The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 Page

The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000

Candidate Number:

X29002

Module Title:

Dissertation (16-17)

Module Code:

7SSWM116

Assignment:

The Causes of the failure of Camp David 2000

Assignment Tutor:

Dr Ahron Bregman

Deadline:

Thurs 24th August 2017 4pm

Date Submitted:

Thurs 24th August 2017

Word Count:

Title page and abstract 425 words, body 14,996 words, bibliography 2416 words, headers and footers excluded

Consent to use as example:

yes

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Contents i) 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6)

Page Number

Abstract

3

Introduction Jerusalem The Right of Return The Role of the United States Conclusion Bibliography

4 6 17 25 30 36

Table 1 Registered Refugees in UNRWA Area of Operations

33

Map 1 Post-1967 Municipal Boundary of Jerusalem

34

Map 2 Israeli Borders Proposal

35

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i)

Abstract

At Camp David in July 2000, hosted by the Americans, Israeli and Palestinian representatives came together over a two-week period to find a peaceful solution for their disputed issues, particularly Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees. The Haram Al-Sharif (Temple Mount) in Jerusalem is the third most important site in Islam, the focus of Palestinian nationalism since the 1930s and a vital link to hundreds of millions of Muslims. Similarly, for the Israelis, the Temple Mount (Haram AlSharif) is the center of Jewish existence, the anchor of the Zionist endeavor and a link to worldwide Jewry. For the Palestinians 1948 saw the Nakba (Catastrophe), the deliberate expulsion of 700,000 Arabs from their homes by the Zionist invaders, creating 3.7m refugees by 2000. While, for the Israelis, the problem was created by six Arab states declaring war on them. The Palestinians based their positions on UN resolutions and demanded that Arab areas be Palestinian and Jewish areas Israeli. The Israelis, having declared Jerusalem united, expected to see concessions from the Palestinians for breaking this taboo. The US team, having an institutional and cultural bias towards Israel, supported the Israeli demand for further concessions. The Israeli public were willing to move much closer to the Palestinian demands than their prime minister, Ehud Barak. Had the Americans taken a more balanced position and pushed Barak further, a solution on Jerusalem was possible. If Arafat’s demands on Jerusalem had been met, many negotiators believed that as long as he could claim that the right of return was met in principle he would have agreed to the Israelis demand for return in practice to be limited to Israeli sanctioned family unification. This counterfactual description of how a resolution could have been achieved, highlights the principle causes of the failure of Camp David - the failure to resolve Jerusalem, the consequential failure to resolve the refugees’ right of return, and the failure of the Americans to push the parties, particularly the Israelis, hard enough to reach a solution.

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1. Introduction

Context The dancing in the streets that accompanied the signing of the Oslo Accords in September 1993 stood in stark contrast to the thousands of deaths in the Al-Aqsa Intifada, the Palestinian uprising that marked Oslo’s failure two months after Camp David 2000 (CDII).1 In the Accords, Israel had recognised the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the PLO had recognised Israel, they had both committed to a peaceful resolution of their differences, and set a timetable for that resolution. Within five years they planned to reach a permanent settlement, and within two, to start negotiations on permanent status issues which would include ‘Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security arrangements, borders, and relations…with…neighbours’. A Palestinian Interim SelfGovernment Authority was to be set up and through a set of interim steps would gradually take over control of most of the West Bank (WB) and Gaza strip (GS).2 The basic understanding being that based on United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 242 (UNSCR242) the Israelis would relinquish land and the Palestinians would provide peace and security. Violent opposition, slow and patchy implementation and relentless settlement building saw both sides accused of breaching the deal, and the passing of two years was marked by the chief sponsor of Oslo, Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination rather than final status talks.3 Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-led government made slow progress for three years, and the proposal to revive the talks came only with Ehud Barak’s election in July 1999. This resulted in the CDII summit between July 11th and July 25th, five years behind schedule. Following CDII’s failure, the violence of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, added weight to the assertion that ‘there is no peace partner’ and the hopes of those that danced at Oslo’s announcement have gone unfulfilled for a generation.4

Methodology As David Hume established, causation, as a man-made concept, can never be proved.5 Nevertheless, Social Science makes the assumption that there is sufficient order in the social environment to be able to identify behavioural regularities in the past and to employ those regularities to predict the future to some degree.6 It is the regularities of the Arab-Israeli conflict highlighted at CDII that are the focus of this dissertation. Indeed, the elements of the negotiations featured here, namely, Jerusalem, the Right of Return (RoR), and the role of the United States (US), are, likely to be prominent in future deliberations between the parties.

1

Usher, 1999, p. 12, Bregman, 2016, pp. 221-264, Shlaim, 2013, p. 282 Abbas, 1995, pp. 225-240 3 Gazit, 2003, p. 285 4 Malley & Hussein, 2001, p. 1 5 Buckle, 2007 6 Lebow, 2010, pp. 12-3 2

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 In order to analyse the causes of the failure of CDII, I am asserting a counterfactual: that CDII would have succeeded if certain elements had been different. It is because they were not different that CDII failed. As Tetlock and Belkin put it ‘Counterfactual reasoning is a prerequisite for any form of learning from history’, ‘everyone does it and the alternative to an open counterfactual model is a concealed one.’7 Thus, it is my counterfactual assertion that had the US pushed the Israelis and Palestinians harder on the issues of Jerusalem and RoR, CDII could have succeeded. This dissertation adopts a constructivist paradigm. Through this lens, I focus on how issues of history, culture, identity, and competing narratives played a significant role in the failure of CDII. As was confirmed in my interviews, these issues are considered by the people involved in CDII to be at the core of its failure, rather than material/resource/military based concerns. This constructivist lens both guides and emerges from my research, wherein issues of national heritage, injustice, ethnic and religious symbols, and fundamental questions of identity of individuals and nations form the backbone of a complex situation on the ground. Several high-level Israeli participants interviewed by me, claimed that CDII was not a complete failure from an Israeli perspective. It allowed Barak, the Israeli Prime Minister, to show that the Chairman of the PLO, Yasser Arafat rejected a historically generous offer, thus gaining Israel empathy from the world. Israel avoided giving up any further territory due under the Oslo Accords, and progress was made by both sides in understanding the position of the other which will help in future talks.8 While these are all valid points, the intention of the summit was to bring together the leaders to forge a framework agreement for peace, and clearly, in this objective it failed. The CDII talks were held under the strict understanding that ‘Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’.9 Because everything was not agreed, nothing was agreed, so there are no official papers recording the deliberations. Each team was allowed 12 official participants, who were broken up into working groups on borders and security, refugees and Jerusalem, as well as numerous ad hoc side meetings.10 Analysing CDII therefore, is quite similar to collating a jigsaw puzzle with each participant shedding light on a different area. To enhance the lack of definitive sources, I carried out interviews with one member of the US and Palestinian teams and numerous members of the Israeli team including the prime minister.

Literature Review Much of what Itamar Rabinovich calls the “orthodox” literature on CDII effectively blames the failure on Arafat’s flawed character, typified by Ross, ‘Arafat could not do a deal that ended the conflict’.11 Some commentators fault the process, Rynhold and Kissinger both argue that the conflict was not ready for resolution, while Pundak argues Oslo was implemented too slowly.12 Klein blames a destructive dynamic between the parties, which in Oren Barak’s view could have been solved by utilising the literature on intergroup conflicts.13 Hinnebusch, Khalidi and Quant feel that the US

7

Tetlock & Belkin, p. 4 Barak E. , 2017, Ben-Ami, 2017, Sher, 2017 9 Sher, 2006, pp. 234-267 10 Swisher, 2004, pp. 254,272 11 Rabinovich, 2005, p. 14, Ross, 2005, p. 13, Clinton, 2005, pp. 943-4, Ben-Ami, 2005, p. 277, Yatom, 2016, p. 685, Barak E. , 2005, p. 119, Morris, 2002 12 Kissinger, 2001, p. 165, Rynhold, 2008, p. 128, Pundak, 2001 13 Klein, 2003, p. 3, Barak O. , 2005 8

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 should have pushed Israel more, an issue raised by all the participants I interviewed.14 Rabinovich’s “revisionists” and Palestinians point to the failed commitments and oppressive occupation leading to a background of mistrust, and to the inadequacy of the offer, particularly with regard to refugees and Jerusalem.15 This theme of Jerusalem and refugees being the problematic issues, however is to be found in the majority of accounts of CD, irrespective of where the blame is laid, for example BenAmi ‘Refugeeism, Jerusalem and Islamic values more than land and real estate were the insurmountable obstacles that prevented an agreement at Camp David’16 Given how many sources point to Jerusalem, refugees, and the role of the US, I have focused on these issues in seeking to understand the causes of the failure of CDII.

Security, Borders and Settlements Both Abu Ala and Gilead Sher emphasised to me that at the end of CDII there were gaps between the parties on all issues. For completeness, I briefly review here the issues not covered in more detail below.17 There was agreement that Palestine would be a “demilitarized state”, with helicopters, naval powers and a strong police force that would have an above ground safe passage route between Gaza and the WB. It would also have an air terminal, water desalination plants, and a pier at an Israeli port.18 Bill Clinton, with Barak’s consent, offered for the Israelis to annex 9% of the WB with a 1% swap opposite Gaza, the intention being for 80% of Israel’s settlers to remain on sovereign territory.19 In calculating territory percentages, Jerusalem was excluded from the calculations.20 Abu Ala gives the Palestinian position as no more than 4% of the WB for settlements and a further 1% for security enclaves.21 There would be shared airspace and airwaves. Israel required a presence in the Jordan Valley, two or three early warning stations on high ground, and five army bases for weapons storage and emergency troop deployment, and an international presence at border crossings.22 Martin Indyk expressed a common view, ’On the territorial and related security issues the two sides were very close to agreement’.23 Jerusalem and the refugee issue however, were highly contentious.

2) Jerusalem

What is Jerusalem?

