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in legal and diplomatic terms, null and void. The package Arafat had ultimately
rejected had not even been presented by me. It was an American proposal. Besides,
it was obvious no serious negotiations were going to happen anyway for the
foreseeable future. Arik, however, said he wanted not just a “full divorce” from
Camp David. He insisted we formally declare an end to the entire Oslo process.

I told him that was a price I was not prepared to pay for his support. Despite the
failure of the summit, and the terrible human cost from Arafat’s choice of violence
over diplomacy, there was a wide international recognition that it was the
Palestinians, not Israel, who were responsible. For us to end the Oslo process
meant inviting accusations we’d never intended to reach a peace agreement in the
first place, and that it was Israel that was closing the door. We would also risk
forfeiting the American support we’d secured by our efforts to reach a peace deal,
an asset all Israeli governments would benefit from in other circumstances and
contexts in the future.

Fortunately, I had an alternative to a coalition with the Likud. Alarmed at the
prospect of a having Sharon in the government, the Oslo-era doves in Labor, led by
Yossi Beilin, worked out a new deal with Shas. The Sephardi Orthodox party was
still not prepared to rejoin the cabinet, but it did promise a “safety net” in the
Knesset to ensure we would not have to worry about no-confidence votes while
confronting the Palestinian violence. I knew Shas’s support would waver if there
was a resumption of serious peace negotiations. Still, as Clinton continued to insist
we make one final attempt to get a deal, I felt we had a responsibility to play our
part. I wasn’t prepared to put us in the position of appearing to stonewall his
efforts, and encourage the false narrative that Israeli “intransigence” was somehow
frustrating Arafat’s readiness to make peace.

The Palestinian campaign of violence was getting worse. An Islamic Jihad car
bomb near Mahaneh Yehudah market in Jerusalem injured nearly a dozen people
and left two dead. Hamas blew up a school bus in one of the Gaza settlements,
killing two more people. In Hadera, halfway up the coast from Tel Aviv to Haifa, a
car bomb on a main street left two people dead and more than 60 injured.
Palestinian snipers from near Bethlehem began opening fire on Gilo, one of the
post-1967 Jewish suburbs of Jerusalem, and home to more than 30,000 people. Yet
despite all this, I authorized Shlomo Ben-Ami, Gili Sher, Amnon Lipkin and Yossi
Ginossar to continue talks with Palestinian negotiators on the terms of the
President’s last-ditch peace proposal.

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