He had an interest in the Middle East and was... He had an interest in the Middle East and was very helpful to meChelsea played cards, tooShe made the highest Oh Hell! score in the entire two weeks at Camp David
It was after midnight when Barak finally came to me with proposalsThey were less than what Ben-Ami and Sher had already presented to the PalestiniansEhud wanted me to present them to Arafat as UI understood his frustration with Arafat, but I couldnt do that; it would have been a disaster, and I told him soWe talked until two-thirtyAt three-fifteen he came back, and we talked another hour alone on the back porch of my cabinEssentially he gave me the go-ahead to see if I could work out a deal on Jerusalem and the West Bank that he could live with and that was consistent with what Ben-Ami and Sher had discussed with their counterpartsThat was worth staying up for
On the morning of the eighth day, I was feeling both anxious and hopeful, anxious because I had been scheduled to leave for the G-8 summit in Okinawa, which I had to attend for a variety of reasons, and hopeful because Baraks
gucci g watch sense of timing and his enormous courage had kicked inI delayed my departure for Okinawa by a day and met with ArafatI told him that I thought he could get 91 percent of the West Bank, plus at least a symbolic swap of land near Gaza and the West Bank; a capital in East Jerusalem; sovereignty over the Muslim and Christian quarters of the Old City and the outer neighborhoods of East Jerusalem; planning, zoning, and law-enforcement authority over the rest of the eastern part of the city; and custodianship but not sovereignty over the Temple Mount, which was known as Haram al-Sharif to the ArabsArafat balked at not having sovereignty over all of East Jerusalem, including the Temple MountHe turned the offer downI asked him to think about itWhile he fretted and Barak fumed, I called Arab leaders for supportMost wouldnt say much, for fear of undercutting Arafat
On the ninth day, I gave Arafat my best shot againIsrael had gone much further than he had, and he wouldnt even embrace their moves as the basis for future negotiationsAgain I called several Arab
vintage chanel jewelry leaders for helpKing Abdullah and President Ben Ali of Tunisia tried to encourage ArafatThey told me he was afraid to make compromisesIt looked as if the talks were dead, and on disastrous termsBoth sides clearly wanted a deal, so I asked them to stay and work while I was in OkinawaThey agreed, though after I left, the Palestinians still refused to negotiate on the basis of the ideas I had advanced, saying they had already rejected themThen the Israelis balkedThat was in part my faultApparently I had not been as clear with Arafat as I thought I had been about what the terms of staying on should be
I had left Madeleine and the rest of our team with a real messShe took Arafat to her farm and Barak to the famous Civil War battlefield at nearby GettysburgIt lightened them up, but nothing happened between themShlomo Ben-Ami and Amnon Shahak, himself a former general, had good talks with Mohammed Dahlan and Mohamed Rashid, but they were the most forward leaning of their respective groups; even if they agreed on everything, they probably couldnt get
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I returned on the thirteenth day of discussions, and we worked all night again, mostly on security issuesThen we did it again on the fourteenth day, going well past 3 abefore giving up when effective control over the Temple Mount and all East Jerusalem was not enough for Arafat without the word sovereigntyIn a last-ditch effort I offered to try to sell Barak on full sovereignty for East Jerusalems outer neighborhoods, limited sovereignty over the inner ones, and custodial sovereignty over the HaramI shut down the talksIt was frustrating and profoundly sadThere was little difference between the two sides on how the affairs of Jerusalem would actually be handled; it was all about who got to claim sovereignty
I issued a statement saying I had concluded that the parties could not reach agreement at this time given the historical, religious, political, and emotional dimensions of the conflictTo give Barak some cover back home and indicate what had occurred, I said that while Arafat had made clear that he wanted to stay on the
chanel purse white path of peace, Barak had shown particular courage, vision, and an understanding of the historical importance of this moment
I said that the two delegations had shown each other a genuine respect and understanding unique in my eight years of peacemaking around the world, and for the first time had openly discussed the most sensitive matters in disputeWe now had a better idea of each sides bottom line and I still believed we had a chance to reach an agreement before the year was out
Arafat had wanted to continue the negotiations, and on more than one occasion had acknowledged that he was unlikely to get a future Israeli government or American team so committed to peaceIt was hard to know why he had moved so littlePerhaps his team really hadnt worked through the hard compromises; perhaps they wanted one session to see how much they could squeeze out of Israel before showing their handFor whatever reasons, they had left Barak exposed in a precarious political situationIt was not for nothing that he was the most decorated soldier in the history of
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