14

Hinnebusch, 2015, p. 248, Khalidi, 2013, p. xii, Quandt W. , 2005, p. 381, Ben-Ami, 2017, Yatom, 2017, Barak E. , 2017, Sher, 2017, Qurie, 2017, Malley R. , 2017 15 Qurie, 2008, pp. 325-7, Sharif, 2009, p. 232, Shlaim, 2013, p. 283, Malley & Hussein, 2001, Arafat Y. , 2002, Swisher, 2004, Hanieh, The Camp David Papers, 2001, Said, 2004, Sontag, 2001, p. 83 16 Ben-Ami, 2005, p. 249, Sher, 2006, pp. 37,99, Clinton, 2005, pp. 915-6,943, Klein, 2003, p. 71, Bregman, 2015, p. 244, Barak E. , 2005, p. 145, Kurtzer, 2013, p. 116 17 Qurie, 2017, Sher, 2017 18 Sher, 2006, pp. 105,112 19 Ross, 2005, pp. 688,655 20 Sher, 2006, p. 112 21 Qurie, 2008, p. 251 22 Enderlin, 2002, pp. 245-6, Ross, 2005, pp. 702-3 23 Indyk, 2009, p. 339

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 Until the late 19th century, Jerusalem was a 0.9 square kilometer walled city whose gates were closed at night, and anything outside the walls was outside the city.24 It was a central point of focus for the three monotheistic religions, where Adam was created, King Solomon built his temple, Muhammad made his Night Journey to heaven and Jesus was crucified. From 1870 onwards, Jews formed a majority in the city but it was also well populated by both Christians and Muslims.25 The early Zionists, while naming their movement after Jerusalem (Zion being a synonym for Jerusalem), did not value the actual city.26 In accepting the principles of partition and the associated corpus separatum in both 1937 and 1947 the founders of Israel were similarly willing to sacrifice sovereignty over Jerusalem in order to achieve their goal of a Jewish State.27 While of less importance to these secular Zionists, Jerusalem does hold Jewish religious significance, being mentioned over 800 times in the Bible, whereas as Reuven Merav, possibly unhelpfully, told the Israeli team at CDII, the Koran does not mention it at all.28 Post-1947 while state-building, David BenGurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, focused on Jerusalem as a means of galvanizing the nation.29 What was vital in Ben-Gurion’s eyes was the emotional and historic links between Jerusalem and worldwide Jewry.30 As we will see, this holds an interesting parallel to the way Arafat saw Jerusalem as a vital link to hundreds of millions of Muslims.

Corpus Separatum The legal status of Jerusalem lacks clarity. In 1937 the Peel Commission recommended that distinct Jewish and Arab states be created, but that a trust be created over Jerusalem and its Holy Places under a permanent British Mandate.31 Similarly, the 1947 UN partition resolution declared ‘the City of Jerusalem shall be established as a corpus separatum’ administered by the UN Trusteeship Council for ten years and then reviewed by the Council following a referendum of residents.32 Both of these approaches incorporated the view that it was acceptable to prioritise the freedom to worship for hundreds of millions of devotees, over the right to self-determination of the, 150,000 in 1947, inhabitants of Jerusalem.33 The Arab-Israeli war of 1948 however, derailed the UN plan. By the time of the second truce on July 18th, the Israelis possessed the West of the city where the Jews had concentrated for the previous century, and the Jordanians controlled the, demographically Arab, East Jerusalem.34 The IsraeliJordanian armistice accord, signed 3rd April 1949 saw the effective implementation of partition. On 10th December David Ben-Gurion, the Israeli Prime Minister, declared “Jerusalem is an integral part

24

Seidemann, 2015, p. 20 In 1870 there were 11,000 Jews, 6,500 Muslims, and 4,500 Christians, rising to 34,400 Jews, 13,500 Muslims and 14,700 Christians in 1922, see Armstrong, 1996, p. 352 26 Patai, 1960, p. 753 27 sharef, 1962 28 Sher, 2006, p. 113 29 Slonim, 1994, p. 580 30 Brecher, 1978, p. 15 31 HMSO, 1937, pp. 381-2 32 UNGAR181(II), 1947, p. 146 33 Benvenisti, 1976, pp. 2-3 34 Armstrong, 1996, pp. 356-9, Radai, 2016, pp. 15-18 25

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 of the State of Israel and its eternal capital”.35 So, from early 1950, the UN viewed the whole of Jerusalem as a corpus separatum, while Israel viewed West Jerusalem as its capital and Jordan considered East Jerusalem its territory.

Status Quo The period between 1950 and 1967 saw Jews denied access to the Wailing Wall in the Old City. In 1852 the status quo regime establishing ownership and use of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim Holy Places was enshrined in an Ottoman firman, or Imperial Decree. With some modifications, the status quo still applies today. In 1929 a British Commission was called upon to interpret the status quo. It ruled that the Muslims have proprietary rights to the Wall and pavement in front of it, but that the Jews had the right of access to the Wall at all times.36 Article 8 of the Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement provided for the appointment of a Special Committee to consider issues where agreements in principle already existed specifying, among other things, access to: Mount Scopus,(Jewish) Holy Places and the (Jewish) cemetery on the Mount of Olives. After 1949, the Committee did not meet and thus access was denied. The denial of access to the Wailing Wall was a constant and bitter complaint from Israelis during this period.37 This tension over the status quo continued at CDII.

Unification The Six Day War from 5th to 10th June 1967 saw Israel more than quadruple the area of its land holdings, conquering the Sinai desert, the Golan heights, the GS and notably the WB which allowed for the unification of West and East Jerusalem that took place the same month.38 The unification was subject to challenge under international law as the 1907 Hague Convention Regulations preclude annexation unless it is as part of a peace agreement, as well as the UN position being that Jerusalem should be under UN trusteeship.39 The UN General Assembly declared the annexation invalid, and in response Abba Eban, Israel’s Foreign Minister, denied it was annexation and claimed these were simply administrative measures.40 This left open the possibility for an agreement with the Palestinians at CDII, approved by the UN, to endow sovereignty over Jerusalem under international law. The expansion of municipal Jerusalem in June 1967 in the ‘Jerusalem Declaration’ dramatically changed what was considered Jerusalem. 41 The Jordanian Arab municipality of East Jerusalem had been 6 square kilometers and contained the Old City and within that the Temple Mount/Haram AlSharif of 0.15 square kilometers. The new expanded borders of Jerusalem were drawn up so as to include all of the surrounding hilltops ‘so that the city would never again be at the mercy of enemy artillery batteries’, while at the same time attempting to limit the associated number of Arab 35

Golani, 1999, pp. 582-4 Wilson, 1970, pp. 119-120 37 Wilson, 1970, p. 79 38 Bregman, 2016, p. 95 39 Weizman, 2012, p. 97 40 Lapidoth & Hirsch, 1994, pp. 170-3 41 Lustick, 1997, p. 37 36

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 citizens. The additional area added 70 square kilometers to the existing 30 square kilometers of West Jerusalem, and included some or all of 28 Arab villages (see Map 1). 42 By 2000, the additional area housed 200,000 Arabs. Despite this area being a dramatically bigger area than any previous definition of Jerusalem, these boundaries soon ‘became part of a national myth which could not be questioned’.43 Between 1974 and 1977 public opinion polls found 77.2% of the Israeli population favouring sole Israeli rule over [expanded] Jerusalem, even at the cost of peace.44 The dilemma for the Israelis at CDII was how to reconcile the competing desires of retaining this expanded land while avoiding giving citizenship to the Arabs living there.45 This desire for this larger unified Jerusalem became so strong it hampered preparing for peace talks. In May 1999, Netanyahu initiated his election campaign with the message “Barak will make Jerusalem Capital of a Palestinian state”, while Barak affirmed “Jerusalem: united under our sovereignty, eternal capital of Israel, period”.46 As Barak told me “with Jerusalem, even the knowing that we are considering certain steps would be explosive politically”, “You cannot discuss it with the other side, and you cannot discuss it openly”.47

Resolution 242 Between 1947 and 1967 the UN grew from 57 to 123 members, with many of the new admissions being liberated colonies.48 In all likelihood this explains the UN’s shift in focus away from West Jerusalem and the corpus separatum, and towards liberating occupied East Jerusalem and reversing Israel’s purported 1967 imperial expansion. These new states were presumably keen to discourage any of their neighbouring states from similar encroachment. UNSCR242 issued November 1967 represented a new internationally accepted framework put forward by the superpowers for the settlement of the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours – ‘land for peace’.49 Emphasising ‘the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war’, it called for Israeli withdrawal ‘from territories occupied in the recent [1967] conflict’ in exchange for the ‘right to live in peace’. 50 This then formed the basis for all peace negotiations between Israel and its neighbours, with great emphasis placed by Arab leaders, including at CDII, on the precise borders immediately before the June 1967 war.

The Camp David Accords 1978 During the negotiation of the 1978 Camp David (CDI) Accords, Prime Minister Menachem Begin stated Israel’s position “Jerusalem is one City, indivisible the Capital of the State of Israel”, President Anwar Sadat stated Egypt’s “Arab Jerusalem is an integral part of the WB” and “should be under Arab sovereignty”, “Essential functions in the City should be undivided and a joint municipal council composed of an equal number of Arab and Israeli members can supervise the carrying out of these 42

Merhav, 2005, pp. 168-9 Benvenisti, 1976, pp. 112-3 44 Yishai, 1985, p. 47 45 Weizman, 2012, p. 48 46 Greenberg, 2009, p. 300 47 Barak E. , 2017 48 UN, 2017 49 Hinnebusch, 2015, pp. 192-3 50 S/RES/242(1967) 43

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 functions. In this way, the city shall be undivided.”51 While President Jimmy Carter referred to the US position that East Jerusalem is occupied territory in which the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention (Protection of Civilians in Time of War) applied, Israel’s actions are provisional, and Jerusalem’s future should be determined by negotiation.52 During the implementation of the CDI Accords, on 30th July 1980, Israel passed its basic law, which stated ‘Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel’. 53 The UN Security Council responded on the 20th August, ‘reaffirming that the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible’ and ‘that the enactment of the “basic law” by Israel constitutes a violation of international law, ……… is null and void and must be rescinded forthwith’, ‘constitutes a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East’ and called on ‘those States that have established diplomatic missions at Jerusalem to withdraw such missions from the Holy City.’54 The thirteen embassies that had been established there, duly left.55

The Opening Positions The initial US strategy at CDII was to follow the successful model employed at CDI, where a US framework agreement was proposed to the Israeli and Egyptian teams and then modified by the US team shuttling between two parties. A paper was duly prepared of the President’s “parameters” and on July 11th, day 1 of the summit it was discussed with, but not shown to, Barak and Arafat. Jerusalem was treated from three perspectives: on the practical level, the lives of its inhabitants had to be managed on a day-to-day basis – an undivided city for municipal services, with self-governing elected councils; on the religious level, there should be unimpeded access to the Holy Places for all religions; and on the political level there needed to be a border between Jerusalem and Al-Quds delineating sovereignty.56 Barak’s suggestion was to use a formulation, similar to that used in the Beilin-Abu Mazen Agreement, to create an expanded Zone of Jerusalem that took in the surrounding villages.57 This would allow for a Palestinian Capital, in Abu Dis, within the new Zone of Jerusalem, but outside the borders of the existing municipal borders of Jerusalem.58 Arafat’s solution simply focused on the existing boundaries, ‘East Jerusalem for us, West Jerusalem for the Israelis. It will be the capital of two states…… Nothing can be substituted for Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem.’59

