Clinton Reflects on Middle East

For Clinton, special regrets about failure in the Middle East

By Matthew E. Berger

WASHINGTON, June 22 (JTA)

When Bill Clinton calls himself a failed president, it's not because of the scandals, the legislative battles or even his personal life -- it's because of the peace in the Middle East that he never achieved, despite long hours spent cajoling Israeli and Arab negotiators.

Writing in "My Life," his memoir that hit bookstores Tuesday, Clinton places the blame squarely on Yasser Arafat.

During Clinton's final days in office, the Palestinian Authority president "thanked me for all my efforts and told me what a great man I was," Clinton writes. " 'Mr. Chairman,' I replied, 'I am not a great man. I am a failure, and you have made me one.' "

Readers who buy Clinton's autobiography looking for details of his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky, as touted in the book's pre-publicity, also will get detailed insight into Clinton's search for peace between Israel and its neighbors.

Clinton's account of his presidency is chronological rather than thematic; all in all, about 68 pages scattered through the 957-page book are devoted to the Middle East peace process.

The outlines are not new, but there are sharp details about his days spent at several retreats working with negotiators and about whom he believed to be compliant and who played hardball.

Clinton largely faults Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak for the breakdown of peace talks between Israel and Syria. Though Barak was the driving force behind the summit with Syria in Shepherdstown, W. Va., in January 2000, he didn't have the will to make concessions, Clinton writes.

Barak wanted to draw out the negotiations so he would appear to be a tough negotiator, Clinton writes. But as a relatively new politician, Barak didn't understand that peace with Syria would reap greater political rewards with Israeli voters than if he hung tough, he says.

"Barak had not been in politics long, and I thought he had gotten some very bad advice," Clinton writes.

President Clinton meets with Israeli President Ehud Barak at Camp David, July 11, 2000. Credit: Ralph Alswang/White House

"If Barak had made real peace with Syria, it would lift his standing in Israel and across the world, and increase the chances of success with the Palestinians. If he failed, a few days of good poll numbers would vanish in the wind. As hard as I tried, I couldn't change Barak's mind."

But Clinton saves his harshest criticism for Arafat. As Clinton's second term was expiring in the fall of 2000, he recalls questioning Arafat about his desire to make peace following the failed Camp David summit and the outbreak of the intifada.

Clinton was considering investing his energy pressing North Korea to end its missile production programs, but only if Arafat indicated that even a final push wouldn't bring peace with Israel.

"He pleaded with me to stay," Clinton says of Arafat, "saying that we had to finish the peace and that if we didn't do it before I left office, it would be at least five years before we'd be this close to peace gain."

Yet before long Arafat's maneuvering got in the way: After an agreement had been reached that the Muslim and Christian quarters of Jerusalem's Old City would come under Palestinian sovereignty and the Jewish and Armenian quarters under Israeli rule, Arafat demanded a few blocks of the Armenian Quarter.

"I couldn't believe he was talking to me about this," Clinton writes. Clinton suggests that Arafat may not have been at his full mental capacity in the final months of negotiations, saying he seemed "confused, not wholly in command of the facts."

Then again, he writes, Arafat may simply have been unable to "make the final jump from revolutionary to statesman."

President Clinton meets with PLO leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David, July 11, 2000. Credit: Ralph Alswang/White House

The book abounds in revealing anecdotes. For example, Clinton was in awe of Barak's toughness when the Israeli prime minister returned to negotiating immediately after nearly choking to death on a peanut during the Camp David summit.

Clinton describes the day that Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin came to Washington to sign the Oslo accords in September 1993. Clinton forbade Arafat to wear a revolver on his hip, and had to convince Rabin to shake hands with Arafat.

Yitzhak Rabin, left, shakes hands with Yasser Arafat as President Clinton looks on, in September 1993. Credit: Israeli Consulate in New York

One account shows how high political drama can at times merge with farce. Clinton and his national security staff coordinated a way to ensure that Arafat would not try to kiss Rabin, something Rabin insisted he wouldn't allow.

