Camp David 2000 Summit

The Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David of July 2000 took place between United States President Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. It was another attempt at negotiating a peace to the unending Israeli-Palestinian conflict which is perceived by many as the "key" to resolving the broader Arab-Israeli conflict.

Reasons for impasse

Both sides blamed the other for the failure of the talks: the Palestinians claiming they were not offered enough, and the Israelis claiming that they could not reasonably offer more. In the USA and Israel, the failure to come to an agreement was widely attributed to Yasser Arafat, as he walked away from the table without making a counter-offer. Clinton later stated "I regret that in 2000 missed the opportunity to bring that nation into being and pray for the day when the dreams of the Palestinian people for a state and a better life will be realized in a just and lasting peace." http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=246430 Arafat was also accused of scuttling the talks by Nabil Amr, a former minister in the Palestinian Authority. http://www.amin.org/eng/uncat/2002/sept/sept02.html However, it was widely believed in Europe and the Arab world that both parties shared responsibility for the deadlock (Charles Enderlin Shattered Dreams, Tony Klug http://www.mideastweb.org/infernalscapegoat.html). There were three principal obstacles to agreement:

Related Topics:
Yasser Arafat - Clinton - Nabil Amr - Palestinian Authority - Charles Enderlin

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• Territory
• Jerusalem and the Temple Mount
• Refugees and the 'right of return'

Territory

Resolution 242 calls for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in the Six-Day War. The Palestinian negotiators indicated they wanted full Palestinian sovereignity over all the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, although they would consider a one-to-one land swap with Israel. The proposal offered by Barak and Clinton would have meant the Israeli annexation of 9-10% of the West Bank, encompassing many current settlement blocs, but leaving the Palestinian territory in one contiguous piece. In addition, a narrow strip comprising 15 percent of the length of the border along the Jordan river valley would be kept by Israel for security purposes on "long-term lease" for an interim period.http://umcp.org/index.php/DennisRossMap7 In return, the Israelis would cede 1-3 percent of their territory in the Negev Desert to Palestine. Arafat rejected this proposal and did not make a counteroffer.

Related Topics:
Six-Day War - Jordan river - Negev Desert

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Jerusalem and the Temple Mount

A particularly virulent territorial dispute revolved around the final status of Jerusalem. Although offered much of East Jerusalem, the Palestinians rejected a proposal for "custodianship," though not sovereignty, over the Temple Mount, demanding complete sovereignty, which for Jews would have meant losing a bond with both the Mount and the attached Western Wall. According to both Ambassador Dennis Ross and Robert Malley, key American participants in the Camp David summit, Yasser Arafat claimed at one point in the negotiations that the holy Jewish Temple was not in Jerusalem at all, but in the West Bank city of Nablus.

Related Topics:
Jerusalem - Temple Mount - Western Wall

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Refugees and the right of return

The Palestinians stated that the proposed solution did not adequately address the issue of the Palestinian refugee problem. While realizing not all refugees could return, the Palestinians argued that any meaningful peace settlement would have to take the future of these people into account. In particular, they called for a right of return and an Israeli acknowledgment that they too had been responsible for the creation of the refugee problem (see also New Historians). The Israelis countered that similar numbers of Jewish refugees had been pushed out of Arab countries since 1948, and were not compensated, and that most of them ended up in Israel. They also asserted that allowing a right of return to Israel proper, rather than the newly created Palestinian state, would mean an influx of Palestinians that would fundamentally alter the demographics of Israel, jeopardizing Israel's Jewish character.

Related Topics:
New Historians - 1948

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