Why Camp David Failed, II
The "revisionist" and "Palestinian" proposals.

Arthur Bierman

Basing myself largely upon Palestinian testimony, I argued in Part I of this study that the summit had been doomed by Arafat's insistence upon a "minimum settlement" whose provisions could not conceivably be accepted by any Israeli government.(1) What specifically caused the meeting to end in serious disagreement was Arafat's policy of rejecting every proffered Israeli and American proposal without offering any counterproposals of his own. It was a disconcerting tactic for the other delegations, for not only did it violate the standard bargaining procedure, whereby one party's concessions are traded for concessions from the other, but it gave also no indication where the Palestinian bottom line actually was. (2) This may appear to be a surprising conclusion, given Arafat's repeated pre-summit insistence upon his minimum settlement. However, all evidence indicates that both Barak and Clinton truly believed that Arafat did not "really mean it," and that he was simply engaged in an astute bargaining maneuver which would reveal at some point his realistic minimum demand.

As noted earlier, I based my thesis upon a large number of official Palestinian statements, those from the pre-summit period proclaiming Arafat's intent to refuse all compromises, and those from the immediate post-summit period praising Arafat's success in rejecting all concessions. . I thus cited a July 27 editorial in the Jerusalem daily, Al-Quds, which lauded the "spontaneous appreciation" of the Palestinian people for Arafat's "firm stand ..regarding Jerusalem" and stressed that "President Arafat refused to make any concessions on the national issues that represent red lines, such as Jerusalem, the refugees' right to repatriation under Resolution 194 and the return to the 4 June 1967 borders." (3)

In other words, during the first few weeks after Camp David the Palestinian leadership was quite willing to ascribe the summit's failure to Arafat's "steadfast" refusal to compromise his minimum settlement and went even so far as to describe the breakdown of the negotiations as a "success for the Palestinian side and a clear proof of its adherence to firm and fundamental political principles." (4) But while perhaps playing well in the Arab "street," this argument was not well received in the West, not by President Clinton and not by most of the Western media, all of which criticized Arafat for having rejected Barak's proposals and urged the Palestinian leader to show greater flexibility in his future negotiations.

By the summer of 2001, the ignominious end of the Oslo Peace Process and the resultant escalating violence made the Palestinians much less willing to assume responsibility for the Camp David debacle. The resultant effort to revise the historical record was greatly advanced by the appearance of two new accounts of Camp David --one, the so called "revisionist" version, by Robert Malley and Hussein Agha, blamed the summit's failure upon "mistakes" committed by all three parties and insisted that Arafat had not been intransigent; the second, "Palestinian," version, advanced by high officials like Abu Mazen, an Arafat aide at Camp David, as well as by a number of Western supporters, held Barak solely responsible for the summit's collapse. According to their account, the summit had failed because of Barak's insistence upon a peace settlement which contained such extreme provisions that they would have perpetuated and legitimized Israel's current military domination of the Palestinians. (5)
Since these two version disagree radically with the account presented in Part I, it is clearly necessary to examine them carefully.

The "revisionist" argument:

Let me begin with Robert Malley whose July 8, 2001 article was the first presentation of the "revisionist" narrative. (6) Its stated purpose was to correct three "dangerous myths" about the summit. The first claimed that Camp David had been an "ideal test of Arafat's intentions;" the second, that "Israel's offer had met most if not all of the Palestinians' legitimate aspirations' " and the third, that the "Palestinians had made no concessions of their own."

To refute the first myth, Malley cited two Palestinian objections to the summit -- that it had been convened prematurely, the wide initial gap between the two parties dooming it to failure; and secondly, that the deep distrust inspired by Barak's prior violations of Oslo commitments had poisoned the summit's atmosphere, thus rendering success unlikely.

Malley criticized the second myth by noting that Barak's offer had not been the "dream offer" it had been made out to be. Specifically, Barak had offered only 91% of the West Bank, had insisted upon Israeli sovereignty over parts of East Jerusalem and had only been prepared to promise an unspecified "satisfactory solution" to the refugee problem.

