"Time
Wasn't Ripe for Mideast Summit" by Peter W Rodman
from United Press International, July 31, 2000.
As the dust settles from the July Camp David summit which brought together President Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Palestinian Authority President Yasir Arafat, one has a definite sense of déjà vu.
Camp David is coming more and more to resemble the aborted U.S.-Soviet summit at Reykjavik, Iceland between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in October 1986. While Reykjavik dealt with strategic arms control and Camp David with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the two gatherings had much in common: They were both ill-conceived, ill-prepared, high-stakes diplomatic gambles that dramatically failed of their objectives and left negotiations in a state of turmoil.
It is hard to fathom what was in American officials' minds when they convened the Camp David meeting. Did they really imagine that the enormously difficult issues of a final settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict were ready to be resolved in one week? The two sides' positions on the toughest issues were -- and remain, after Camp David-- totally irreconcilable.
On the status of Jerusalem, for example, an issue of extraordinary historical, political, and emotional sensitivity for both Jews and Muslims (as well as Christians), both sides seem irrevocably committed to having sovereignty over the Old City and Holy Places. If there is some way to fudge this (say, by divorcing formal legal sovereignty from administrative control), the two sides are very far from agreeing on it. Did Mr. Clinton think one side or the other was faking for the past 50 years?
Similarly, the Palestinian refugees' claim to a "right of return" to Palestine goes to the heart of Israel's legitimacy, because it is premised on a kind of Israeli original sin going back to when the nation was born in 1948. And recognition of this "right of return" would call into question Israel's survival as a Jewish state if the refugees flooded back in without limit. On this issue, too, there are ideas for compromise floating around (such as acknowledging the Palestinians' grievance in some sense but putting limits on their actual return); again, the only problem is that the two sides are very far away from agreeing.
And then there are the important remaining disagreements on other issues like final borders, water rights, security provisions, and the terms of Palestinian sovereignty. Even before Camp David, it was clear all these issues weren't ready for final agreement. Even now, they look like they will need a lot of time to ripen.
Richard Nixon used to say that summit meetings had to be very well prepared. He didn't mean just thick briefing books, but political preparation: When the prestige of the American President and of other countries' top leaders is so heavily and dramatically committed, the price of failure is huge. Therefore it is unwise to call a summit unless there is a prior understanding on the likely outcomes or if there is good reason to think the remaining differences are bridgeable. No responsible President gambles that his personal charm or persuasiveness alone will be enough to solve impossible problems.
Clinton's reach far exceeded his grasp. Last September 13, urged on by American diplomats, Barak and Arafat set a deadline of one year for a final peace agreement. This deadline was so unrealistic as to be absurd. Clinton was reported to be eager to finish the negotiation this year as part of his "legacy."
If so, this is an extremely poor reason to speed up the diplomacy so artificially. Of course, if a final peace could be achieved, the political benefits to Al Gore and Mrs. Clinton could not be a million miles from his mind; this motive is even less worthy of respect.
The United States does not turn into a pumpkin next January 20. There have been several changes of administration since the modern Arab-Israeli diplomacy began in the early 1970s, including changes of party. Yet U.S. Mideast policy has been a notable demonstration of bipartisan continuity. The assumption that it absolutely must be finished now is an insult to Vice President Gore, in fact, almost as much as to Governor Bush.
The aftermath of the Camp David failure is fraught with danger. Prime Minister Barak seems to have taken Israeli negotiating flexibility far beyond the Israeli national consensus, and he came home to a political uproar. Passionate opposition is building to his apparent abandonment of settlements and of control over the Jordan Valley and to his willingness to consider Palestinian control in parts of Jerusalem.
Arafat, meanwhile, is adamantly resisting concessions and doing little to get his people used to the idea that compromise will be necessary. The impasse could easily deteriorate into renewed violence before the diplomatic pieces can be put back together. Raising the stakes to the summit level prematurely will have contributed to this.
There is, to be sure, a more hopeful scenario. Several months after Reykjavik, after the dust settled, U.S-Soviet arms control talks got back on track. To a great extent they picked up from where Reykjavik left off and it turned out that the hothouse discussions at Reykjavik had actually advanced matters. This might turn out to be Camp David's ultimate significance as well. We shall see. In any case, we are in for a very rough period of weeks and perhaps months before we get there.
(Peter W. Rodman is Director of National Security Programs at The Nixon Center)
