good article!
here is another: http://www.israelinsider.com/channels/diplomacy/articles/dip_0062.htm
Robert Malley looks back at Camp David
By Ellis Shuman July 20, 2001
Robert Malley was special assistant for Arab-Israeli affairs to U.S. President Bill Clinton from 1998 to 2001. He was a member of the American peace team at the talks held at Camp David in the summer of 2000. Malley is joining the Council on Foreign Relations as a senior fellow.
In an article published in The New York Times at the beginning of July, Malley considers the failure of the Camp David talks. Though Malley was "frustrated almost to the point of despair by the Palestinians' passivity and inability to seize the moment," he still feels that certain myths have arisen about the talks, considered in Israel, in his opinion, as "a test that Mr. Barak passed and Mr. Arafat failed."
Malley returns to the theme of the collapsed Camp David talks in an upcoming article, due to be published in the New York Review of Books. Here Malley disputes the view that Yasser Arafat was the sole culprit responsible for the talks' failure.
Fictions about the failure at Camp David
In the New York Times article published on July 8, Malley presents "the most dangerous myths about the Camp David summit." First he questions whether Camp David was the ideal test for Arafat's intentions. Malley felt that it would take a "a genuine leap of faith⦠to imagine that the 100-year conflict between Jews and Palestinians⦠could be resolved in a fortnight without any of the core issues -- territory, refugees, or the fate of Jerusalem -- having previously been discussed by the leaders.
Next Malley considers Israel's far-reaching territorial offer. "It was not the dream offer it has been made out to be, at least not from a Palestinian perspective," Malley writes. And finally Malley confronts the myth that the "Palestinians made no concessions of their own." Malley defines major Palestinian concessions, including the acceptance of borders based on the lines of June 4, 1967 and the readiness to accept Israeli annexation over Jewish settlement blocs, including in East Jerusalem. "No other Arab party that has negotiated with Israel⦠ever came close to even considering such compromises," Malley writes.
Malley applauds Barak's foresight, vision and uncommon political courage. But Malley feels that the "measure of Israel's concessions ought not be how far it has moved from its own starting point; it must be how far it has moved toward a fair solution."
As for the Palestinians, they "did not meet their historic responsibilities at the summit either. I suspect they will long regret their failure to respond to President Clinton -- at Camp David and later on -- with more forthcoming and comprehensive ideas of their own."
Clinton exasperated with Barak during peace talks
In an upcoming article in the New York Review of Books, to be published August 9, Malley and coauthor Hussein Agha, who frequently advises the Palestinian leadership, say Barak's mistakes at Camp David contributed to the breakdown of the talks. Even so, the American peace team believed that Barak wanted to reach a historic final deal and therefore overlooked Barak's failings.
In a preview of the article, the Washington Post reports that the authors say "Barak helped set the stage for failure by refusing to carry out some earlier agreements with the Palestinians, including a commitment to turn over West Bank land, expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied territories and then pushing Arafat to reach an all-or-nothing peace deal."
This raised Arafat's suspicions, and reinforced his reluctance to accept the kind of historic deal that Barak was offering. According to Malley and Agha, Arafat spent most of the summit attempting to avoid a trap rather than seeking peace.
More revealing is how President Clinton viewed Barak's negotiating positions. Malley recalls the president venting his "accumulated frustrations after Barak retracted some negotiating positions." The article quotes Clinton as telling Barak: "I can't go see Arafat with a retrenchment! This is not real. This is not serious."
Malley reports that Clinton was also troubled by Palestinian unwillingness to respond to some of the far-reaching ideas he and Barak put on the table. The Americans were waiting for Arafat to offer counterproposals, but "Arafat and his advisers were paralyzed by their fear of being tricked, as well as by divisions and intrigue within their team," according to the article.
According to the Washington Post, Arafat reportedly agreed to go to the Camp David summit on several conditions. One apparently was that he would not be blamed if the negotiations failed. Malley and Agha write that Clinton volunteered that the United States would remain neutral in the case of a failure. In the end, Clinton lent his support to Barak, whose political footing in Israel was shaky due to the offers he had made to Arafat.