51

Sadat & Begin, 1979, pp. 25-6 Quandt W. , 2016, p. 260 53 Wasserstein, 2001, p. 242 54 UNSC478, 1980 55 Lapidoth, 1994, p. 7 56 Ross, 2005, pp. 653-5, Yatom, 2016, pp. 604-5 57 Beilin, 2004, pp. 304-7 58 Qurie, 2008, p. 180 59 Enderlin, 2002, pp. 181-3 52

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 The first skirmish On day 3, July 13th, the parameters paper was presented to the two sides, but following discussions with Barak, rather than proposing solutions, it was watered down to an “I”/”P” paper, identifying the positions of the two sides and proposing a number of potential solutions.60 The paper included: ‘4. The Jerusalem municipal area will host the national capital of both Israel and the Palestinian State.’61 There is a lack of precise agreement in the literature as to the exact order of what happened next, but Barak expressed disappointment in Clinton because item 4 above was not expressed as a “P” position, and thus implied that it was a US position.62 By the time the paper was presented to Arafat, Dennis Ross had hand-written the word ‘expanded’ before ‘Jerusalem’.63 This obvious amendment, which now looked like a US position favouring the Israeli side, generated a good deal of anger on the Palestinian side with Arafat complaining to Madeline Albright, the US Secretary of State, of this ‘Israeli trick’.64 When asked by Saeb Erekat if the Palestinians could reject the US paper, Ross confirmed that they could, and they duly did, and in the meantime Clinton under pressure from Barak, had agreed to withdraw it.65

Brainstorming There was virtually no movement on Jerusalem over the next few days, and in fact things moved slightly backwards when Sandy Berger gave the Palestinians cause for concern by asking about a change to the status quo, ‘Why wouldn’t you agree that a certain number of Jews could pray on the Plaza [Haram Al-Sharif/the Temple Mount]?’.66 In Israel the pressure was mounting on Barak as Ariel Sharon, the head of the opposition Likud party, gathered 150,000 demonstrators in Rabin Square and demanded ‘I want to hear from CDII that Arafat has given up East Jerusalem and the Old City’.67 In an attempt to break the deadlock, it was agreed to have two delegates from each side, Ben-Ami and Sher for the Israelis, Erekat and Dahlan for the Palestinians to work overnight from just after midnight on day 6, 16th July.68 Arafat’s brief to his team was ‘The most important thing to me is Haram al-Sharif’.69 This overnight marathon achieved its objective, Ben-Ami exceeded his brief, and offered Palestinian sovereignty in some outer neighbourhoods that were inside municipal Jerusalem but outside of what was previously Jordanian East Jerusalem while Israeli sovereignty would be maintained in the inner neighbourhoods near the Old City (See Map 2). Custodianship over the Haram al-Sharif would be granted to the Palestinians by the UN and Morocco, but Israel would retain limited sovereignty.70

60

Ross, 2005, p. 659 Swisher, 2004, p. 267 62 Yatom, 2016, pp. 609-10, Dennis, 2005, pp. 660-2, Swisher, 2004, pp. 267-70, Bregman, 2015, pp. 229-30 63 Ross, 2005, p. 661 64 Albright, 2013, p. 488 65 Indyk, 2009, p. 308, Yatom, 2016, p. 611 66 Enderlin, 2002, pp. 203-4 67 Swisher, 2004, pp. 285-6 68 Sher, 2006, p. 72 69 Bregman, 2015, p. 232 70 Yatom, 2016, pp. 618-9, Enderlin, 2002, p. 207 61

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 The taboo of an undivided Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty had been breached. Erekat for the Palestinians said that they could accept sovereignty for Israel for the Jewish neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, including those in East Jerusalem, over the UNSCR242 defined 4th June 1967 line, and they would also give Israel sovereignty over the Wailing Wall.71 While the Palestinian response did breach the strict Palestinian interpretation of UNSCR242, it was not received by Barak, and Clinton concurred, as sufficient a response to the Israeli concessions so Clinton pushed Arafat for a more significant compromise.72 Arafat’s letter in response did not mention percentages, but did agree to reciprocal territory exchanges for settlements in the WB in a ratio [‘to be determined by the President’ according to Erekat, ‘to be agreed’ according to Qurie] assuming there was an agreement on East Jerusalem.73 Without sharing the letter, Clinton sold (Ross suggests oversold) this response to Barak as the serious concession they had been looking for, assuring him that ‘Arafat will come very close to your territorial needs, by which I take it will be somewhere between 8 and 10 per cent. He wants a swap, but only a symbolic one. He said if I think it is fair, he will think it is fair’.74 The US team announced that the following day Clinton would be holding talks with Barak and Arafat on Jerusalem, and this is where attention turned.

Peeling Back the Slogans The Palestinians focused on two potential outcomes: the first based on UNSCR242, the recognition of Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem with its capital there; the second based on UN Resolution 181, with Jerusalem declared an international corpus separatum.75 The Americans worked on the idea of conferring the status of a foreign embassy on the Temple Mount, which would preclude Israeli entry without Palestinian permission. In a deal that would involve the UN, the Vatican and the Jerusalem Committee of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the Israelis would grant the status to the UN, and the UN would in turn grant the status to the Palestinians. The Palestinians would be the Custodians of the Haram Al-Sharif in a similar way to that of the Saudis being the Custodians of the holy places in Mecca and Medina. The Israelis would nonethe-less retain nominal sovereignty.76 Barak called the entire Israeli team into what he described as a gut-wrenching debate on Jerusalem lasting from 1pm on the 17th until the early hours of the following morning. What emerged from this debate was a clear view of the benefits of dividing Jerusalem and giving Palestinians sovereignty over at least some Arab parts. ‘Ben-Ami suggests giving up 130,000 Arabs in the outer boroughs, whom we are currently paying hefty sums of money and who are skewing the demographic equilibrium we desire in Jerusalem’.77 Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, ‘Important parts of the present city aren’t part of my Jerusalem. It’s in Israel’s interest to place as many Palestinian citizens as possible under Arafat’s responsibility.’ Even Elkayim Rubinstein, seen as part of the right-wing, argued ‘We have to try to include as few Arabs as possible under our control…….we should free ourselves of control of 130,000 Arabs’. Dan Meridor was the only one to speak against breaking ‘a thirty-three71

Indyk, 2009, p. 312, Bregman, 2015, p. 233 Clinton, 2005, p. 914 73 Qurie, 2008, pp. 202-3 74 Ross, 2005, pp. 679-680 75 Qurie, 2008, pp. 203-5 76 Ross, 2005, p. 682, Indyk, 2009, p. 316 77 Weitz, 2007 72

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 year-old line of defense’. There were differing views on how to do so, but there was a grudging acceptance by most of the team of the idea that there would be no historic deal unless the Palestinians had at least some sovereignty in the Old City. It was with regard to the Temple Mount however, that the Israelis found their limit. As Oded Eran put it ‘Regarding the Temple Mount, in accordance with what our chief rabbis have said, we have no intention of worshiping there. Nevertheless, we must maintain our sovereignty’. Barak summed up the situation ‘it is clear that we will be united as we face the world, if we find that an agreement was not reached because of the issue of sovereignty over our First and Second Temple. This is the center of our existence, the anchor of the Zionist endeavor.’78 They had established the core red line on which CDII was destined to fail.

Barak’s “brave” offer While Barak had been given a reasonably broad mandate by his team, he still felt unable to make any further concessions without getting something more from the Palestinians.79 Thus the paper that Barak presented to Clinton at 1am on day 8, the 18th aggravated the President because it was a retrenchment from what had been proposed by Ben-Ami on the 16th and already rejected by Arafat. Now on offer was ‘sovereignty in only one of the outer Arab suburbs of Jerusalem and a corridor through the inner suburbs to a diplomatic compound in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City adjacent to the Haram al-Sharif. From there, Arafat would have unimpeded access to the Haram and its holy mosques, over which he would be granted custodianship’. As Martin Indyk puts it ‘He was gaming Arafat but he had angered Clinton in the process’. Within a few hours, however, Clinton had convinced Barak to countenance an offer that was ‘so bold and so far beyond what we had expected that the President was dazzled. Surely a breakthrough was within reach.’80 Clinton’s response was ‘Ehud, you’re the bravest person I’ve ever known, and if Arafat won’t accept this offer he needs psychiatric help’. Arafat’s response however, was not as positive. At midday, Clinton presented the offer as an American one since there had been no notetakers at their meeting and Barak had said he would not be able to confirm the conversation.81 The Palestinians would have full sovereignty over seven out of nine outer neighbourhoods in Jerusalem; the Israelis would retain residual sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif but the Palestinians would have custodianship granted through the UN and the OIC with the right to raise the Palestinian flag, the Jews would, however, have an area in which to pray on the Temple Mount; the Palestinians would have sovereignty over both the Muslim and Christian Quarters of the Old City, and while Israel would retain sovereignty over the Arab areas in the rest of the city, the Palestinians would be given responsibility for planning, zoning, and law-enforcement.82 Arafat’s response was ‘ I cannot go back to my people without Holy Jerusalem. I prefer to die under occupation than give concessions or accept servility’. Abu Ala summarises the Palestinian position as ‘We shall not exchange occupation for permanent Israeli sovereignty’.83 Arafat explained to Clinton further, ‘A billion Muslims will never forgive me if I don’t receive full sovereignty in East Jerusalem. I 78

Sher, 2006, pp. 75-79, Enderlin, 2002, pp. 217-224 Ross, 2005, p. 683 80 Indyk, 2009, p. 321 81 Qurie, 2008, p. 211 82 Yatom, 2016, pp. 638-9, Indyk, 2009, p. 322, Ross, 2005, pp. 688-9, Qurie, 2008, p. 322, Bregman, 2015, pp. 236-7, Sher, 2006, pp. 82-83, Clinton, 2005, p. 915 83 Qurie, 2008, p. 213 79

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 do not have a mandate to compromise. It’s not me, it’s the entire Muslim world.’84 Indeed, several weeks before CDII Saudi Arabian King Fahd had reminded Arafat that the Al-Aqsa Mosque was the third most holy place in Islam and belongs to all Muslims.85

Retrenchment While one can debate whether Jerusalem was the only issue on which CDII failed, the parties had now hit irreconcilable red lines which were destined not to be resolved at CDII, and indeed remain unsettled today. The current sovereign of the Temple Mount, the center of Jewish existence, the anchor of the Zionist endeavor, had met an overlapping demand for sovereignty over the Haram alSharif, the third most holy site in Islam and the focus of Palestinian nationalism. To save the talks the Americans proposed resolving all other issues but deferring the issue of Jerusalem for two years. Arafat’s response was to send a letter at 1.30am on the 19th suggesting that the summit be adjourned for two weeks while Arafat consulted widely.86 Clinton sought to sway Arafat to accept one of his two proposals with assistance from other Arab leaders, President Mubarak of Egypt, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah of Jordan and President Ben Ali of Tunisia, but only King Abdullah and President Ben Ali were willing to be helpful, and that resulted in them conveying Arafat’s complaints to the Americans rather than pressuring Arafat to accept Clinton’s proposals.87 Barak on hearing of the Palestinian letter, and considering a deferral an unacceptable outcome, announced that the Israeli team were leaving.88 Clinton was committed to go to the G8 meeting in Okinawa, but wishing to save the talks, he agreed with Barak that discussions would continue in his absence, in order to work out a solution on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. Barak insisted that other than this issue, Arafat must agree that formal talks will resume using Clinton’s proposals as a basis for negotiations.89 Clinton pushes Arafat for this commitment, but only elicited a refusal, a denial of the existence of a Jewish Temple on the site, and the claim that an acceptance would result in an invitation to Arafat’s funeral.90 Nevertheless, Clinton asked Arafat to stay and focus on a solution to Haram al-Sharif.91 Clinton’s departure left Madeline Albright on the morning of day 10, to deal with the very different understandings of Barak and Arafat of the basis on which things were proceeding, since Barak believed that Arafat had accepted the terms. Her solution was to announce ‘The President’s ideas are off,……….negotiate as if the President’s ideas are null and void’.92 This gave Barak the opening to withdraw his offer in the Old City and downgrade it to a special regime, with Israel retaining sovereignty.93

84

Sher, 2006, p. 84 Enderlin, 2002, p. 179 86 Qurie, 2008, p. 214 87 Indyk, 2009, p. 324 88 Enderlin, 2002, p. 233 89 Ross, 2005, p. 695 90 Freedman, 2009, p. 335 91 Indyk, 2009, p. 328 92 Bregman, 2005, p. 115 93 Ross, 2005, p. 702 85

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 A missed opportunity? The period of Clinton’s absence from 1.30am on the 20th to 6.30 pm on the 23rd, days 10 to 13, saw little progress in the talks. Barak, unhappy with the lack of commitment from Arafat, instructed his team not to hold formal discussions on Jerusalem or any other issues.94 There was an informal discussion on Haram al-Sharif on the 21st to explore potential solutions. Ben-Ami suggested a horizontal division of sovereignty – the Palestinians having sovereignty over the surface and upper areas, the Israelis the Temple Mount subterranean areas and the Western Wall. The concepts of “religious” and “administrative” sovereignty were developed, with the flying of a Palestinian flag and an office for the chairman discussed. A “Moroccan Compound” was considered, whereby Morocco could have a building within the compound, with the status of a diplomatic legation. They would then allow part of this building to be used as a synagogue.95 None of these suggestions were deemed viable solutions and according to Abu Ala, some were unhelpful, ‘the Israelis once more brought up the proposal that they should have sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif, and again began to talk about the preposterous suggestion that Jews should be allowed to pray there’.96 At one stage, it appeared that a deal might be in sight. George Tenet reported that Arafat was saying yes to Clinton’s proposals provided he also got, ‘the Armenian Quarter in the Old City and contiguity with sovereignty in all the inner neighbourhoods’.97 Given the parlous state of his Knesset coalition, Barak knew that the he would have to get any peace deal ratified by a referendum, so he was employing Stan Greenberg, a widely respected pollster, to conduct daily polls of Israeli voters as CDII was taking place. He reports growing support: ‘At the end of CDII, 45% of the Jewish population accepted a complete division of Jerusalem, with Palestinians having sovereignty over the Temple Mount; a majority supported it with the holiest sites internationalized. The idea of the Palestinian neighbourhoods becoming part of a capital of Palestine and creating a Greater Jerusalem grew from a near majority idea when first raised during the talks to a large majority by the end.’98 Dennis Ross’s response to the “qualified yes” that Arafat had given Tenet was that ‘Barak would certainly interpret this as a “no”.99 Given however, that Greenberg was not distinguishing between outer and inner Arab neighbourhoods in his questions, it would appear that if the indication that Arafat had given Tenet for a deal had been agreed upon, it might well have passed a referendum in Israel. By that point however, Barak was backtracking and the Israeli team were convinced that Arafat did not want a deal at CDII, and believing that Tenet was naïve in taking Arafat at face value.100

94

Bregman, 2005, pp. 114-7 Indyk, 2009, p. 330, Klein, 2003, p. 76, Lehrs, 2013, p. 33 96 Qurie, 2008, pp. 228-229 97 Ross, 2005, p. 702 98 Greenberg, 2009, p. 339 99 Ross, 2005, p. 702 100 Yatom, 2016, pp. 678-9 95

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 Failure The evening of July 24th saw the final positions laid out. Arafat made his position clear ‘I can’t betray my people. Do you want to come to my funeral? I’d rather die than agree to Israeli sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif…..I won’t go down in Arab history as a traitor. As I’ve told you, Jerusalem will be liberated, if not now then later: in five, ten or a hundred years…….’101 Clinton put forward his final proposals: the Palestinians would have full sovereignty in the outer neighbourhoods, limited sovereignty in the inner neighbourhoods; Israel would retain residual sovereignty on the Temple Mount [Palestinian accounts add, ‘with a place on the Plaza for Jews to pray’, Israeli/US accounts do not include this], but the Palestinians would have custodial sovereignty; the Old City could either have a special regime under Israeli sovereignty with a compound under Palestinian sovereignty for the use of its President or have the Muslim and Christian Quarters under Palestinian sovereignty and the Jewish and Armenian Quarters under Israeli sovereignty. At 2.30am on the 25th of July, Saeb Erekat handed the rejection letter to Bill Clinton and the parties accepted that the summit had failed to reach a final status agreement.102

A Clash of Cultures In signing the Oslo Accords in 1993, the Palestinians had acknowledged Israel’s right to exist on what was 78% of British Palestine, they felt that this was enough, they did not expect to make further compromises on the remaining 22%. It was disappointing for them that Clinton had not stuck at CDII to the previous official US policy that East Jerusalem was occupied territory. In the 1930s the Mufti of Jerusalem had taken a secular nationalism and given it broad popular appeal by focusing the Palestinian cause on two defining symbols, Al-Quds (Jerusalem) and the Haram al-Sharif. Arafat, in defending these places and denying Jewish claims, drew on this populism, likening himself to Saladin, the twelfth century Muslim leader that redeemed Jerusalem from the Crusaders. In prioritising what was important to a billion Muslims however, Arafat gave less importance to the objective of establishing a state for the Palestinian people. In making this decision it is possible that Arafat was swayed by (and during CDII often made reference to), the assassinations of President Sadat of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan, Arab leaders deemed by some to have made too many compromises for peace.103 As Barak explained to me, there is an expectation of give and take in all negotiations, if he was going to make big concessions and break the taboo of a united Jerusalem, then he expected to see some movement in his direction – albeit, he accepted that Israeli concessions would be greater.104 While the Palestinians did agree to sanction Jewish sovereignty over the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, the Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem, and swaps in the WB, for some reason these were not seen as evidence of movement. Ben-Gurion was seen as the role model for Barak but also as the role model that Arafat should be emulating. In order to establish the state of Israel in 1947, Ben-Gurion had relinquished his demand for Jerusalem. If he had foregone all of Jerusalem then Barak should be willing to give up some of it for enduring peace, and Arafat too should make painful sacrifices in order to establish his state.105 101

Enderlin, 2002, p. 253 Qurie, 2008, p. 245 Hanieh, 2001, p. 96, Ross, 2005, pp. 704-5, Sher, 2006, p. 114 103 Ben-Ami, 2005, pp. 256-9, Klein, 2003, p. 65 104 Barak E. , 2017 105 Indyk, 2009, p. 322, Yatom, 2016, p. 647 102

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 It is somewhat unfortunate that in the closing stages of CDII, both Israelis and Palestinians made claims that offended the cultural identity of the other side very deeply. While Jerusalem’s centrality to the Zionist dream meant that sovereignty over the two Temples could not be given up, going against the status quo and requesting an area for Jews to pray on the Temple Mount, Pundak suggests, was an unnecessarily provocative way to assert that sovereignty.106 Similarly, Arafat’s assertion that there were no Jewish Temples under the Temple Mount was likewise unduly incendiary.107 Neither of these claims seemed likely to deliver tangible gains in a final status agreement, but they did provide ammunition to opponents of CDII wishing to vilify the other side.

3) The Right of Return

1948 The 1948 war saw the creation of the Palestinian refugee issue, and diametrically opposing views on its origin. The UN’s November 1947 attempt to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine through partition failed.108 While accepted by the Jewish Agency, it was rejected by Hajj Amin al-Husseini the leader of the Arab Palestinians, and by the Arab League, the representative of six Arab states. Internal hostilities broke out immediately the UN resolution was passed, and escalated as the 100,000-strong army along with the various ministries of the British government gradually withdrew as the termination date for its rule approached. On Friday 14th May 1948, a day early to avoid Shabbat, the state of Israel was declared, and was swiftly recognised by the US and the Soviet Union. The following day, the Mandate terminated and the surrounding Arab states declared war. By the end of the war, over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs had been displaced with roughly 160,000 remaining within what had become Israel.109 For the Palestinians, this uprooting and dismemberment of their society with its associated dispersal, dispossession and statelessness was a Nakba (Catastrophe) which saw the name “Palestine” wiped from the map.110 This was an injustice that had begun with the arrival of Jewish Zionists at the end of the nineteenth century; was aggravated by the Great Powers when they usurped the right of the local population to self-determination in favour of a Jewish homeland through the British Mandate; and was continued with the unjust UN partition plan. The ensuing war was a just war of self-defense against the powerful Zionist invasion. During the hostilities, the betterprepared Jews deliberately expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs from their homes in line with their ethnic cleansing plan. Proof of this injustice was and remains Israel’s refusal to allow the refugees to return to their homes. This sense of unfairness is exacerbated by most Palestinians having had no influence on the initiation and development of the war, and seeing themselves as mere victims of it.111

