dark cloud over our hopes; but we had at least gained an agreement from the Israelis to meet in the Trilateral Committee. I had met with the Israeli leadership, we had connected well, and they had indicated that they would give, at least, cautious support for my mission.
I spent the second day with the Palestinians. Since it was the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, my meetings took place in the evening, beginning with the Iftar meal[86] with Chairman Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank town of Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority had one of their headquarters (called “the Muqatta’a”; their official seat of government was in Gaza).
On the way there, our consular people took me on a tour of the Israeli settlement areas in the West Bank, where, contrary to agreements, significant settlement expansion was going on. During the tour, we passed through Israeli security checkpoints and witnessed the frustrating and humiliating process Palestinians had to endure in order to travel from place to place.
In our talks the day before, the Israelis had acknowledged that these checkpoints caused problems, but they were necessary to prevent attacks (such as the Afula incident). It was obviously a difficult situation. Young soldiers who could not compromise on security subjected Palestinians to time-consuming and humiliating security procedures. I was told checkpoint stories of the birth of babies, of people dying unable to reach hospitals in time, of senior Palestinian officials held up and embarrassed, and of many other incidents that inflamed the people.
My meetings with Arafat were cordial. He has always been hospitable, and very expressive, with abundant assurances of cooperation (always echoed by the people around him).
By then, meeting with Arabs came easy to me; I was comfortable with their ways. And though I didn’t yet know these Palestinians very well, they certainly knew me. Arafat had already talked with President Mubarak, King Abdullah, and the other major Arab leaders, all of whom had advised cooperation. “They all told me that you are a guy I could trust,” Arafat explained, “who can help me do what I want to do.” He strongly stressed that, and assured me that this was marvelous. “I’m totally committed to the success of your mission,” he went on to tell me. And when I brought up the Trilateral Committee as a venue for further discussion, he went along with that as well, though he added that he wanted to open up discussions in areas other than security — a far more loaded issue than it might have seemed.
On the whole, he was always agreeable, always quick to promise cooperation, but not so quick to deliver on his promises.
It became increasingly evident to me, as Yasser Arafat and I met again and again over the next weeks and months, that this wily old revolutionary could never really bring himself to make the compromises that would lead to a lasting resolution of the conflict. He could never look at concluding a deal that risked his own place in history and his personal legacy. He saw himself as the leader who had never given an inch in compromise, and this was more important to him than concluding and implementing an agreement that caused him to make serious compromises. He’s at the point in his life where he clearly sees his own mortality, and he wants to go out as defiant. “I’m the only Arab general that’s undefeated,” he said to me at one point. “You’re not going to walk behind my funeral like with Sadat and my partner Rabin.”
I began to realize toward the end of my piece of the process that he wasn’t the guy who could bring home the bacon. He wasn’t going to take the risks for peace that Sadat, Rabin, Hussein, Begin, and Barak did. Not when his own legacy and history were at stake and he saw their fate.
Of course he knew he would have to make compromises. And Barak put on the table at Camp David a lot of compromises. The deal might not have been perfect, and he probably could have negotiated a better one; but he didn’t seem to try. He walked out.
I once asked Arafat about that. “Were you close to a deal at Camp David?”
“Oh, yes, very close.”
There are a lot of versions about what happened at Camp David or Taba. Was the deal on the table good or bad? Could it have been further negotiated? I don’t know. Still, I could never fathom why the process ended so abruptly. When you’re close or at least have a process going in the right direction, why do you cut it off?
After my talk with Arafat, I met privately with other Palestinian leaders, including Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), the then number two man and later Prime Minister; Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala’a), the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council and Abu Mazen’s successor as Prime Minister; and Sa’eb Erekat, the Palestinian Authority’s Chief Negotiator.
Abu Mazen had been involved in the process for a long time, did not agree with Arafat on many issues, was opposed to the Intifada, and clearly saw what had to be done on the ground pretty much the way we did. He wanted to move to negotiations. But it was clear that he didn’t have any real power; his position as number two didn’t give him much clout. He was not living as the number two guy.
The pecking order was always fuzzy after Arafat. Like every revolutionary leader, he spread out the guns and the authority; he didn’t let anybody who could challenge him have real power. Abu Mazen had stature; he openly disagreed with a lot of the steps Arafat had taken; but there was nothing behind him — no guns, no money, no popular support, no political clout. Yet he said the right things, I thought he meant them, and he had a tremendous reputation; and I thought, “Jeez, too bad this guy doesn’t have a lot more. He makes sense. He’s committed. He’s a realist.”
I had the same impression of Abu Ala’a, the Speaker of the Assembly. Abu Mazen did not last long as Prime Minister. And Abu Ala’a has not had much greater success.
Sa’eb Erekat is the mayor of Jericho — heavyset, balding, highly intelligent, easy to like. Sa’eb is constantly talking. A collector of arguments, he loves to debate (he’s on CNN all the time). He’s been in this process a long time, and by all accounts he is a very honest man. But I wonder if he hasn’t been in the process too long; maybe he’s too caught up in process. He and I got along very well, and I spent a lot of time with him and with his wonderful family at Jericho. (I enjoyed dinner at his home.)
I also got to know the security chiefs from the West Bank and Gaza, Jabril Rajoub and Mohamed Dahlan. These were practical men who could take the security steps necessary IF they were given the authority and backing from the top. Unfortunately, that would not happen.
None of these leaders had real power. Arafat called the game.
From these meetings, I gathered that the Palestinians’ priority was political issues, and their chief concern: Would the Israelis really make political concessions down the road once the security issues were resolved?
I also gathered that there wasn’t much stomach from these leaders to take on the extremists who were perpetrating the horrific suicide attacks. They wanted the Israelis to “end the occupation” and move out of their areas, and then they would deal with the extremists… but through negotiations rather than confrontation.
According to the Tenet/Mitchell plans, taking action against the extremists was the necessary condition for progress on the later steps leading to Palestinian statehood. Failure to take action would thus violate the principles of Tenet/Mitchell that Arafat claimed to have accepted.
For the Israelis, of course, this was an unacceptable risk, not only militarily but politically. No Israeli leader wants to be seen to yield on a point of security without unbreakable guarantees.
All of these roadblocks and potential roadblocks notwithstanding, by the end of the second day I was cautiously optimistic. My personal connections with both sides were good; they’d both be easy to talk to; yet I had no illusions about the probability of success. Each side viewed the problems differently. Worse, they each saw a different path to resolving them.
Bill Burns left on the third day. I was on my own.
We held our first Trilateral Committee meeting shortly after he left. To avoid press and security problems, we held back our announcement of time and place until the last minute for this and all our later meetings.
The crews from each side were the security chiefs from the various Palestinian military forces and their intelligence services and from the Israeli Defense Force and their intelligence representatives. These old rivals were all pros, who knew each other well and seemed to share mutual respect. I didn’t realize how well they all knew each other until they all gathered at our first meeting place. It was all hugs and kisses there, cheery jokes,
