Interim Committees (III)
Accelerated permanent status negotiations (IV)
SOURCE: U.S. Department of State, http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/22694.htm.Camp David and the al-Aqsa Intifada
DOCUMENT IN CONTEXT
The election of former general Ehud Barak as Israel’s prime minister in May 1999
appeared to herald an era of peacemaking similar to the 1993–1995 period, when
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin negotiated peace agreements with the Palestinians and
Jordan shortly before his assassination by an Israeli who opposed the idea of land for
peace. Barak promised to revive the peace process that had made little progress since
1996 under Rabin’s successor, Binyamin Netanyahu. In particular, he promised to
carry out previous agreements with the Palestinians and to attempt to negotiate a
final agreement with them; he also called for a revival of long-stalled peace talks with
Syria (Olso Accords, p. 213; Hebron Protocol, p. 259; Wye River Memorandum,
pp. 267).
Despite Barak’s overwhelming personal mandate—Israelis gave him 56 percent of
the vote in the direct election for prime minister—Barak headed an unstable coalition
in the Knesset and could not count on automatic support for any peace agreements
he might reach. Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat also faced domestic political pressure,
in part because the long peace process had delivered only modest material gains for
the average Palestinian and in part because of his inability or unwillingness to control
Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which were opposed to any dealings with Israel.
The two sides got off to a relatively positive start during negotiations at the Egyp-
tian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. An agreement signed there by Arafat and Barak on
September 4, 1999, provided for both sides to carry out the still-unfulfilled promises
of the Wye River Memorandum, which Arafat and Netanyahu had approved eleven
months earlier. Under this new agreement, Israel promised to withdraw from addi-
tional sections of the West Bank and to allow construction of a seaport in the Gaza
Strip, along with other measures. Arafat agreed to step up his government’s efforts to
prevent attacks on Israelis by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Moreover, both sides agreed
to finish the “framework” for a final peace treaty by mid-February 2000. The two sides
carried out little of the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement, however, because of renewed ten-
sions arising from ongoing Palestinian attacks in Israel and the Barak government’s
expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
276 ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS