Remarks by the President on the Middle East Peace Talks at Camp David (7/25/00)
                              THE WHITE HOUSE

                       Office of the Press Secretary

______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                            July 25, 2000


                        STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT
               ON THE MIDDLE EAST PEACE TALKS AT CAMP DAVID

                  The James S. Brady Press Briefing Room


12:07 P.M. EDT


          THE PRESIDENT:  First of all, let me say, like all of you I just
heard the news of the crash of the Concorde outside Paris, and I wanted to
extend the deepest condolences of the American people to the families of
those who were lost.

          After 14 days of intensive negotiations between Israelis and
Palestinians, I have concluded with regret that they will not be able to
reach an agreement at this time.  As I explained on the eve of the summit,
success was far from guaranteed -- given the historical, religious,
political and emotional dimensions of the conflict.

          Still, because the parties were not making progress on their own
and the September deadline they set for themselves was fast approaching, I
thought we had no choice.  We can't afford to leave a single stone unturned
in the search for a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.

          Now, at Camp David, both sides engaged in comprehensive
discussions that were really unprecedented because they dealt with the most
sensitive issues dividing them; profound and complex questions that long
had been considered off limits.

          Under the operating rules that nothing is agreed until everything
is agreed, they are, of course, not bound by any proposal discussed at the
summit.  However, while we did not get an agreement here, significant
progress was made on the core issues.  I want to express my appreciation to
Prime Minister Barak, Chairman Arafat and their delegations for the efforts
they undertook to reach an agreement.

          Prime Minister Barak showed particular courage vision, and an
understanding of the historical importance of this moment.  Chairman Arafat
made it clear that he, too, remains committed to the path of peace.  The
trilateral statement we issued affirms both leaders' commitment to avoid
violence or unilateral actions which will make peace more difficult and to
keep the peace process going until it reaches a successful conclusion.

          At the end of this summit, I am fully aware of the deep
disappointment that will be felt on both sides.  But it was essential for
Israelis and Palestinians, finally, to begin to deal with the toughest
decisions in the peace process.  Only they can make those decisions, and
they both pledged to make them, I say again, by mid-September.

          Now, it's essential that they not lose hope, that they keep
working for peace, they avoid any unilateral actions that would only make
the hard task ahead more difficult.  The statement the leaders have made
today is encouraging in that regard.

          Israelis and Palestinians are destined to live side by side,
destined to have a common future.  They have to decide what kind of future
it will be.  Though the differences that remain are deep, they have come a
long way in the last seven years, and, notwithstanding the failure to reach
an agreement, they made real headway in the last two weeks.

          Now, the two parties must go home and reflect, both on what
happened at Camp David and on what did not happen.  For the sake of their
children, they must rededicate themselves to the path of peace and find a
way to resume their negotiations in the next few weeks.  They've asked us
to continue to help, and as always, we'll do our best.  But the parties
themselves, both of them, must be prepared to resolve profound questions of
history, identity and national faith -- as well as the future of sites that
are holy to religious people all over the world who are part of the
Islamic, Christian and Judaic traditions.

          The children of Abraham, the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael can
only be reconciled through courageous compromise.  In the spirit of those
who have already given their lives for peace and all Israelis,
Palestinians, friends of peace in the Middle East and across the world, we
long for peace and deserve a Holy Land that lives for the values of
Judaism, Islam and Christianity.

          Thank you.

          Q    Was Jerusalem -- Mr. President, was Jerusalem the main
stumbling block?  And where do you go from here?

          THE PRESIDENT:  It was the most difficult problem.  And I must
tell you that we tried a lot of different approaches to it, and we have not
yet found a solution.  But the good news is that there is not a great deal
of disagreement -- and I want to emphasize this -- it seemed to me, anyway,
there was not a great deal of disagreement in many of these areas about
what the facts on the ground would be after an agreement were made -- that
is, how people would live.

          For example, everyone conceded that Jerusalem is a place that
required everyone to have access to the holy sites and the kinds of things
you've heard, and lot of other things in terms of how, operationally, the
Israelis and the Palestinians have worked together; there was actually more
agreement than I had thought there would be.

