members of both delegations spoke English, but Arafat always conducted business in Arabic. Gemal was usually the only other person in the room during my one-on-one meetings with Arafat. He understood the Middle East and the role each member of the Palestinian delegation played in their deliberations, and Arafat liked him. He would become an advisor on my team. On more than one occasion, his insight and his personal connection with Arafat would prove invaluable. On Monday I felt we were making headway again. I kept pushing Netanyahu to give Arafat the benefits of peace—the land, the airport, the safe passage between Gaza and the West Bank, a port in Gaza—so that he would be strong enough to fight terror, and I pressed Arafat not only to increase his efforts on security but to call the Palestinian National Council together to formally revise the Palestinian Covenant, excising the language calling for the destruction of Israel. The PLO Executive Council had already renounced the provisions, but Netanyahu thought Israeli citizens would never believe they had a partner for peace until the elected Palestinian Assembly voted to delete the offensive language from the charter. Arafat didn’t want to call the council into session because he thought he might not be able to control the outcome. Palestinians the world over were eligible to vote for council members, and many of the expatriates were not as supportive of the compromises inherent in the peace process and of his leadership as were the Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank. On the twentieth, King Hussein and Queen Noor joined us. Hussein was in the United States for cancer treatments at the Mayo Clinic. I had kept him briefed on our progress and problems. Although he was weakened by his illness and the chemotherapy treatments, he said he would come to Wye if I thought it would help. After talking to Noor, who assured me that he wanted to come, and that they would be fine in whatever guest quarters were available, I told Hussein we could use all the help we could get. It is difficult to describe or overstate the impact Hussein’s presence had on the talks. He had lost a lot of weight, and the chemotherapy had taken all of his hair, even his eyebrows, but his mind and heart were still strong. He was very helpful, talking common sense to both sides, and the very sight of him diminished the posturing and pettiness that are a usual part of all such negotiations. On the twenty-first, we had reached agreement only on the security issue, and it looked as if Netanyahu might celebrate his forty-ninth birthday by leaving the failed talks. The next day I came back to stay for the duration. After the two sides met alone for two hours, they came up with an ingenious way to get the Palestinian Council to vote on changing the charter: I would go to Gaza to address the group with Arafat, who would then ask for a show of support by raised hands or clapping or stamping of feet. Sandy Berger, although he was supportive of the plan, warned that it was a risky move for me. That was true, but we were asking the Israelis and Palestinians to take bigger risks; I agreed to do it. That night we were still hung up on Arafat’s demand for the release of one thousand Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. Netanyahu said he couldn’t release Hamas members or others “with blood on their hands,” and he thought no more than five hundred could be let go. I knew we were at a breaking point and had asked Hussein to come to the large cabin where we were dining to talk to both delegations together. When he entered the room, his regal aura, luminous eyes, and simple eloquence seemed magnified by his physical decline. In his deep, sonorous voice, he said that history would judge us all, that the differences remaining between the parties were trivial compared with the benefits of peace, and that they had to achieve it for the sake of their children. His unspoken message was equally clear: I may not have long to live; it’s up to you not to let the peace die.
After Hussein left, we kept going, with everyone staying in the dining room and collecting around different tables to keep working on various issues. I told my team we were out of time, and I wasn’t going to bed. My strategy for success had now boiled down to endurance; I was determined to be the last man standing. Netanyahu and Arafat also knew it was now or never. They and their teams stayed with us through the long night.
Finally, at about 3 a.m., I worked out a deal on the prisoners with Netanyahu and Arafat, and we just kept plowing ahead until we finished. It was almost seven in the morning. There was one more obstacle: Netanyahu was threatening to scuttle the whole deal unless I released Pollard. He said I had promised him I would do so at an earlier meeting the night before, and that’s why he had agreed on the other issues. In fact, I had told the prime minister that if that’s what it took to make peace, I was inclined to do it, but I would have to check with our people.