106

Pundak, 2001, p. 42 Indyk, 2009, p. 325, Swisher, 2004, p. 305 108 UNGAR181(II), 1947 109 Bregman, 2016, pp. 10-21 110 Masalha, 2012, p. 1 111 Bar-Siman-Tov, 2014, pp. 62-3 107

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 The official Israeli explanation for the exodus was that the Palestinians had left either as a result of the war, or voluntarily, and Israel had no moral or practical obligation to consider a return. Given that the Arabs launched the war against Israel, they are responsible, not Israel. ‘Caught up in the havoc and tension of war; demoralized by the flight of their leaders; urged on by irresponsible promises that they would return to inherit the spoils of Israel's destruction, hundreds of thousands of Arabs sought the shelter of Arab lands’.112 Within Israel, any questioning of this explanation was taboo until the late 1980s when the “New Historians” changed this.113 Using Israeli archives they showed that while the initial flight was not planned and indeed came as a surprise to Jewish leaders, there was some veracity to the Palestinian version: population transfers had been discussed in 1930s Zionist debates; the Deir Yassin massacre was not an isolated event, there were others; there were some expulsions; most Palestinian Arabs left as a consequence of military action rather than under orders from Arab leaders; and a policy of no return was applied forcefully from June 1948.114 These ‘more balanced and truthful views’ as Benny Morris put it, opened the way for a discussion about narratives and Israeli acknowledgement, during subsequent peace talks.115

The number of refugees

Every aspect of the RoR is disputed, including the number of refugees. The number used by Arab officials from 1949 was 900,000 while the Israelis quoted ‘about 520,000’. The consensus estimate appears to be a little over 700,000.116 The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) which provides (60% education) services to Palestinian refugees estimated the number at 3.7m in 2000.117 Unlike other refugees, Palestinian refugee status is passed to descendants and maintained even after acquiring a new nationality.118 According to Israeli academic Ruth Lapidoth, using the more common definition, there would be well below half a million Palestinians qualifying for refugee status at CDII.119 Most of the refugees in Jordan for example (see Table 1) have Jordanian citizenship.120

Jewish Refugees and Asset Claims The hostile Arab reaction to the UN partition resolution was not limited to aggression within Israel, Jews were attacked across the Middle East. On 2nd December 1947, a Muslim mob attacked the Jewish Quarter in Aden, leaving 82 Jews dead and 106 of 170 Jewish-owned shops destroyed. In the same month, the Syrian government denied Jewish citizens civil protection, leading to the destruction of all of Aleppo’s 18 synagogues and the flight of 6,000 of its 7,000 Jewish residents. In Egypt, 600 Jews were arrested, as the Israeli state was declared and their property sequestered, 112

Eban, 1958 Morris, 1988, p. 15 114 Morris, 2012 115 Hirsch, 2007, Morris, 1988, p. 27 116 Morris, 2012, pp. 602-3 117 Dumper, 2007, p. 44 118 UNGAR428(V), 1950, p. 10, UNGAR302(IV), 1949,www.unrwa.org 119 Lapidoth, 2002 120 Chiller-Glaus, 2006, p. 86 113

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 while 18 Jews were murdered in Libya. In June in Cairo bombs were thrown in the Jewish Quarter killing 22 and wounding 41.121 This antagonism led to 800,000 of the 870,000 Jews leaving Arab states by 1972, often having to relinquish their homes and possessions in the process.122 Historically, the Israelis sought to offset the claims of these Jewish refugees against the claims of the Palestinian refugees and was raised at CDII. This policy was initiated when Iraq sequestered the assets of 120,000 Iraqi Jews allowed to leave and fly to Israel in 1950.123 In August 1952, Israel’s Registrar of Foreign Claims had detailed US$87m (in 1952 Dollars) of Israeli losses in Arab lands, while the previous year, the UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine (UNCCP) estimated Palestinian land losses at P£100m (US$405m in 1947 Dollars) and moveable assets at P£20m (US$81m). Thus, it would appear that Palestinian claims were significantly greater than Israeli ones, however, the Jewish migration took place over a longer period, with only approximately 260,000 people leaving immediately after 1948124. Jewish claims grew substantially with the Jewish exodus from Egypt following the 1956 Suez crisis, with losses estimated between US$300m and $500m (in 1957 Dollars).125

The Evolution of the Palestinian Approach to Return Until the 1973 war, PLO strategy was contrary to UN resolutions and focused on annihilating Israel and reclaiming all of pre-1948 Palestine. There was no reason for a RoR since they planned to control the territory they wanted to return to.126 It was only after this war that their strategy shifted to one of tacitly accepting the 78% of Mandatory Palestine lost to Israel in 1948 and shifted to establishing a Palestinian state on the territory captured by Israel in 1967 i.e. East Jerusalem, the WB and the GS (22% of Mandatory Palestine). 127 The Intifada in December 1987 surprised the PLO, and given its objective to “shake off” the Israeli occupation [of East Jerusalem, the WB and the GS], sealed the move to territorial compromise.128 Hence, the PLO statement ‘On the Intifada’ emphasized ‘ending the nightmare of the occupation and liberating the Al-Aqsa Mosque’.129 This change was formalized by the Palestine National Council in 1988 adopting UNSCR242 and calling ‘for the settlement of the issue of Palestinian refugees in accordance with the pertinent UN resolutions [particularly 194]’.130 From then on the PLO adhered to the legitimacy of UN resolutions, and sought to rely on them at CDII.

The Current Palestinian Perspective on the Right of Return (RoR) There is no authoritative definition of the Palestinian RoR, yet it is a central element of both the individual and collective Palestinian identity. It represents the righting of a historic injustice, the return to their places of origin and former homes of all Palestinians and their descendants, the

121

Gilbert, 2011, pp. 209-224 Fischbach, 2014, p. 153, Gilbert, 2012, p. 48 gives a breakdown by state 123 Dumper, 2007, p. 35 124 Fischbach, 2013, pp. 246-7 125 Levin, 2001, p. location 2067 of 3730 126 PNC, 1968 127 PNC, 1974 128 Pearlman, 2014, p. 94 129 PLO, 2008, p. 316 130 Arafat Y. , 1989 122

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 ingathering of the Palestinian diaspora to their native land and the recognition and realization of the national rights of the Palestinian people.131 The annual Nakba Day commemorations keep this sense of injustice current. As discussed above, since 1988 the “right” has been grounded in December 1948 UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (UNGAR194). This resolution restates the proposal of a UN trusteeship over Jerusalem and, ‘Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible’132 It is worth noting a few things about this resolution. Firstly, the purported RoR is limited to and conditional on individuals wishing to ‘live in peace with their neighbours’ i.e. giving up all belligerency against Israel. Secondly, it admits to the possibility of individuals ‘choosing not to return’ and accepting compensation instead, thus opening the way to a compromise whereby not all refugees are expected to return. Thirdly it makes no specific reference as to where return will be to. Thus, in accepting UNGAR194, the PLO was giving itself room for compromise on this issue.133 The difficulty from the Israeli perspective in settling the issue however lies in the Palestinian desire to have Israel accept its responsibility for its role in the unjust expulsion, acknowledge this in a tangible way by directly compensating the refugees for physical loss as well as recognizing the loss and suffering in terms of dignity, status and identity.134 Several Palestinian thought leaders have sought to surface the idea that Israel must accept the principle of the RoR of refugees to their homes but Palestinians must accept that in practice this will be mainly be a return to national soil, and actual return to Israel will be limited.135 An April 1997 poll stating ‘The refugees would have the right to return to the Palestinian state only, but a small agreed upon number would be allowed to return to Israel. Those not returning to Israel would be compensated for properties lost in 1948 and for material and non-material damages done to them. They are also rehabilitated. The Palestinian insistence on the right of return, as a principle, would not be given up’. received 54.5% support, with 41.5% opposing.136 Thus it would appear that going into the negotiations, that if the Palestinian negotiators could convince the Israelis to accept the RoR in principle, they had reason to believe that they had scope to be conciliatory on the actual implementation in practice.

The Israeli Perspective on the Right of Return (RoR) For Israelis, the RoR is not a right, and represents both an unwarranted admission of guilt and an existential threat. As discussed above, since it did not start the war, Israel does not see itself as morally responsible for the creation of the refugee problem, and accepting a RoR would be an 131

Khalidi, 1992 UNGAR194(III), 1948 133 Khalidi, 1992, p. 36 134 Molloy, Bell, Waintraub, & Anderson, 2013, p. 193 135 Brynen, 1998, pp. 8-9 136 CPRS, 1997 132

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 admission of guilt. As well as the moral issue, which questions Israel’s legitimacy and whether it was “born in sin”, there is also a legal concern. If Israel were to take partial responsibility by accepting the principle of a RoR, irrespective of any limitations that a state-level agreement might try to place, the admission might open the way to thousands or even hundreds of thousands of individual legal claims based on Israel’s culpability. This would render ineffective one of Israel’s primary goals from a peace agreement, the end of all claims.137 As Barak well knew, and I discuss further below, for most Israelis, the reason that the RoR is taboo is that it could destroy the Jewish democratic majority of the state. At the time of CDII Ron Pundak identified a suspicion in, ‘the vast majority of the Israeli public’ of a Palestinian intention ‘to eradicate the Jewish state using the Trojan horse in the form of the RoR’.138 With regard to UNGAR194, the Israelis question where the concept of a “right” is enshrined. Under the UN Charter, the General Assembly cannot pass binding resolutions in such matters, that power is reserved for the Security Council. The resolution states that the refugees “should” be “permitted” to return, the “should” indicating that this is a recommendation, and the “permitted” indicating that the return requires Israel’s permission.139 Israelis thus do not acknowledge any rights, and tend to view the issue of refugees purely as a humanitarian one, but as Barak told me, they have always been willing to admit a few thousand refugees each year under a family reunification program.140

Refugee Discussions at CDII The issue of refugees is associated with significant divergence between public rhetoric and the reality of the negotiations. It is perhaps understandable that the national discourse should appear highly contested. The issues raised are central to each sides’ core narrative, and given the leaders’ needs to appear strong and loyal to their constituencies, one can understand how the impression of irreconcilable differences can be generated. As a result, ‘if you asked most Israelis today why CDII failed, they would say refugees’ while in fact, as we shall see, there are indications from many sources that if Jerusalem had been resolved, so too would have been the refugees.141