          But obviously, the questions around Jerusalem go to the core
identity of both the Palestinians and the Israelis.  There were some very,
as I said -- it has been reported Prime Minister Barak took some very bold
decisions, but we were in the end unable to bridge the gaps.  I think there
will be a bridge, because I think the alternative is unthinkable.

          Q    There is a striking contrast between the way you described
Prime Minister Barak's courageous and visionary approach to this, and Mr.
Arafat seemed to be still committed to the path of peace.  It sounds like
that at the end of the day, Prime Minister Barak was ready to really step
up to something that President Arafat wasn't yet ready to step up to.

          THE PRESIDENT:  Let me be more explicit.  I will say again:  We
made progress on all of the core issues.  We made really significant
progress on many of them.  The Palestinian teams worked hard on a lot of
these areas.  But I think it is fair to say that at this moment in time,
maybe because they had been preparing for it longer, maybe because they had
thought through it more, that the Prime Minister moved forward more from
his initial position than Chairman Arafat, on -- particularly surrounding
the questions of Jerusalem.

          Now, these are hard questions.  And as I said to both of them,
none of us, no outsider can judge for another person what is at the core of
his being, at the core of his sense of national essence.  But we cannot
make an agreement here without a continuing effort of both sides to
compromise.

          I do believe that -- let me say this -- and you will appreciate
this, Tom, because you've been covering this a long time -- but I want to
give credit to both sides in the sense that they were really coming to
grips with things they had never seriously come to grips with before.

          Oh, yes, there were always side papers -- even going back to 1993
-- about how these final issues would be solved.  There were always
speculation, there were always the odd conversation between Palestinians
and Israelis who were friends and part of the various -- the different
government operations.  But these folks really never had to come together
before, and in an official setting put themselves on the line.  And it is
profoundly difficult.

          So I said what I said, and my remarks should stand for
themselves, because not so much as a criticism of Chairman Arafat, because
this is really hard and never been done before, but in praise of Barak.  He
came there knowing that he was going to have to take bold steps, and he did
it.  And I think you should look at it more as a positive toward him than
as a condemnation of the Palestinian side.

          This is agonizing for them -- both of them.  And unless you have
lived there and lived with them and talked to them, or lived with this
problem a long time, it is hard to appreciate it.  But I do think -- I
stand by the statement as written.  I think they both remain committed to
peace, I think they will both find a way to get there if they don't let
time run away with them so that external events rob them of their options.
And that's why I decided to call the summit in the first place.

          I got worried that -- this is like going to the dentist without
having your gums deadened, you know.  I mean, this is not easy.  And I got
worried that if we didn't do the summit and we didn't force a process to
begin, which would require people to come to grips with this in a
disciplined, organized way, as well as to face -- look themselves in the
mirror and look into the abyss and think:  What can I do and what can't I
do, that we would never get there.  Now, I believe because of the work that
was done within both teams and what they did with each other, we can still
do it.  Let me just make one other observation and then I'll answer your
question.

          You know, when we worked, I remember when we went to Dayton over
Bosnia; when we went to Paris over Bosnia.  After the Kosovo conflict --
and I went there and met with all the people who were going to have to work
on Kosovo's future -- even when we first started the Irish peace talks, we
were dealing with people who would hardly speak to each other.  We were
dealing with people who still often wouldn't shake hands.  We were dealing
with people who thought they were from another planet from one another,
whose wounds were open.

          Let me give you some good news.  Of all the peace groups I ever
worked with, these people know each other, they know the names of each
other's children, they know how many grandchildren the grandparents have,
they know their life stories, they have a genuine respect and understanding
for each other.  It is truly extraordinary and unique in my experience in
almost eight years of dealing with it.

          So I'm not trying to put a funny gloss on this; they couldn't get
there.  That's the truth.  They couldn't get there.  But this was the first
time in an organized, disciplined way they had to work through, both for
themselves and then with each other how they were going to come to grips
with issues that go to the core of their identity.

