Clinton Joins Historic Mideast Summit

T H U R M O N T, Md., July 11, 2000 -- Getting a grip on what he called the “profound and wrenching questions” before the Middle East summit, President Clinton opened his high-risk mission with private conversations with each side.

“There can be no success without principled compromise,” the president warned his guests before the formal talks began. Sitting down first with Palestinian chairman Yasser Arafat, President Clinton used 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. The two men talked for about half an hour.

Next came Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who arrived at Camp David at dawn today, fresh from a bitter challenge from within his own governing coalition that failed by a slim margin of votes to topple his government. He spent about 45 minutes with Clinton on the back porch of Aspen Lodge.

All three leaders then strolled together to a central cabin, Laurel Lodge, in the only photo-op scheduled as their work began.

At the doorway, there was an 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.

Arafat wound up going in first, followed by Barak. The moment ended in laughter, and Clinton brushed away reporters’ questions saying the three have made their first agreement: to keep silent about their talks.

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

Clinton Pledges ‘Unequivocal 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 this 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 an 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 today 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 in Washington, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.