Opening Positions At first sight, the opening positions at CDII appeared irreconcilable. In a letter to Clinton on the eve of the summit, Arafat laid out how he envisaged the RoR being implemented. This would be based on UNGAR194, and involve an international committee sending a questionnaire to every refugee registered with UNRWA asking them if they wished to return to: 1) Israel, or 2) Palestine, or alternatively receive compensation and either, 3) remain in their host country or, 4) move to a third country. Each refugee would have an assessment for compensation due for: loss of property; prolonged suffering; dispossession; and the reconstruction of family livelihood. The committee would ‘specify the number of refugees returning to Israel’, and then schedule, organise and implement their return. It would similarly assist absorption to other destinations. The committee would run a compensation fund drawing on the data of the ‘administrator of the property of 137

Molloy, Bell, Waintraub, & Anderson, 2013, pp. 192-3 Pundak, 2001, p. 42 139 Lapidoth, 2002 140 Barak E. , 2017 141 Ginosar, 2005, p. 51 138

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 absentees in Israel’. [Unlike Israel] the state of Palestine will have sole sovereign control of the return to it.142 In the opening stages of CDII however, Arafat simply stated, ‘We want the principle of the RoR to be laid down [and agreed] and afterwards we can talk about the practical details of its implementation. It’s impossible for all the refugees to come back, since some of them are settled in the countries they live in.’143 There appeared no common ground with the Israeli position, the principle of RoR to Israel would not be accepted, ‘Palestinian refugees would not be granted the RoR to places under Israeli sovereignty under any circumstances, nor would Israel accept any ethical or legal responsibility for the fact that a refugee problem exists’.144 The US took an initial position close to the Israelis’, believing that the RoR to Israel was not consistent with a two-state solution, but that it was important to find practical ways to improve the lives of the refugees and to be able to claim the principle of a RoR ‘there will not be a right of return to within the borders of Israel, but to Palestine, and after the solution is settled, we need to find a way to implement it’.145

Progress on Tangibles Israel was represented on the refugee sub-committee by Elyakim Rubenstein and Dan Meridor both known as hardliners, while Nabil Sha’ath and Yasser Abed Rabbo spoke for the Palestinians, both refugees themselves. As a result, much of the time was spent arguing about what happened in 1948 and who was responsible.146 Nevertheless, ‘in terms of a practical solution, there was a substantial area of agreement between the sides, which included an international mechanism that would bear the responsibility for resolving the refugees issue’.147 Amnon Kapeliok reports Yasser Abed Rabbo asserting a 1949 tripartite committee property claim [no source provided] of £1.1bn from the Israeli fund for Abandoned Palestinian Property. Rubenstein responded ‘These funds no longer exist……It is up to the international community to create funds for this’.148 There appeared to be agreement on this fund, with Clinton mentioning a cap of $10-20bn149 Israel would contribute to this fund, and would provide permits for Palestinians to work in Israel.150 While there would be no RoR to Israel, 1,000 people a year for ten years could become citizens on the grounds of family unification, and solutions for the roughly 300,000 refugees in Lebanon were

142

Qurie, 2008, pp. 164-9 Enderlin, 2002, p. 181 144 Shamir & Maddy-Weitzman, 2005, p. 37 145 Yatom, Labyrinth of Power, 2016, p. 613 146 Hanieh, 2000, pp. 39-40 147 Sher, 2006, p. 103 148 Kapeliouk, 2000, p. 3 Kapeliouk implies in parentheses that Rabbo’s claim was in 1949 prices, but this assertion appears inconsistent with the UNCPP data discussed above. Levin in 2001 reports £100m in 1947 as $3bn [£2bn] in 2001 Levin, 2001, p. location 3289 of 3730. 149 Sher, 2006, p. 103, Bregman, 2015, p. 226 150 Yatom, 2016, p. 678 143

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 discussed.151 Ideas were debated such as how to provide incentives for the different refugee options.152 The issue of compensation for Jewish refugees was raised, with the Palestinians asserting that the issue should be brought up with the individual countries concerned.153 The compromise suggested was again that these claims could be made on an international fund.154 While the refugee committee appeared to be making good progress, on Jerusalem, the talks were stalled. In the absence of progress there, Arafat forbade Sha’ath from further discussing the compensation fund and thus the refugee talks also stalled.155

Barak needs an explanation Once DCII was over, Barak, facing a diplomatic failure, sought to turn it into a political victory by appealing to Israeli core fears.156 A common theme in the dominant Israeli identity is victimisation and existential threat. Michael Barnett identifies three out of four constitutive strands of the Israeli character as: the Jewish religion, Zionist nationalism, and the Holocaust.157 Judaism has a long history of oppression as the enemies of Christ.158 Zionism, emerged as a response to European persecution, and the Holocaust was clearly a traumatic survival threat.159 Thus, there is a tendency for Israelis to view the Arab-Israeli conflict from the perspective of ‘persecution suffered by Jews’.160 Barak’s explanation resonated with this, ‘When Israelis talk about a vision of “two states for two peoples”….we talk about a Palestinian state that expresses the identity, history, personality and aspirations of the Palestinian people, alongside a Zionist and democratic State of Israel, which expresses the same thing with respect to the Jewish people. Arafat’s vision however was quite different. He envisaged the same Palestinian state I described, alongside a state by the name of Israel, whose democracy and tolerance would be exploited over the years to gradually create a binational state and, subsequently, an Arab state that contains a Jewish minority. This would be achieved through the implementation of the RoR…….it was a vision of perpetual clash, and as such did not leave room for peace’.161 AS well as by Pundak above, Barak’s depiction was echoed by respected author Amos Oz in a New York Times article on 28th July 2000 ‘we all very well know that around here “RoR” is an Arab euphemism for the liquidation of Israel’.162 Dan Meridor’s diary entry for the 20th July 2000 added to the negative interpretation, ‘Nabil [Sha’ath] spoke about the hundreds of thousands of refugees who would return to Israel, and added, by the way, that hundreds of thousands could be anywhere from

151

Yatom, 2016, pp. 616, 668-9, Sher reports Barak as willing to let in 20,000 but starting at 7,000 to 10,000 as an opening offer, Sher, 2006, p. 99 152 Qurie, 2008, p. 228 153 Swisher, 2004, p. 324 154 Fischbach, 2006, p. 93 155 Enderlin, 2002, p. 252 156 Malley R. , 2017 157 Barnett, 2002, p. 63 158 O'brien, 2015, p. 32 159 Klieman, 2005, p. 86 160 Barnett, 2002, p. 64 161 Barak E. , 2005, p. 119 162 Chiller-Glaus, 2006, p. 189

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 200 thousand to many millions’.163 Barak’s portrayal was so successful that at a CDII conference Yossi Ginosar stated ‘If asked, most Israelis would now cite RoR as the primary reason [for CDII’s failure]’164

There was a solution While Barak’s messaging was highly effective in terms of widespread public adoption, it does not appear consistent with the assessment of many of those close to the negotiation, who believed that Arafat would give up the RoR in exchange the right deal on Jerusalem. Matti Steinberg, a leading Israeli expert on Palestinian affairs, was one of the very few people exposed to, and asked to assess Barak’s planned offer immediately prior to CDII. He explains that having given up on 78% of the land in 1988, the residual 22% Palestinian land, split as it would be between the WB and Gaza, and broken up by Israeli settlements, would have a miserable status, ‘the only thing that can grant it importance, as an attraction to Muslims outside, would be Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. So, the strategic trade-off, was between Jerusalem/Temple Mount and the refugees. The moment that Barak presented a position which was clashing with this specific tradeoff, the deal became impossible’. Steinberg’s view was that Arafat would give up on the RoR as long as he got what he needed on Jerusalem. This did not mean Arafat would simply abandon the refugees, he would require justifiable solutions, particularly for those in Lebanon, however his view is clear, ‘if you look at Barak’s reaction in the wake of the failure, he pointed to the return of the refugees. This was not the issue’.165 Shlomo Ben-Ami, the Israeli chief negotiator at CDII, held a very similar view. As well as identifying the status issue, he also points out that as a religious Muslim, Arafat also had an emotional attachment to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. He cited Mouhamed Dahlan to me in confirming Steinberg’s strategic trade-off analysis, similarly pointing out that Arafat still needed a solution for the refugees of Lebanon and would want to be able to point to ‘some kind of return’ for others.166 This view is consistent with Malley and Hussein’s report of Arafat asking Clinton just before CDII to ‘give [him] a reasonable deal [on the refugee question] and then see how to present it as not betraying the RoR’.167 Similarly Sher reports, ‘I personally – and I believe this is true for the rest of the Israeli negotiators – never heard Arafat himself demand the implementation of the RoR for Palestinian refugees in Israel proper’.168 Indeed, post-CDII Arafat indicated a willingness to ‘take into account Israeli demographic concerns’.169 Confirming this view, ‘After CDII several Palestinians conceded, off the record, that Arafat had been willing to accept a limited RoR, in all likelihood within the symbolic strictures of “family unification”….so long as the Palestinians received recognition of that right’. Claiming he would say “There is no reason to go live in Israel now. Come home and help us build the state we have”. 170 163

Weitz, 2007 Ginosar, 2005, p. 51 165 Steinberg, 2017 166 Ben-Ami, 2017 167 Malley & Agha, 2002 168 Sher, 2006, p. 102 169 Arafat Y. , 2002 170 Swisher, 2004, p. 282 164

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 In his “unofficial summary” of CDII, Abu Ala outlines his (and he believes the Palestinian) ‘conception of the position reached’ which is very close to that proposed by the Israelis: There will be funds for resettlement, rehabilitation and compensation of refugees. Subject to agreements with the states concerned, there will be a choice for refugees to make between, Palestine, Israel, host countries, or other countries such as Canada or Australia. Any return to Israel will be part of a family reunion programme, and priority to be given to those born in historic Palestine. A fund will be established to provide accommodation and employment in Israel for 250,000 refugees from camps in Lebanon such as Burj Al-Barajneh, Sabra and Shatilla. The area used in this provision will be land that is currently part of Israel but which is to be ceded to Palestine as part of the exchange of territory. All of this will fulfill UNGAR194 and bring an end to all claims.171 Possibly the most convincing evidence that the RoR was resolvable comes from Barak himself, when I interviewed him. He explained that given how old those born in Israel in or before 1948 now are, ‘who cares’ if up to 100,000 people come over a period of ten or fifteen years, they won’t be around for forever. They don’t give up the RoR, we don’t accept it, but we agree on certain technicalities. ‘It was clear that we can find something [a solution]’.172