To refute the third myth, Malley claimed that Arafat had offered numerous Palestinian concessions -- such as recognizing Israel's legitimate existence within its 1967 borders, accepting Israel's annexation of "settlement blocs," granting Jewish control over parts of East Jerusalem and implementing the "right of return" in such a manner as to "protect Israel's demographic and security interests by limiting the number of returnees."

From these arguments, Malley concluded that Camp David's failure had been caused, not by Arafat's intransigence, but by errors committed by all three leaders: The summit's timing had been ill advised; Barak had lost Arafat's confidence by his earlier neglect of critical Oslo commitments; Arafat saw the summit as a cunning Israeli trap, designed to extract from him unfavorable concessions; Clinton had not been even handed; Barak had not been generous enough; and yes, Arafat had refused to "budge." It followed that Arafat had not failed as Israel's peace partner and that negotiations should be resumed as soon as possible .

The "Palestinian" argument:

A few weeks after the Malley article appeared, Abu Mazen was interviewed in the Arab press and the resultant article published with the revealing title: "Had Camp David Convened Again, We Would Take the Same Position." (7) It opened with Abu Mazen confirming Malley's claim that the Palestinians had indeed attempted to postpone and perhaps even abandon the planned for summit. But whereas Malley described a reasonable Palestinian desire to narrow the pre-summit gap between the two positions - a formulation which allowed for a process of mutual compromise - Abu Mazen scathingly criticized Barak and Clinton for using the summit to "pressure" Arafat into making "concessions." Abu Mazen was clearly indignant that the two leaders expected Arafat to modify his demands during the negotiation process. As far as Abu Mazen was concerned, the Palestinians had already conceded more than their share by agreeing to accept Israel's existence within the 1967 borders -- it was now Israel's turn to accept Arafat's legitimate demands as spelled out in his minimum settlement.

Abu Mazen then proceeded to discuss Barak's "territorial" offer. Whereas Malley had granted that Barak's proposal, though not a "dream offer," represented a considerable movement towards the Palestinian position, Abu Mazen voiced a much harsher judgment: Barak's last summit proposal on East Jerusalem was "ridiculous," a "joke," an "offensive proposal;" his West Bank proposal had only offered "cantons and definitely not an independent state." (8) A more detailed Palestinian criticism of Barak's Camp David proposal can be found in the following response by the PLO Negotiating Department to the question: "Why did the Palestinians reject the Camp David Peace Proposal?" (9)

" For a true and lasting peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people, there must be two viable and independent states living as equal neighbors. Israel's Camp David proposal, which was never set forth in writing, denied the Palestinian state viability and independence by dividing Palestinian territory into four separate cantons entirely surrounded, and therefore controlled, by Israel. The Camp David proposal also denied Palestinians control over their own borders, airspace and water resources while legitimizing and expanding illegal Israeli colonies in Palestinian territory. Israel's Camp David proposal presented a 'repackaging' of military occupation, not an end to military occupation. "

But the biggest discrepancy between the "revisionist" and "Palestinian" versions relates to Malley's claim of significant Palestinian concessions. Not only is there no mention of any such concessions in Abu Mazen's narrative, but he makes repeated and approving references to Arafat's uncompromising stand on the 1967 borders, East Jerusalem, settlements, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees. In fact, Abu Mazen explicitly contradicts one of Malley's claimed "concessions" -- that Arafat had agreed to limit the "number of returnees" into Israel: "The Palestinian delegation refused to set a certain number for refugees that would be allowed to return, even if they offered three million refugees." (10)

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What have we discovered? An examination of the "revisionist" and "Palestinian" versions reveals a number of factual claims which contradict my account of Camp David. Examples are: Malley's repeated assertion that Arafat had made numerous concessions, as well as the PLO claim that the summit's failure had been caused by Barak's "territorial" proposal which "presented a 'repackaging' of military occupation, not an end to military occupation. ". One could well see why the Palestinians and their Western sympathizers would greatly prefer to portray Arafat as a moderate leader, more than willing to compromise even on the most difficult issues, but who had been compelled by Barak to reject a totally unacceptable, colonialist proposal.

