arafat, on his part, complained that the pressures on him were ‘more like a guillotine hanging over our necks’.41 Camp David II has been studied closely over the years and is seen as a textbook example of how not to manage a summit. The three leaders did want a satisfactory resolution and, in fact, Barak made offers that went far beyond what Israelis had ever offered earlier, but the maximum that he could give did not meet the minimum requirements of the Palestinian side – he just could not offer the territorial concessions that would have led to a sovereign and viable Palestinian state. Barak finally offered about 90 per cent of the West Bank to the Palestinians, but the latter insisted on a return to the 1967 borders that would have given them 22 per cent, but under their sovereign control. On Jerusalem, the most Barak ...