4) The Role of the US

A common issue raised by the CDII participants I interviewed was the role of the US. At the end of the Cold War, the US was the world’s largest economy and arguably the world’s only superpower, thus it could offer both financial and military resources and influence that were attractive to all parties. Clinton and Barak shared pollsters and two thirds of the US team were American Jews.173 Thus there was a natural tendency for the US team to understand and empathise with Israeli positions. This was evident both in the timing of when CDII was held and in the positions taken by Clinton during the summit. This contributed to Barak being able to assert his vision over the timing, format and standpoints taken during CDII, with Clinton tending to acquiesce to Israeli pressure.174 There are differing views as to whether or not a final status agreement could have been met at CDII, but some of the senior participants speculate that had the US displayed a more balanced perspective and more vigorously asserted its will, a solution was within reach.175 Indeed Gilead Sher’s book on CDII is titled ‘Within Reach’.176

The attractions of the US Yatom gives an insight into why the US is an attractive arbitrator. He was allocated the role during CDII of negotiating with Bruce Riedel, requesting the US financial and security contribution. This

171

Qurie, 2008, pp. 252-4 Barak E. , 2017 173 Freedman, 2009, pp. 332-3 174 Sher, 2006, p. 86 175 Shamir & Maddy-Weitzman, 2005 176 Sher, 2006 172

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 included a non-conventional weapons defense alliance (an attack on Israel being considered an attack on the US), Tomahawk cruise missiles and the F-22 future combat aircraft, as well as: ‘$2.5bn to redeploy the Israeli Defense Force (IDF); $1bn in compensation for the loss of capabilities and territory in the form of intelligence and long range weapons; $1bn towards roads and bridges that would allow contiguous movement for the Palestinians;$1bn for safe passage between Gaza and the WB; $1bn for the borderline between Israel and the Palestinians; $10bn for construction of desalination plants and the separation of infrastructure (water, electricity) between the Israelis and Palestinians; $3bn towards strengthening the IDF; and $2bn for infrastructure in Jerusalem.’ On July 18th, Clinton responded to these requests - which excluded the costs of resolving and rehousing the refugees ($10bn or more) and settlers ($10bn) saying ‘he would give Israel $18bn out of the $32bn asked for, and the rest he would try to recruit from the rest of the world. Clinton also agreed to starting to formulate a defense treaty’177

The Decision to go On his election day 17th May 1999, Barak declared he was determined to fulfill Rabin’s legacy [of completing the final status peace agreement envisaged in the Oslo Accords].178 While this may have sounded positive from a Palestinian perspective, disappointments were to follow. Barak had voted against the Oslo accords because he did not agree with their gradualist approach, and his opinion had not changed.179 From his perspective, if he gave concessions in the run-up to CDII then he would lose the political capital necessary to get the final agreement approved in a referendum. If a final status agreement was signed, then the Palestinians would receive everything that they expected from the interim stages, while if no agreement was signed then he would avoid looking like a “sucker”.180 Thus Barak deferred the outstanding troop redeployments and prisoner releases, that had been agreed by his predecessor Netanyahu, and negotiated a new timetable in an agreement signed at Sharm al-Sheikh. In the course of implementing this revised agreement, Clinton assured Arafat (based on a pledge from Barak) that three villages would be transferred to Palestinian control, Abu Dis, with its view of the golden Dome of the Rock on the Haram Al-Sharif, Eizariya and Ram. A combination of dissention in Barak’s coalition and violence that saw Palestinian security forces firing on Israeli soldiers, led to this promise being broken. Further disappointments for the Palestinians were to come. Rather than the agreed 350 prisoners, only 3 were released. The outstanding, third further redeployment (FRD) due on June 23rd 2000, after which Arafat believed he would control 91% of the WB and GS, was deferred until the CDII talks. The Israelis believed this third FRD would only take the Palestinians up to 50% from their existing 40% but nevertheless, Barak preferred to conserve his political capital for the final talks.181 While holding back on these commitments bolstered Barak’s domestic standing, they concomitantly undermined Arafat’s. Barak left the Palestinians sidelined as he first pursued a peace agreement

177

Yatom, 2016, pp. 605-9,635, Enderlin, 2002, p. 198 Greenberg, 2009, p. 304 179 Kurtzer, 2013, p. 121 180 Malley & Hussein, 2001, p. 2 181 Ross, 2005, pp. 508,627,632,592-602 178

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 with Syria and only returned to them once it had failed.182 Aside from the public non-delivery of commitments, Arafat’s peaceful strategy of following the Oslo process was further subverted by Israel’s May 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon, which was seen by Palestinians as a victory for Hezbollah and evidence that violence is the only way to prompt an Israeli withdrawal.183 Thus, the decision to hold the summit saw the participants with somewhat different perspectives. Barak told me that he anticipated there was only a 50/50 chance of achieving agreement: bringing peace would be an historic success, making him the modern-day Ben Gurion; but even failure, with its likely outbreak of violence would bring advantages, he would save making any further concessions due under Oslo, and if he could show Arafat’s “true face” this would improve Israel’s standing in world opinion.184 For Arafat, they were preceded by let-downs, but good-faith talks at CDII were a price he had to pay in order to get the third FRD despite his concern that ‘you [Ross/the US] will just take his [Barak’s] side’.185 For Clinton in the final six months of his Presidency, a legacy of an historic peace was clearly an attraction, as was avoiding the violence predicted in the absence of an agreement. Barak’s willingness to make unprecedented moves, and Clinton’s inherent optimism meant as Madeline Albright put it, he was ‘reluctant to substitute his judgement for that of an Israeli prime minister so determined to make history’.186 This deferral to Barak was both a reason for going to CDII, but perhaps also a cause of its failure.

No Honest Broker Clinton met with Arafat 13 times before CDII, thus he was well-versed in the issues of the ArabIsraeli conflict, and more familiar with the PLO Chairman than any other US President.187 Given this relationship, Clinton was well-placed to be seen as an even-handed broker arbitrating between the two sides, and indeed at one stage during the talks, Arafat told him ‘you are my only friend…..you are the only one I can talk to’.188 However there are numerous factors that pushed the Americans closer to Israeli views. The predominantly Jewish composition of the US team undoubtedly gave more influence to Barak on the president’s positions.189 This didn’t necessarily mean a deliberate Israel bias, more that the team had a good understanding of the issues from an Israeli perspective, and less so that of the Palestinians.190 This was enhanced by a commitment first given by Henry Kissinger, and reiterated before CDII by Madeline Albright, never to take or present any position on the Arab-Israeli conflict without prior coordination with Israel, thus the Israelis always had the first opportunity to have their views incorporated by the Americans.191 The Israel lobby is ‘one of the most powerful interest groups in

182

Bregman, 2015, p. 202 Pearlman, 2014, p. 146, Beilin, 2004, p. 146, Ben-Ami, 2005, p. 265 184 Barak E. , 2017 185 Dennis, 2005, pp. 632-3 186 Miller, 2009, p. 295, Indyk, 2009, pp. 304-5 187 Podeh, 2015, p. 299 188 Bregman, 2005, p. 99 189 Sher, 2006, pp. 86-7 190 Malley R. , 2017, Ben-Ami, 2017 191 Helmick, 2004, p. 146, Bregman, 2015, pp. 228-9 183

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 the US’ and thus as Saeb Erekat puts it ‘Israel is a participant in political life in the US’ and so, in their instinctive stances, American politicians and diplomats are pro-Israel.192 Aside from these institutional influences, the Americans and Israelis also share certain cultural characteristics. The American team were either Jewish or Christian, none were Muslims, so they had shared religious beliefs with the Israelis at least to the point where the Old Testament ended. Thus, Arafat’s suggestion that there had never been a temple on the Temple Mount challenged Clinton’s personal beliefs, and Sandy Berger could not see any offense caused by the suggestion that the status quo be broken and Jews be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount.193 The Americans and Israelis share a commercial culture that sees negotiations as founded on offers and counter-offers, the lack of a clear counter-offer from the Palestinians was thus offensive to both teams.194 Barak and Clinton sharing the same pollster, Stan Greenberg, meant that Clinton had very close feedback on the feelings of the Israeli electorate, but no such source for the Palestinians.195 All these issues led to a general feeling on the Palestinian side that the US was far closer to the Israelis than them and thus not an impartial honest broker. As Abu Ala told me, ‘Dennis [Ross] is tougher than the Israelis’ and as Akram Hanieh describes it, ‘the Israeli delegation and the American peace team coordinated step by step and word by word. ‘At CDII, the Americans showed themselves, through the positions they adopted, to be incapable of being an “honest broker”.’ 196

Abandoning 242 The departure during CDII of US policy from UNSCR242 was a source of tension with the Palestinians.197 One of the impacts of Barak’s decision to negotiate with Syria first, was to emphasise to the Palestinians, the importance of UN Security Council Resolutions concerning relinquishing conquered territory. The talks with Syria failed because Barak did not offer Hafez al-Assad, the Syrian president, the latter’s interpretation of UNSCR242.198 While the Israelis went to great lengths to ensure their subsequent withdrawal from Lebanon complied with the border defined in UN Security Council Resolution 425.199 The peace agreement with Egypt in 1978 had similarly followed strict UNSCR242 lines.200 Thus, the American departure from their official policy that in accordance with UNSCR242 East Jerusalem is occupied territory, was a disappointment for the Palestinians. The Americans instead focused on a compromise of border modifications that could accommodate 80% of Israeli settlers.201 When the Palestinians sought to assert compensation in terms of one for one territorial swaps for Jerusalem’s 26 square kilometers of Jewish neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, the Americans did not support them. 202 Disagreement over the application of UNSCR242 also led to one of the more dramatic moments of CDII in the working group on territory. In response to an Israeli map giving the Palestinians 76% of 192

Mearsheimer & Walt, 2007, pp. 4-6, Enderlin, 2002, p. 254 Enderlin, 2002, p. 203, Alpher, 2016, p. 74 194 Malley & Hussein, 2001, p. 8 195 Greenberg, 2009, p. 338 196 Qurie, 2017, Hanieh, 2001, p. 84 197 Swisher, 2004, p. 274 198 Peri, 2006, pp. 93-4 199 Helmick, 2004, p. 230 200 Quandt W. , 2016, pp. 250-2 201 Swisher, 2004, p. 274 202 Klein, 2003, p. 75 193

