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what would constitute a fair agreement. He was presenting it on a take-it-or-leave- it basis. If either side said no, he would withdraw it, and it would not be binding on President Bush.
He proceeded to lay out his proposal. It now envisaged the Palestinians ending up with between 95 and 97 percent of the West Bank. Israel’s military presence in the Jordan Valley would be for a maximum of six years, after which our soldiers would be replaced by an international force. On refugees, the solution Clinton proposed would “make it clear there is no specific right of return to Israeli itself” but recognize “the aspiration of the Palestinian people to return to the area.” He proposed a joint endorsement by Israel and the Palestinians of the right of refugees to return to a new Palestinian state. In Jerusalem, Arafat would have sovereignty over the entirety of the Old City except for the Jewish Quarter and, of course, the Western Wall and the “holy space of which it is a part.” Finally, the President said, this would be a final peace: an end of conflict and, once implemented, an end to any further claims. He wanted replies from Israel and the Palestinians within five days. Dennis added that, while both sides could come back with reservations, if any of these fell outside the substantive limits of President Clinton’s parameters, the response would be interpreted as a “no” and our search for an agreement would be over.
Clinton’s latest proposals went beyond even what I was willing to have him keep in his pocket at Camp David. Opposition politicians in Israel, and even a few of our cabinet ministers, promptly objected to the formula for Jerusalem. I told the critics — as I knew I’d have to argue to the country in a referendum, in the vanishingly unlikely event we actually reached an agreeement — that making peace was not like making love. It was something you did with enemies. I, too, would have preferred to say no to Clinton’s ideas on Jerusalem. But to reject them would have placed Israel in the position of rejecting the entire Clinton paper, something I was not prepared to do.
I sent word to the President that we accepted his ideas. We did raise reservations — twenty-eight in all, about how various parts of the agreement would work on the ground. But none fell outside his parameters for a peace agreement. At first Arafat asked the Americans for more time. Then he went to Washington to see Clinton. There, he presented his “reservations”. They were not just outside the Clinton parameters. They rejected two key elements. Arafat said there could be no
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