For all the sympathy Pollard generated in Israel, he was a hard case to push in America; he had sold our country’s secrets for money, not conviction, and for years had not shown any remorse. When I talked to Sandy Berger and George Tenet, they were adamantly opposed to letting Pollard go, as was Madeleine Albright. George said that after the severe damage the Aldrich Ames case had done to the CIA, he would have to resign if I commuted Pollard’s sentence. I didn’t want to do it, and Tenet’s comments closed the door. Security and the commitments by the Israelis and Palestinians to work together against terror were at the heart of the agreement we had reached. Tenet had helped the sides to work out details and had agreed that the CIA would support their implementation. If he left, there was a real chance Arafat would not go forward. I also needed George in the fight against al Qaeda and terrorism. I told Netanyahu that I would review the case seriously and try to work through it with Tenet and the national security team, but that Netanyahu was better off with a security agreement that he could count on than he would have been with the release of Pollard.
Finally, after we talked again at length, Bibi agreed to stay with the agreement, but only on the condition that he could change the mix of prisoners to be released, so that he would free more ordinary criminals and fewer who had committed security offenses. That was a problem for Arafat, who wanted the release of people he considered freedom fighters. Dennis Ross and Madeleine Albright went to his cabin and convinced him that this was the best I could do. Then I went to see him to thank him; his last-minute concession had saved the day.
The agreement provided the Palestinians more land on the West Bank, the airport, a seaport, a prisoner release, safe passage between Gaza and the West Bank, and economic aid. In return, Israel would get unprecedented cooperation in the fight against violence and terror, the jailing of specific Palestinians whom Israelis had identified as the source of continuing violence and killing, the change in the Palestinian Covenant, and a quick start on the final status talks. The United States would provide aid to help Israel meet the security costs of redeployment and support for Palestinian economic development, and would play a central role in cementing the unprecedented security cooperation the two sides had agreed to embrace.
As soon as we finally shook hands on the deal, we had to rush back to the White House to announce it. Most of us had been up for almost forty hours straight and could have used a nap and shower, but it was Friday afternoon, and we had to finish the ceremony before sundown, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath. The ceremony began at 4 p.m. in the East Room. After Madeleine Albright and Al Gore spoke, I outlined the particulars of the agreement and thanked the parties. Then Netanyahu and Arafat made gracious and upbeat remarks. Bibi was very statesman-like and Arafat renounced violence in unusually strong words. Hussein warned that the enemies of peace would try to undo the agreement with violence and urged the people on both sides to stand behind their leaders, and to replace destruction and death with a shared future for the children of Abraham “that is worthy of them under the sun.”
In a gesture of friendship and an appreciation of what the Republicans in Congress were up to, Hussein said that he had been friends with nine Presidents, “But on the subject of peace… never—with all the affection I held for your predecessors—have I known someone with your dedication, clearheadedness, focus, and determination… and we hope you will be with us as we see greater success and as we help our brethren move ahead towards a better tomorrow.”
Then Netanyahu and Arafat signed the agreement, just before the sun went down and Shabbat began. The Middle East peace was still alive.
While the talks were going on at Wye River, Erskine Bowles was managing intense negotiations with Congress over the budget. He had told me he was going to leave after the election, and he wanted to make the best agreement he could. We had a lot of leverage because the Republicans wouldn’t dare shut the government down again, and they had wasted a lot of time in the previous months squabbling among themselves and attacking me instead of finishing their business.
Erskine and his team adroitly maneuvered through the details of the budget bills, giving a concession here and there in order to secure funding for our big priorities. We announced agreement on the afternoon of the fifteenth, and the next morning there was a celebration of it in the Rose Garden with Tom Daschle, Dick Gephardt, and our entire economic team. The final deal saved the surplus for Social Security reform and provided funding for the first installment of the 100,000 new teachers, a large increase in after-school and summer school programs, and our other education priorities. We secured a solid relief package for farmers and ranchers and scored impressive environmental gains: funding for the clean water initiative to restore 40 percent of our lakes and rivers that were still too polluted for fishing and swimming, as well as money to combat global warming and continue our efforts to protect precious lands from development and pollution. And after eight months of deadlock, we also won approval