But how valid are these claims?
A question of fact: The "revisionist" version.

Let me begin with Malley's claim that the Palestinians had agreed to significant concessions. It is an important point, directly contradicting my finding of Part I. I contend, however, that Malley is mistaken --there had been no such concessions, as demonstrated by the following evidence:
-- I showed in Part I that while some Palestinian negotiators had indeed granted concessions, none of these had survived Arafat' scrutiny.

-- I showed also in Part I that Malley had not responded when Barak challenged his claim of Palestinian concessions

-- Finally, none of the Palestinian accounts mentioned any concessions. On the contrary -- they repeatedly praised Arafat's refusal to compromise his minimum settlement.

A question of fact: The "Palestinian" version.

The PLO Negotiations Department advanced two claims:
-- That the summit had failed because of Barak's "territorial" proposal.
-- That Barak's "territorial" proposal contained the following objectionable features -- breaking the West Bank into three disconnected cantons; giving Israel control over borders, air space, and water; and expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

To test the first claim let us examine the daily bulletins issued in the summer of 2000 by the PLO Negotiations Department to provide a running account of events as seen through Palestinian eyes. (11) Since we are interested in the reasons for the summit's failure, we need only scrutinize those bulletins which were published at the end of and immediately after the summit. We find the following:

Bulletin of July 25, 2000:
"Though Palestinian reports say no agreement on any of the issues has been reached, the main issue of difference, the dealmaker or breaker, remains Jerusalem..."

Bulletin of July 26, 2000,:
"It was the insistence of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to keep east Jerusalem under Israeli occupation and Israel's refusal to accept legal and moral responsibility for turning more than 3 million Palestinians into refugees that brought the Summit to an end."
Also:
"Speaking before leaving the United States, negotiator Saeb Erekat said that the Camp David Summit has made the prospects for achieving a comprehensive, lasting peace between the two sides on all issues more viable than any time. Erekat did not blame any one for the absence of an agreement. Camp David was not a 'full failure' nor was it a 'full success,' Erekat said."

Bulletin of July 29, 2000:

"The Palestinian negotiators are not willing to sign an agreement that does not include Jerusalem or one which does not preserve our rights in the city as they were in June 1967. Israel's proposal on Jerusalem, if we had accepted, would have cut the city in many forms and placed on it many different legal characterizations, something we rejected. The Palestinian delegation refused to set a certain number for refugees that would be allowed to return, even if they offered three million refugees. We told them (Israelis) that we want them to recognize the principle (the right of return) after that we would agree on a time table for the return or compensation of those who did not wish to return."

Bulletin of August 5, 2000,:
"So why didn't Camp David result in an agreement? The negotiations conducted between July 11 and 24 marked the first time Israelis, Palestinians and Americans had seriously addressed the most sensitive issues of our conflict --borders, refugees, Jerusalem and how a sovereign Palestinian state will interact with Israel........We should acknowledge and appreciate that both parties made important concessions and moved away from previously entrenched positions." ( From a letter by Saeb Erakat, Palestinian negotiator, in the Washington Post.)

I should add that none of the PLO bulletins complained about a proposed cantonization of the West Bank, or Israeli control over borders, airspace, and water resources, or, for that matter, any planned expansion of the settlements.

In other words, during the first two weeks after the summit the PLO Negotiations Department blamed the summit's failure upon Israel's refusal to accept full Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem as well as Israel's rejection of the right of return of refugees. Whatever Barak's "territorial" offer may have been, it was not considered of sufficient importance to be included among the items responsible for the Camp David debacle.

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