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 the WB immediately and an additional 14% at an indeterminate time in the future, Abu Ala was insisting on the principle of 4th June 1967 (ie UNSCR242) lines, effectively claiming that the Palestinians should get 100% of the WB, with one for one equivalent land swaps for any Israeli settlements or security bases.203 Clinton, frustrated at the lack of progress shouted at him ‘You are not acting with integrity’, ‘you are breaking my agreement with Arafat and Barak’, ‘this is no way to negotiate’. As a result, ‘Abu Ala lost faith in the fairness of the American mediation, convinced that Americans accepted the Israeli positions without considering the Palestinians’.204 During the Oslo talks Uri Savir showed Ahmed Qurie a copy of Israeli Cabinet decision number 360 which decided to halt settlement expansion.205 The PLO’s demand for a settlement freeze was subsequently dropped and did not appear in the final 1993 Declaration of Principles.206 Over the decade from 1992, while the number of settlements in the WB stayed constant at 123, the number of settlers doubled from 100,000 to 200,000.207 By the time of CDII, settlements were a significant source of anger and frustration among Palestinians, and the PLO negotiators were wary of any agreements that were not specified in detail.208 As Yatom explained to me, Barak’s plan for CDII, on the other hand, was to establish a commitment for the principles for an agreement, a Framework Agreement for Permanent Status (FAPS), and in the months thereafter to work on the details. Their having to give up on well-defined reference points (i.e. UNSCR242 and UNGAR194) in exchange for FAPS which lacked detail, was one of the reasons for the Palestinian reticence at CDII.209

1) Controlling the agenda The initial US strategy at CDII was to present a parameters paper that outlined for all of the core issues what they believed the parties could live with. This would make immediate use of the highpressure environment and should establish within a few days what the parties could accept.210 This process had worked well during the 13-day Israeli-Egyptian CDI talks hosted by President Carter in September 1978, where after circulating and negotiating 23 drafts, a framework peace agreement was signed.211 For Barak however, one of the most important functions of a summit is to assist the leaders in bringing their people to accept the unpalatable compromises that are the necessary part of an agreement.212 Thus Barak wanted to ‘slow-walk things for a couple of days’, a strategy he had also employed during the Syrian talks ‘to convince the Israeli public that he is a tough negotiator’.213 As well as convincing Clinton to ease up, Barak also persuaded him that the really high pressure discussions should not take place until day 5, and thus the initial US paper should take the less coercive route of identifying “I” and “P” (Israeli and Palestinian) positions, rather than moving

203

Swisher, 2004, p. 263 Sher, 2006, p. 68 205 Kurtzer, 2013, p. 46 206 Abbas, 1995, pp. 225-237 207 Weizman, 2012, p. 125 208 Gordon, 2008, p. 196 209 Yatom, 2017 210 Dennis, 2005, p. 652 211 Swisher, 2004, p. 262, Quandt W. , 2016, p. 390 212 Barak E. , 2017 213 Clinton, 2005, pp. 886,912 204

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 straight to the US suggested compromises.214 As described in “The First Skirmish” above, this paper offended both Barak and Arafat and was withdrawn and the parameters paper strategy abandoned. From that point on, US ideas were presented orally, which given the complexity of the issues, differing language skills, and inherent human communication and memory frailties, was not optimal.215 Presentations were made to Clinton by the working groups, but according to Sher ‘the supervision, management, control and follow-up were insufficient’.216 Without either UNSCR242 or a parameters paper to provide guidelines, the talks lacked direction. Barak, concerned that Arafat would simply bank any Israeli concessions and use them as a starting point in further negotiations, was not willing to reveal his bottom lines to the US or the Palestinians, in advance of a final agreement.217 This led to a series of gradually improving offers, but with each new offer undermining the credibility of the claim that it was the best and final offer. As Ben-Ami put it to me, ‘He didn’t respect his own red lines’. ‘Barak started at 66 per cent [of the WB with an undivided Jerusalem], then we went to the Clinton Peace Parameters with 97 per cent and with Jerusalem divided in two.’218 As Miller summarises, ‘Without a strong American hand and strategy, the summit would be at the mercy of a hyperactive Barak and an aggressively passive Arafat’.219 Similarly, Bruce Riedel, ‘Clinton had incredible strengths as a negotiator but not the ability to twist arms thoroughly, and you could not get a final deal without really hammering people’.220 The impression that a deal might have been possible had the Americans been more assertive, was underlined to me by a senior Israeli participant, who expressed regret that the US team did not include a Jim Baker. ‘Jim could project that the whole clout of America was behind what he said, while never explicitly describing his big stick’. This left me with a strong impression that the speaker believed a more forceful US personality might have achieved a deal, and the interviewee obviously thought that this was a significant point that might cause offense so he requested anonymity for it.

5. Conclusion

According to Barak, a year and a day after CDII ended, he received a call from Bill Clinton with the President’s summary, ‘The true story of CDII was that for the first time in the history of the conflict the American president put on the table a proposal, based on UNSCR242, very close to the Palestinian demands, and Arafat refused even to accept it as a basis for negotiations, walked out of the room, and deliberately turned to terrorism. That’s the real story—all the rest is gossip.’221 While this may well be Clinton’s overview of the entire episode, it is not consistent with all accounts. Firstly, the negotiations continued and looked promising, with more than forty detailed meetings 214

Ross, 2005, pp. 654-5 Swisher, 2004, p. 270 216 Sher, 2006, pp. 70-1 217 Malley & Hussein, 2001 218 Ben-Ami, 2017 219 Miller, 2009, p. 298 220 Kurtzer, 2013, p. 147 221 Morris, 2002 215

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 between CDII ending in July and September.222 On the 25th of September, Arafat and both negotiating teams were hosted at the prime minister’s house. Barak called the president, telling him, ‘I will be a better partner with the Chairman than even Rabin’.223 Second, rather than planning the Al-Aqsa Intifada, that broke out on the 29th of September, Arafat just tried his best to ‘ride the tiger that had escaped from the cage on its own’.224 Third, the Clinton Parameters, presented on 23rd December 2000 in the White House to the two teams, were a significant improvement on CDII from the Palestinian perspective and indeed very close to the Palestinian demands.225 Contradicting Clinton’s claim above, Arafat’s response, published by Clayton Swisher, accepts the parameters and asks for detailed clarification. Swisher recounts Saeb Erekat claiming that Clinton told him that he falsely claimed Arafat rejected the parameters because ‘I was told if I didn’t say this there would not be a peace camp in Israel – that Barak would be over’.226 Arafat’s position at CDII placed heavy emphasis on Jerusalem, UNSCR242 and UNGAR194. While allowing that the Jewish parts of Jerusalem could be Israeli, he demanded that all the Arab parts be Palestinian. While accepting that there could be territorial swaps, his team pushed for as close to 100% of the WB and GS as possible. While accepting Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall, the Arab and Christian Quarters should fall under full Palestinian sovereignty, as should the Haram Al-Sharif. Numerous parties suggested that the RoR was an area of potential flexibility. While the RoR was demanded in principle, there appeared an understanding that in practice this might be interpreted as a RoR to Palestine with options to elsewhere. Arafat’s focus at CDII was not purely the nationalist objective of establishing a Palestinian state, he also placed great weight on the importance of Haram Al-Sharif to the whole Muslim nation. In part, this was because he sought to enhance the status of the new state, but he also repeated numerous times his fear of assassination should he make too many concessions. For Barak, CDII would not be a failure whatever the outcome. While peace would be a great outcome, gaining internal support and halting the Oslo handover of assets would be positive consolation prizes. A peace agreement would bring the additional attraction of establishing international recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over West Jerusalem and its settlements in East Jerusalem. On Jerusalem, the Israeli public strongly supported the concept of the Jewish parts for Israel, Arab parts for Palestine. A growing number, close to a majority, were even willing to give up sovereignty to the Palestinians on Haram Al-Sharif, and more than a majority supported an international solution for it. Thus, Barak had considerably more leeway to move in Arafat’s direction than he exercised. The importance of Jerusalem in the cultural narratives of both Jews and Muslims (and indeed Christians) made Jerusalem a sensitive topic to broach. Barak felt that the Temple Mount was ‘the center of the Zionist endeavor’, and that the taboo he had bravely broken, offering to divide the Old City was so far reaching that it warranted painful concessions from Arafat in return. If he had offered Arafat more without a quid pro quo he explained to me, it would have been ‘capitulation’.227

222

Sher, 2006, p. 123 Ross, 2005, p. 727 224 Klein, 2003, p. 138 225 Clinton, 2001 226 Swisher, 2004, pp. 399-401 227 Barak E. , 2017 223

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The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000 CDII did not see Clinton asserting America’s will forcefully. This is perhaps understandable given that it was Barak’s determination to make history that drove the US decision to convene CDII. The US lost control of the agenda when they gave up on the American parameters, and let Barak dictate the pace of the talks. Clinton didn’t convince Barak that the Palestinians had made acceptable concessions despite them agreeing to Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and to land swaps in the WB. The US allowed (or assisted) damaging claims to be made by both sides regarding the Temple Mount: the Israelis request to pray there; and Arafat’s denial of any temple. The Palestinians went to CDII thinking that the UN guidelines would apply, with 1967 borders and a divided Jerusalem set by UNSCR242 and a RoR enshrined in UNGAR194. The Israelis and Americans on the other hand saw it as an open negotiation on final status issues and expected to see concessions from Arafat. If Clinton was not hampered by institutional and cultural biases towards Israel, he might have pushed Barak to the limit of what the Israeli public would accept in Jerusalem. In which case, the Israeli and Palestinian positions would have been very similar, and a solution in sight. While the Israeli public were convinced, influenced by Barak, that the RoR represented an irreconcilable existential threat, several CDII participants believed that agreement on Jerusalem was the key to unlocking a strategic trade-off on the RoR. The 300,000 refugees in Lebanon might be resolved for example with new housing on Israeli territory that subsequently became Palestinian. The belief being that Arafat needed to find a solution that he could claim validated the principle of the RoR, and that this was possible, despite the limited bounds of family reunification that Israel would accept. The idea that the most sensitive final status issues could be raised for the first time and resolved in a single two-week summit does seem somewhat ambitious. To move from “Jerusalem united” to “Jerusalem, the capital of two states” and to “refugees are returning” adding “to Palestine” as Rob Malley told me ‘is probably asking too much’.228 Or as Yair Hirschfeld, one of Oslo’s architects, puts it, ‘There are deep emotional, historical, political and psychological components to the conflict and each requires long-term trust building and legitimacy to resolve the conflict’.229 Indeed the history of this conflict has shown that leaders who move too fast can pay with their lives. While a counterfactual can make a solution at CDII sound within reach, experience showed it was not, but it also helps to highlights what I believe are the key causes for CDII’s failure, the lack of agreement on Jerusalem, the consequent inability to solve the RoR, and the inability of the Americans to push the parties hard enough to reach agreement on these issues. These are likely to be behavioural regularities that are seen in future attempts to bring peace between the parties.

228 229

Malley R. , 2017 Hirschfeld, 2017

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