"National Security Adviser Tony Lake described the procedure and we practiced it. I played Arafat and he played me, showing me what to do," Clinton writes. "When I shook his hand and moved in for the kiss, he put his left hand on my right arm where it was bent at the elbow and squeezed; it stopped me cold. Then we reversed roles and I did it to him.

"We practiced it a couple of more times until I felt sure Rabin's cheek would remain untouched," he writes. "We all laughed about it, but I knew avoiding the kiss was deadly serious for Rabin."

Clinton speaks at length of his affinity for Rabin, and writes glowingly of the late Israeli leader's work and personality. Clinton describes the night of Rabin's assassination in November 1995: After learning Rabin had been shot, Clinton hit golf balls on the White House lawn while awaiting news of his condition. The book includes a photo of Clinton, head in hands, hearing the news of Rabin's death from Lake.

"By the time he was killed, I had come to love him as I had rarely loved another man," Clinton writes. "In the back of my mind, I suppose I always knew he had put his life at risk, but I couldn't imagine him gone, and I didn't know what I would or could do in the Middle East without him."

Clinton -- who received 80 percent of the Jewish vote in 1992 and 78 percent four years later -- praises the American Jewish community for its role in support of his peace efforts. "The American-Jewish community had been very good to me," he writes, explaining his decision to unveil the details of his peace plan at an Israel Policy Forum dinner in early 2001, when he had barely two weeks left in office. "Regardless of what happened, I thought I owed it to them to explain my proposal."

Under Clinton's plan, a Palestinian state would have been established in all of the Gaza Strip and nearly all of the West Bank, with an exchange of territory to compensate for settlement blocs annexed by Israel. Clinton also proposed that Palestinian refugees have an unlimited right to move to the new Palestinian state, but not to Israel. Clinton reflects angrily on Arafat's statement, nearly a year after Clinton left office, that he finally accepted the parameters of Clinton's plan.

"Apparently, Arafat had thought the time to decide, five minutes to midnight, had finally come," Clinton writes. "His watch had been broken a long time."

Some of Clinton's explanations about whom he did and didn't pardon in his last days in office also will have interest for Jewish readers. Clinton explains his decision not to pardon Jonathan Pollard, the former U.S. Navy intelligence officer convicted of spying for Israel.

President Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat sign the Wye accord in October 1998 as Jordan's King Hussein looks on. Credit: White House

During negotiations toward the 1998 Wye accord, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded Pollard's release as a condition for moving forward in the peace process. But Clinton says CIA Director George Tenet said he would resign if Clinton commuted Pollard's sentence.

"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," Clinton writes.

Clinton says he decided in his final days as president to pardon Marc Rich, a contributor to several Israeli and American Jewish causes, because tax evasion charges against him were now seen as civil offenses -- and because Rich had paid more than four times the amount in fines that he had evaded in taxes. Clinton says that Barak, for his part, asked him three times to pardon Rich. The Rich pardon proved among Clinton's most controversial.

Clinton says he didn't pardon Michael Milken, the former junk-bond king who is a major contributor to Jewish day schools, because of objections from the Treasury Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

 

Clinton on the record,
from Oslo to Camp David

By Matthew E. Berger

WASHINGTON, June 22 (JTA) --

Bill Clinton covers a range of issues in his 957-page autobiography, "My Life." Following are excerpts.

* On a brush with anti-Semitism in New York:
"I lived in a southern town with two synagogues and a fair number of anti-Semites who referred to Jews as 'Christ-killers,' but I was surprised to find anti-Semitism alive and well in New York. I guess I should have been reassured to know the South didn't have a corner on racism or anti-Semitism, but I wasn't."

* Clinton discusses getting Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to attend the September 1993 White House signing of the Declaration of Principles behind the Oslo peace accord: "I badly wanted Rabin and Arafat to attend and urged them to do so; if they didn't, no one in the region would believe they were fully committed to implementing the principles, and, if they did, a billion people across the globe would see them on television and they would leave the White House even more committed to peace than when they arrived." Arafat, however, wanted to wear a revolver: "I balked and sent word that he couldn't bring the gun. He was here to make peace; the pistol would send the wrong message, and he certainly would be safe without it."

