The New York Review of Books
September
20, 2001
To the Editors:
I read the article by Rob Malley and Hussein Agha ["The Truth About
Camp David," NYR, August 9] with interest and, unfortunately, some
dismay. I know and respect both men. Rob served on the peace team that
I headed during the Clinton administration. And Hussein, a longtime adviser
to the Palestinians, is someone who has consistently sought to promote
peace and reconciliation.
But their account of "the tragedy of errors" of Camp David—though correct
in many aspects—is glaring in its omission of Chairman Arafat's mistakes.
One is left with the impression that only Barak did not fulfill commitments.
But that is both wrong and unfair, particularly given Arafat's poor record
on compliance. Moreover, while striving to prove that the reality was far
more complicated than Israel offering and Palestinians rejecting, they
equate tactical mistakes with strategic errors. Did Prime Minister Barak
make mistakes in his tactics, his negotiating priorities, and his treatment
of Arafat? Absolutely. Did the American side make mistakes in its packaging
and presentation of ideas? Absolutely. Are Prime Minister Barak and President
Clinton responsible for the failure to conclude a deal? Absolutely not.
Both Barak and Clinton were prepared to do what was necessary to reach
agreement. Both were up to the challenge. Neither shied away from the risks
inherent in confronting history and mythology. Can one say the same about
Arafat? Unfortunately, not—and his behavior at Camp David and afterward
cannot be explained only by his suspicions that a trap was being set for
him. Indeed, his mistakes cannot be reduced to his being "so fixated on
potential traps, he could not see potential opportunities."
Throughout the course of the Oslo process, Chairman Arafat was extremely
passive. His style was to respond, not initiate ideas. That is a good tactic,
especially for a weaker party that feels it has little to give. If it was
only a tactic, it should have stopped when serious ideas or package proposals
were put on the table. Whether the Israelis put a generous offer on the
table is not the issue. The issue is, did Yasser Arafat respond at any
point—not only at Camp David—to possibilities to end this conflict when
they presented themselves?
Any objective appraisal would have to conclude he did not. Consider
that in June when Barak was pushing very hard to convene a summit, and
we were resisting on the grounds that we needed more preparation, more
of a basis, Arafat resisted all our efforts to develop that basis. As Rob
and Hussein rightly say, Arafat sought more time for preparation before
going to the summit. But they neglect to say that he was neither revealing
anything himself nor authorizing his negotiators to do anything to make
additional preparation possible. On the contrary, at this very time, his
negotiators hardened their positions, not being willing even to discuss
security arrangements until the Israelis conceded the eastern border.
Consider Arafat's performance at Camp David. It is not just that he
had, in the words of President Clinton, "been here fourteen days and said
no to everything." It is that all he did at Camp David was to repeat old
mythologies and invent new ones, like, for example, that the Temple was
not in Jerusalem but in Nablus. Denying the core of the other side's faith
is not the act of someone preparing himself to end a conflict. (What's
more, in the completely closed environment of Camp David, he did nothing
to control the fratricidal competition in his delegation—effectively giving
license to those who were attacking other members who were trying to find
ways to bridge the differences.)
Consider that near the end of September, when we had just concluded
three days of quiet talks with Israeli and Palestinian negotiators and
Arafat knew we were on the verge of presenting ideas that would have been
close to those the President presented in December, he allowed the violence
to erupt and did nothing to prevent it or contain it. This, despite a phone
call from Secretary Albright asking him to act and reminding him of what
we were about to do.
The President's ideas went well beyond those raised at Camp David. When
Arafat proved unable to accept these ideas, he convinced the Israeli public
that he could not accept any ideas for solving the conflict. Would it have
made a difference if the President's ideas had been presented on October
1, rather than December 23? Rob and Hussein would probably say yes. I am
less sure, but we will never know because the Chairman, knowing the violence
was about to erupt, did nothing to stop it.
I am not one who believes that Chairman Arafat is against peace in principle.
Nor am I one who believes that Palestinian negotiators made no concessions.
But at no point during Camp David or in the six months after it did the
Chairman ever demonstrate any capability to conclude a permanent status
deal. Because it requires personal redefinition and giving up myths, I
simply do not believe he is capable of doing a permanent status deal. But
the choices before us cannot be either a permanent deal or nothing. There
is a need to stabilize the current situation and to create a political
process to provide direction and hope. There is a need to reestablish the
core premise of peacemaking: security for Israelis, the end of Israeli
control of Palestinian lives for the Palestinians. And there is a need
for real accountability on both sides so that commitments made are commitments
fulfilled.
But there is little prospect of ever ending this conflict if we do not
face up to the lessons of the past. I am now writing a book that looks
at the last decade of peacemaking with the aim of telling the story of
what happened and what we need to learn from it. Rob and Hussein have told
a part of the story of Camp David. However, in their desire to show that
there was a reason for Palestinian behavior—and for Arafat's suspicions—they
may perpetuate a mindset that has plagued the Palestinians throughout their
history.
It is not, as Abba Eban said, that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity
to miss an opportunity. It is that in always feeling victimized they fall
back on blaming everyone else for their predicament. It is never their
fault. History may not have been kind or fair to the Palestinians. They
have suffered and been betrayed by others. They are, surely, the weakest
player with the fewest cards to play. But by always blaming others, they
never have to focus on their own mistakes. And that perpetuates the avoidance
of responsibility, not its assumption.
Like Rob and Hussein, I believe that Camp David and the Clinton ideas,
by breaking the taboos and responding to the essential needs of each side,
will eventually provide the basis for solution. But, given the damage done
by nine months of violence, it will take a long time to create the conditions
in which solutions can again be discussed. And that day will not emerge
as long as the Palestinians avoid facing painful truths, and leveling with
their own public about what is possible and what is not. They, too, must
assume responsibility and be accountable. They, too, must face up to their
mistakes and learn from them.
Ambassador Dennis Ross
Counselor and Distinguished Fellow
The Washington Institute for Near
East Policy
Washington, D.C.
To the Editors:
The article by Malley and Agha sets out to question the so-called "orthodoxy"
concerning the Camp David summit, which assigns the blame for the failure
almost exclusively to the Palestinian side. In so doing, they focus on
the mismanagement of the process by Israel and the US. I contend that the
foundation of the failure lies in the willingness and the capacity of the
respective leaderships to seize a historic opportunity at a high political
cost and not in tactical and methodological mistakes.
On the Palestinian side, a fragmented leadership was consumed by brutal
internal struggle over succession and political and economic power. The
organized structure that in the past enabled continuous and effective preparatory
negotiations was fractured. Rarely was there an integrated Palestinian
position. Sometimes more than one Palestinian claimed to have the authority
to negotiate. At other times, senior Palestinians would undermine their
own official delegation. Anyone who sought to advance the negotiations
was soon delegitimized. It was a messy collective paralysis.
The peace process in its entirety was the victim. The Palestinian side
repeatedly retracted from understandings reached during the negotiations.
The famous Beilin-Abu-Mazen understandings of 1995 became, for the Palestinians,
the "Beilin-Abu-Beilin Understandings" (i.e., no Abu-Mazen). The document
that was formulated in the "Swedish Track" (4–6/2000) did not exist for
the Palestinian Camp David negotiators. New claims kept surfacing even
in the most critical moments of the Camp David summit. In the aftermath
of Camp David the Palestinian side retracted from many of its tacit understandings.
Even the uprising is partially related to local rivalries.
On the Israeli side, Prime Minister Barak, guided by a coherent and
comprehensive strategy, assumed full and direct responsibility by engaging
in substance and tactics avoiding opportunities to abort the process altogether.
This is not to say that the Israeli side or, for that matter, the American
side, did not make significant tactical and other mistakes. Notwithstanding,
the major structural obstacle remained with the Palestinian side.
Malley and Agha describe candidly the failings of the Palestinian leadership
and recognize Barak's far-reaching offers, qualifications notwithstanding.
The Palestinians, consumed with the struggle for succession, rendered the
deal virtually impossible. Barak was willing to move a great distance giving
clear hints of further flexibility. They conclude that Arafat "never quite
realized how far the Prime Minister was prepared to go, how much the US
was prepared to push, how strong a hand he had been dealt," eventually
turning down the Clinton ideas of December 2000.
The article is a sophisticated contribution to the public debate. Some
of its statements are highly controversial. This is not a surprise. The
1999–2001 negotiations are, to a large extent, a story of misperceptions
and mirror images. The article is a challenge to others to formulate a
shared narrative that will enhance the prospects of success.
Ending the Israeli–Palestinian conflict requires leaderships that will
be ready to walk the full distance in the face of great challenges. I cannot
but embrace the conclusion reached by Malley and Agha, that when the two
sides eventually resume their path toward a permanent agreement, based
on the progress that was made, which is captured in the Clinton ideas of
December 2000, "they will come to it with...the sobering wisdom of an opportunity
that was missed."
Gidi Grinstein
Israel-Wexner Fellow
Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Robert Malley and Hussein Agha reply:
Dennis Ross offers one of the more thoughtful and articulate presentations
of the view that has been widely accepted since the failure of Camp David.
His central argument is that, while all sides made mistakes, Yasser Arafat's
were of a different nature and demonstrate that he is inherently incapable
of "doing a permanent status deal." In other words, having conceded missteps
on the Israeli and American sides, Dennis then proceeds to deny that they
might have had any significant impact on the ultimate outcome of the effort
to reach a final agreement. Were Arafat capable of reaching a deal, we
would have had one; the fact that we do not proves that he is not.
But Dennis, who spent countless tireless hours seeking to bridge gaps
between Arabs and Israelis, knows—better than most—that any negotiation
is a fragile enterprise, in which one must be attuned to questions of timing,
personal psychology, popular moods, domestic constraints, distrust, and
politics pure and simple. This is all the more true in the case of the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which is so laden with cultural, historical,
and religious components, where deep insecurities on both sides magnify
the importance of the negotiating process, and whose core issues the leaders
had to resolve in a fortnight after having studiously ignored them for
years.