          And I think on balance, it was very much the right thing to do,
and it increases the chance of a successful agreement, and it increases the
chances of avoiding a disaster.

          Now, I promised you, you could ask now.

          Q    What is your assessment of whether Arafat's going to go
through with the threat to declare statehood unilaterally?  Did you get any
sort of sense on whether he's going to go through with that?  Did you have
any --

          THE PRESIDENT:  Well, let me say this.  One of the reasons that I
wanted to have this summit is that they're both under -- will be under
conflicting pressures as we go forward.  One of the things that often
happens in a very difficult peace process is that people, if they're not
careful, will gravitate to the intense position rather than the position
that will make peace.  And it's very often that people know that a
superficially safe position is to say no, that you won't get in trouble
with whoever is dominating the debate back home wherever your home is, as
long as you say no.

          One of the reasons I called this summit is so that we could set
in motion a process that would give the Palestinians the confidence that
all of us -- and most of all, the Israelis -- really didn't want to make
peace, so that it would offset the pressure that will be increasingly on
Chairman Arafat as we approach the September 13th deadline.

          Q    Are you implying that he should give up his claim to East
Jerusalem -- the Palestinians should?

          THE PRESIDENT:  No, I didn't say that.

          Q    Or any kind of a foothold?

          THE PRESIDENT:  I didn't say that.  I didn't say that.  I didn't
say that.  And let me say, I presume, I am bound -- I'm going to honor my
promise not to leak about what they talked about, but I presume it will
come out.  No, I didn't say that.  I said only this:  I said -- I will say
again -- the Palestinians changed their position; the moved forward.  The
Israelis moved more from the position they had.  I said what I said; I will
say again:  I was not condemning Arafat, I was praising Barak.  But I would
be making a mistake not to praise Barak because I think he took a big risk.
And I think it sparked, already, in Israel a real debate, which is moving
Israeli public opinion toward the conditions that will make peace.  So I
thought that was important, and I think it deserves to be acknowledged.

          But the overriding thing you need to know is that progress was
made on all fronts, that significant progress was made on some of the core
issues, that Jerusalem, as you all knew it would be, remains the biggest
problem for the reasons you know.

          But what we have to find here, if there is going to be an
agreement -- by definition, an agreement is one in which everybody is a
little disappointed and nobody is defeated, in which neither side requires
the other to say they have lost everything and they find a way to -- a
shared result.

          And there's no place in the world like Jerusalem.  There is no
other place in the world like Jerusalem, which is basically at the core of
the identity of all three monotheistic religions in the world, at the core
of the identity of what it means to be a Palestinian, at the core of the
identity of what it means to be an Israeli.  There is no other place like
this in the world.  So they have to find a way to work through this.

          And it shouldn't surprise you that when they first come to grips
with this in an official, disciplined way where somebody has to actually
say something instead of sort of be off in a corner having a conversation
over a cup of coffee that no one ever -- that has no -- it just vanishes
into air, that it's hard for them to do.

          Q    But did they make enough progress, sir, to now go back home,
check with their people, and possibly come back during your administration
-- next month or in September -- to come back to Camp David and try again?

          THE PRESIDENT:  I don't know if they need to come back to Camp
David.  I think that it rained up there so much, I'm not sure I'll ever get
them back there.  (Laughter.)  But I think if you asked me did they make
enough progress to get this done?  Yes.  But they've got to go home and
check; they've got to feel around.  And what I want to say to you is, the
reason I tried to keep them there so long -- and I feel much better about
this than I did when we almost lost it before -- and you remember, and I
got them and we all agreed to stay -- I didn't feel that night like I feel
today.

          Today, I feel that we have the elements here to keep this process
going.  But it's important that the people whose -- both leaders represent,
support their continuing involvement in this and stick with them, and
understand that this is a script that's never been written before.  They
have to write a script and they've got to keep working at it.

          But, yes, I think it can happen --

          Q    During your administration?