Clinton strove to get Arafat and Rabin to shake hands. Rabin was reluctant: "I told Yitzhak that if he was really committed to peace, he'd have to shake Arafat's hand to prove it." Before long, Clinton writes, "Rabin and Arafat would develop a remarkable working relationship, a tribute to Arafat's regard for Rabin and the Israeli leader's uncanny ability to understand how Arafat's mind worked."

* Clinton learns of Rabin's assassination:
"By the time he was killed, I had come to love him as I had rarely loved another man. In the back of my mind, I suppose I always knew he had put his life at risk, but I couldn't imagine him gone, and I didn't know what I would or could do in the Middle East without him."

Clinton discusses his decision to say "Shalom, chaver" -- Hebrew for "Goodbye, friend" -- at Rabin's funeral. The phrase since has become famous in Israel: "I had a number of Jewish staff members who spoke Hebrew and knew how I felt about Rabin; I am still grateful that they gave me the phrase. Shimon Peres later told me that chaver means more than mere friendship; it evokes the comradeship of soul mates in common cause. Soon, 'Shalom, chaver' began to appear on billboards and bumper stickers all across Israel."

* Clinton recalls his historic December 1998 speech to the Palestinian National Council in Gaza:
"Just before I got up to speak, almost all the delegates raised their hands in support of removing the provision calling for the destruction of Israel from their charter. It was the moment that made the whole trip worthwhile. You could almost hear the sighs of relief in Israel; perhaps Israelis and Palestinians actually could share the land and the future after all."

* On the Camp David summit in July 2000:
"It was frustrating and profoundly sad. There 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." Efforts continued to reach a peace agreement that fall, as Clinton's term drew rapidly to a close: "It was assumed that Palestine would get the Muslim and Christian quarters, with Israel getting the other two. Arafat argued that he should have a few blocks of the Armenian quarter because of the Christian churches there. I couldn't believe he was talking to me about this."
"At times Arafat seemed confused, not wholly in command of the facts. I had felt for some time that he might not be at the top of his game any longer, after all the years of spending the night in different places to dodge assassins' bullets, all the countless hours on airplanes, all the endless hours of tension-filled talks. Perhaps he simply couldn't make the final jump from revolutionary to statesman."
"Arafat never said no; he just couldn't bring himself to say yes. Pride goeth before the fall."
Just before Clinton left office, he spoke with Arafat on the phone: Arafat "thanked me for all my efforts and told me what a great man I was. 'Mr. Chairman, I replied, 'I am not a great man. I am a failure, and you have made me one.' I warned Arafat that he was single-handedly electing Sharon and that he would reap the whirlwind." ``Nearly a year after I left office, Arafat said he was ready to negotiate on the basis of the parameters I had presented. Apparently, Arafat had thought the time to decide, five minutes to midnight, had finally come. His watch had been broken a long time."

* On Israel-Syria peace talks:
``Before he was killed, Yitzhak Rabin had given me a commitment to withdraw from the Golan to the June 4, 1967 borders as long as Israel's concerns were satisfied. The commitment was given on the condition that I keep it 'in my pocket' until it could be formally presented to Syria in the context of a complete solution."
At peace talks in Shepherdstown, W.Va. in January 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak took a go-slow strategy: "Barak had not been in politics long, and I thought he had gotten some very bad advice."

* On his decision not to pardon Jonathan Pollard, a Navy intelligence analyst and American Jew convicted of spying for Israel:
"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." Plus, CIA Director George Tenet objected to Pollard's release, threatening to resign if he were pardoned:
"I didn't want to do it, and Tenet's comments closed the door." Clinton had to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had demanded Pollard's release in exchange for Israeli concessions at the 1998 Wye River Plantation talks with the Palestinians, to agree to the deal even without Pollard:
``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."

 


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