Our article does not assign blame or catalog each side's respective
mistakes. Rather, it shows how the historical context and conduct of the
negotiations shaped the parties' attitudes and effectively undermined the
possibility of a deal. Dennis wishes to treat Arafat's behavior at Camp
David in a vacuum—divorced from what had occurred during the seven years
since Oslo and the twelve months since Barak had become prime minister;
and divorced, too, from political dynamics on the Palestinian side. But
it is no more possible to do this than it is to divorce Barak's behavior
from Israel's parallel experience or from its own political realities.
Years of accumulated mistrust and loss of faith in the peace process,
political circumstances in Israel and among the Palestinians, the history
of prior agreements, perceptions of the United States' role, the relationship
(or lack thereof) between Barak and Arafat, the mechanics of the negotiations—all
these contributed to a situation in which each side's actions were interpreted
by the other in the most damaging way. For instance, Barak's decisions
not to implement some of the interim commitments made at Oslo and afterward,
and not to turn over three Jerusalem-area neighborhoods to the Palestinians,
were consistent with his desire to seek a comprehensive deal and therefore
entirely logical from his point of view; but those decisions were seen
by the Palestinians merely as further examples of Israel's ignoring its
obligations and seeking to maximize the pressure it was bringing to bear
on them.
To say that these steps undermined the prospects for a deal is not to
engage in a post hoc attempt to absolve Arafat. Indeed, as Dennis well
knows, the US administration's concern at the time about their potential
negative impact was such (given the frailty of the process and the already
highly suspicious mood on the Palestinian side) that US negotiators repeatedly
sought to persuade Barak to modify his approach. Nothing in what Dennis
writes demonstrates that Arafat's alleged inability to reach a deal, rather
than the overall context and the clash of opposing mindsets, was responsible
for the failure to achieve an agreement.
Dennis fears that our article will reinforce the Palestinians' belief
that it is "never their fault." But it surely is symptomatic of the skewed
nature of today's debate that our article, which describes how the Palestinians'
actions—and inaction—contributed to the breakdown in the negotiations,
can be characterized as absolving the Palestinians of blame. There also
is considerable irony in worrying that the Palestinians will avoid responsibility
when, to date, they are the only ones to have been held accountable for
the failure to reach a deal. In reality, the predominant view that Arafat
alone is to blame has spared both Israel and the United States from the
necessity of self-critical analysis.
Of course, the Palestinians made serious mistakes. As Gidi Grinstein
observes in his letter, we mention quite a few of them; and Dennis adds
others. (In particular, Dennis points to their claim that the Jewish Temple
was not in Jerusalem—an offensive position that cannot be excused.) But
the question is not whether Arafat made mistakes, or whether these were
justified. The question is whether his behavior can be explained by factors
other than his presumed inability to put an an end to the conflict. A close
scrutiny of events, we believe, shows that it can.
One of the more unsettling consequences of the notion that the failure
of the negotiations was caused by Arafat's incapacity to reach a deal is
that it obscures the significant substantive progress that was made. Dennis
notes that Barak was prepared to "do what was necessary" to reach an agreement
and we, too, noted that he broke many taboos. But Dennis refers only in
passing to the Palestinians' "concessions," attributing them to "negotiators"
as if they had nothing to do with Arafat.
The fact is that Camp David and the talks that followed demonstrated
that, at their core, Israeli and Palestinian interests are compatible.
For Israel those interests include its continued existence as a Jewish
state; genuine security; Jewish Jerusalem as its recognized capital; respect
and acknowledgment of its connection to holy Jewish sites. For the Palestinians
they include a viable, contiguous Palestinian state on the West Bank and
Gaza with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital and sovereignty over its Muslim
and Christian holy sites; meaningful sovereignty; and a just settlement
of the refugee issue. In short, both sides share a fundamental interest
in realizing their national right of self-determination within internationally
recognized borders on the basis of the two-state solution.
This may not suggest that a deal was readily at hand. But can we, on
this record, maintain that it was out of reach? And that, on the basis
of a hurried, unsuccessful six-month effort, we are better off giving up
on the current Palestinian leadership and placing our hopes on a gamble
that as yet unknown but presumably more flexible leaders will somehow emerge?
To solve a one-hundred-year conflict in a matter of months is a daunting
task even under the best of circumstances—without the miscalculations,
missteps, and mismatched timetables that occurred before and during Camp
David. In this sense, paradoxically, this tragedy of errors contains a
message of hope. For it points to the possibility that things can turn
out differently if they are done differently.
The priority today, of course, must be to put a stop to the tragic cycle
of vio-lence that is exacting a heavy price from Israelis and Palestinians
alike. But eventually all sides must honestly confront the lessons of what
went wrong. That certainly must be the case if we are to achieve the goal
to which Dennis has devoted so much of his life—a just and lasting peace
between Israelis and Palestinians that meets the fundamental aspirations
of both peoples.