During the winter of 1999–2000, Israel focused instead on peace talks with Syria,
centering around the question of Israel’s return of the Golan Heights. These talks ulti-
mately failed when Israel insisted on retaining control of the entire shoreline of the
Sea of Galilee, and Syrian president Hafiz al-Assad refused.
Barak did manage to carry out one of the major promises of his campaign when
in May 2000 he pulled Israeli troops from an area in southern Lebanon that they had
occupied for more than eighteen years. Rather than inspiring confidence, however, the
hurried manner of the withdrawal embarrassed Barak domestically by highlighting
Israel’s past failures in Lebanon. In the meantime, Barak’s unwieldy coalition govern-
ment continued to tear itself apart in disputes over domestic issues (Israeli Withdrawal
from Lebanon, p. 354).
Hoping to reach a final agreement on the Israeli-Palestinian issue while Barak still
retained some political capital, President Bill Clinton summoned Arafat and Barak to
the presidential retreat at Camp David July 5, 2000, for a high-stakes summit. Barak,
who had pressed for such a meeting, was eager to attend, but Arafat was reluctant, a
sign that the Palestinians were not yet ready for a deal. On the Israeli side, a political
crisis in the cabinet led some of Barak’s key partners to desert his coalition, depriving
him of a working majority in parliament.
The summit began at Camp David on July 11 and quickly focused on the three
contentious issues long considered central to a final resolution of the Israeli-
Palestinian dispute: the amount of West Bank land Israel would turn over to the Pales-
tinians, the status of East Jerusalem (particularly the Old City, with its religious
shrines) and its surrounding neighborhoods, and the rights of hundreds of thousands
of Palestinians (and their descendants) who had fled Israel and the occupied territo-
ries during the 1948 and 1967 wars.
What at first appeared to be a breakthrough came on the eighth day of the nego-
tiations when Barak—under U.S. pressure to offer compromises—verbally presented
Clinton with the most forthcoming offer any Israeli leader had ever put forward in
negotiations. According to a subsequent account by U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis
Ross, Barak offered to turn over to the Palestinians 91 percent of the West Bank, with
Israel retaining the major Jewish settlements (where the vast majority of settlers live)
and a section of the border with Jordan along the Jordan River. The Palestinians would
also receive a section of Israeli land adjacent to the Gaza Strip (comparable in size to
1 percent of the West Bank). In effect, according to Israeli figures, this meant the
Palestinians would have the equivalent of 92 percent of the West Bank plus the Gaza
Strip, for a new state. On Jerusalem, Barak offered to give the Palestinians sovereignty
over the Muslim Quarter and the Christian Quarter in East Jerusalem’s Old City as
well as seven of the so-called outer neighborhoods. He proposed giving the Palestini-
ans “custodianship,” but not sovereignty, over the Haram al-Sharif (known to Jews as
the Temple Mount), where sacred sites for Jews and Muslims are located. Without
offering details, Barak also promised what he called a “satisfactory solution” for both
sides on another central question, that of whether any Palestinian refugees could return
to their former homes in Israel.
Clinton presented the offer to Arafat, who raised strong objections to each of the
key points and ultimately rejected the offer. In the end, the main stumbling block,
according to Ross’s first-hand account of the summit, appears to have been the status
of Jerusalem’s Old City and the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount complex, with Arafat
ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS 277