refusing to accept Barak’s insistence on retaining at least some form of Israeli sover-
eignty over the complex. On the fourteenth day of negotiations, an angry Clinton,
according to Ross, complained to Arafat that he had “said no to everything.”
After a final attempt to bridge the differences on Jerusalem, Clinton held a meet-
ing with Arafat and Barak—the only substantive direct meeting between the Israeli
and Palestinian leaders during the two-week summit—and reached agreement on a
face-saving “trilateral statement” calling for the negotiations to continue at a later date.
The statement was released during a news conference at the White House on July 25.
Clinton offered effusive praise for Barak, hoping to protect him domestically against
the already mounting charges in Israel that he had conceded too much to Arafat and
gotten nothing in return. Behind the scenes, U.S. officials and Israeli negotiators
blamed Arafat for the lack of an agreement, saying he had refused to accept what they
called the most “generous” offer any Israeli leader could make. Palestinians, in turn,
played down the extent of Barak’s offer, saying it did not provide for a viable Pales-
tinian state because major Israeli settlements would remain on the West Bank, and
Israel would still have effective control of the territory’s airspace, borders, and public
services. The Palestinians also noted that Barak offered only vague assurances to Arafat
on the sensitive matter of the Palestinian refugees who had fled or been pushed from
Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Arafat’s aides argued that Barak’s offer was
unacceptable to the broader Muslim world because of the insistence on Israeli sover-
eignty over the Haram al-Sharif. The debate over the extent of Barak’s offer remains
unresolved, adding to the long list of disputes, going back to the 1947 partition of
Palestine, over which side spurned a chance for peace.
In the weeks after the Camp David summit, U.S. officials attempted again to
bridge the differences between the two sides. Clinton met separately with Arafat and
Barak early in September during a UN summit in New York, and Ross held a series
of secret, high-level meetings with Israeli and Palestinian representatives in late Sep-
tember at a hotel near Washington. These sessions produced some progress.
Starting on September 28, events in the Middle East undermined the slim chances
of reviving the peace process. Under heavy police protection, Ariel Sharon, the hard-
line leader of Israel’s Likud Party, led a large delegation of party officials to the Haram
al-Sharif/Temple Mount complex. Sharon said his purpose was to demonstrate Israeli
sovereignty over the area. His visit went without serious incident, though Palestinians
and Israeli security forces clashed after Sharon had left the area. The following day,
September 29, after Friday prayers, angry Palestinian men poured out of the mosques
on the Haram al-Sharif, chanting anti-Israel slogans and throwing rocks down onto
Jews worshipping at the historic Wailing Wall, located at the base of the plateau. Israeli
police responded with live fire, killing five Palestinians. When news of the confronta-
tion spread, thousands of enraged Palestinians began demonstrating throughout the
West Bank and Gaza. These demonstrations quickly evolved into violence between
rock-throwing Palestinians and armed Israeli police. In one week, more than fifty Pales-
tinians were killed and several hundred others wounded; five Israeli civilians also died.
The violence escalated into a self-perpetuating cycle, fueled by televised images show-
ing one side or the other committing acts of violence.
Palestinians declared the start of a second uprising—the al-Aqsa intifada—named
after the historic mosque on the Haram al-Sharif. Under intense U.S. pressure, Arafat
insisted that he was trying to restrain the violence, but Israeli officials accused him
278 ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS