A Pledge of Secrecy at Mideast Summit

T H U R M O N T, Md., July 12, 2000 -- The high-stakes Mideast summit enters a second day with all sides bound to a strict gag order.

“We pledged we wouldn’t say anything,” President Clinton said.

But what is known is this: despite the informal settings — and a joking, friendly start — the talks underway between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at the rustic Camp David retreat in northern Maryland are focusing on what Clinton called “profound and wrenching questions.”

Clinton opened his mission with private conversations with each side at Aspen Lodge, the same rough-hewn cabin that President Jimmy Carter occupied during the landmark summit in which Israel won its very first treaty with an Arab neighbor 22 years ago.

“There can be no success without principled compromise,” the president warned his guests before the formal talks began.

A Light Moment

At the doorway to the central Laurel Lodge cabin, where the joint talks began, there was a light, if awkward moment as each leader held back, trying to let the others enter first.

Arafat and Barak went back and forth several times, laughing as each one tried to push the other in first (see video, left).

Arafat wound up going in first, followed by Barak.

But just beyond the display of manners lie five decades of animosity between the Palestinians and Israelis.

“Both leaders feel the weight of history but both, I believe, recognize this as a moment in history which they can seize,” Clinton said.

Pledging Support Leading up to the summit, Clinton tried to sound optimistic, but also realistic, noting “there is no guarantee of success,” for this round of negotiations.

“But not to try is to guarantee failure,” he warned. The president insisted that both Arafat and Barak have demonstrated they are committed to reaching an agreement, and said the leaders have the “patience and creativity and courage” needed for the intractible issues at hand.

Clinton promised the “unstinting and unequivocal support of the United States” for the summit, although all the parties are sitting down to talks for which there is no timetable and no guess at how long the sessions might last.

White House spokesman Joe Lockhart, who Tuesday afternoon announced a “news blackout on the substance” of the summit, said the timetable would not be known in advance.

“How they meet, when they meet, who they meet with — that gets very much to the substance, and that’s something we will not be talking about,” Lockhart said.

The White House schedule has committed the president to stay at Camp David for the first two days. Then he intends to keep plans for a Thursday honors ceremony in Washington and a speech in Baltimore to the NAACP.

Barak is staying in Dogwood Cottage, the cabin occupied by then-Egyptian President Anwar Sadat at the first Camp David summit in 1978. Arafat is staying in Birch Cottage, which in 1978 was used by then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

A Goal in a BridgeClinton’s goal for the summit is to bridge the broaddifferences remaining for a final Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Key issues include the future of Jerusalem, the nature and borders of a Palestinian state, and the fate of Palestinian refugees.

Barak has signaled a willingness to expand considerably the 40percent of the West Bank that Israel already has agreed tosurrender and to abandon some settlements in the territory. Fewdoubt a Palestinian state will emerge in any accord.

But Arafat is holding out for virtually all the West Bank andsovereignty over part of Jerusalem as the capital for a Palestinianstate. He has vowed to declare statehood if Israel does not agreeto a state by mid-September, the deadline the two sides have setfor a settlement.

Barak has signaled through emissaries that he would be willingto expand Palestinian local control in areas of Jerusalem toArab-populated suburbs. In exchange, he is looking to absorb someclose-in Jewish settlements into the western part of the city.

Lockhart declined to say whether Clinton had brought with him an outline of a proposed peace agreement.

But Hanan Ashrawi, a spokeswoman for the Palestinians, saidMonday: “We are not interested in the municipal function ofresponsibilities; we’re interested in issues of Jerusalem assovereignty.”

Ashrawi said while Barak may be a flexible leader, “If the bestis not good enough to achieve a genuine peace, we are not going tohave a flawed peace that will lead to conflict.”

A Weakened Barak

In remarks to reporters, Clinton played down Barak’s politicalwoes back home. The prime minister survived a no-confidence vote inparliament just before he left for Camp David.

“I will remind you that on most of the days when Yitzhak Rabincame here he had a one-vote margin in the Knesset,” Clinton said.“So I think we’re in as good a shape as we’re ever going to getand we might as well get to work.”

He said that in any event, Barak has pledged to submit anyagreement to a vote of the Israeli people.

In a statement before departing for the summit, Barak appeared to prepare his people for concessions, saying: “no deal is perfect” and “the reality of life is highly complicated.”

Meanwhile, the Palestinians are calling this collapse of Barak’s coalition government as a positive pre-summit development.

Ashrawi, the Palestinian Authority’s spokesperson during the summit, told reporters in Washington that the only route the Palestinians see to a successful summit is one where Barak is “freed from the hard-liners.”

“Maybe he is now liberated from all the blackmail and wheeling and dealing and will be able to move forward without the coalition,” she said.

ABCNEWS’ Rebecca Cooper and Lisa Sylvester in Washington, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.