          THE PRESIDENT:  Yes.  Not because it's my administration, that's
irrelevant.  They're operating on their timetable, not mine.  It has
nothing to do with the fact that it's my administration.  I think it can
happen because they set for themselves a September 13th deadline.  And if
they go past it, every day they go past it will put more pressure on the
Palestinians to declare a Palestinian state unilaterally and more pressure
on the Israelis to have some greater edge in conflict in their relations as
a result of that.

          Neither one of them want that; so I think they will find a way to
keep this going.  And the only relevance of my being here is that I've been
working with them for eight years, and I think they both trust us and
believe that Secretary Albright and Dennis and Sandy and our whole team,
that we will heave to, to make peace.

          Q    But, Mr. President, the Prime Minister came here in quite a
precarious position to begin with back home.  And some of the things you
call bold and courageous, his critics back home have called treason.  Can
he go home, and do you believe he will have the political stability to come
back at this, and did he voice any concerns to you about that?

          THE PRESIDENT:  First of all, this is not a weak man.  It's not
for nothing that he's the most decorated soldier in the history of Israel.
He didn't come over here to play safe with his political future; he came
over here to do what he thought was right for the people of Israel, and I
think that he -- he knows that he would never do anything to put the
security of Israel at risk, and that the only long-term guarantee of
Israel's security is a constructive peace that's fair with her neighbors --
all of them -- starting with the Palestinians.

          So I think the people of Israel should be very proud of him.  He
did nothing to compromise Israel's security, and he did everything he
possibly could within the limits that he thought he had, all the kinds of
constraints that operate on people in these circumstances to reach a just
peace.  So I would hope the people of Israel will support him, and let this
thing percolate, not overreact, and say keep trying.

          I want the people on both sides to tell their leaders to keep
trying -- to keep trying.  You know, that's the only real answer here is
just to bear down and go on.

          Q    Mr. President, couldn't you have gotten a partial agreement
and left Jerusalem for later?  Was that a possibility at all?

          THE PRESIDENT:  That possibility was explored and rejected.

          Q    Why?

          THE PRESIDENT:  I can't talk about it.  If they want to talk
about it, that's their business; but I can't.

          Q    Have you done all you can do, sir, or would you be making
more proposals?

          THE PRESIDENT:  Oh, I think -- well, first of all, we all agreed
to reassess here.  So the first thing we're going do to is, we're going to
let each side go home and try to get a little sleep.  I mean, we've all
been sort of -- we're kind of -- nobody knows what time it is, I don't
think, on either team.

          Last night, we quit at 3:00 a.m.; the night before, we went all
night long.  And so, we've been working very hard at this.  So what I'm
going to do is let them take a deep breath and then our side, Madeleine and
Sandy and all of our team and I -- Dennis, we'll try to think what we think
we ought to do, then we'll ask them what they want to do, and then we'll
figure out what we're going to do.

          We don't have a lot of time, and I wouldn't rule out the
possibility that all of us will be coming up with new ideas here.  I
wouldn't rule anything out.  The clock is still working against us.  The
bad news is, we don't have a deal.  The good news is, they are fully and
completely and comprehensively engaged in an official way for the first
time on these fundamental issues.

          Keep in mind:  When the Oslo Agreement was drafted, these things
were put down as final status issues because the people that drafted them
knew it would be hard.  And they took a gamble.  And their gamble was that
if the Israelis and the Palestinians worked together over a seven-year
period and they began to share security cooperation, for example, they
began
to -- we had some land transfers and we saw how they would work in a
different geographical way, and if they kept making other specific
agreements, that by the time we got to the end of the road, there would be
enough knowledge and trust and understanding of each other's positions that
these huge, epochal issues could be resolved.

          Now, we started the process and we've got to finish.  And so, and
again, I say, the thing I hope most of all is that the people in the Middle
East will appreciate the fact that a lot was done here and we'll support
their leaders in coming back and finishing the job.  The venue is not
important; the mechanisms aren't important.  But we know what the state of
play is now and if we'll keep at it, I still think we can get it done.

          Q    Can you describe what type of U.S. role was discussed in
sealing the agreement financially and otherwise?

          THE PRESIDENT:  Let me say, first of all, anything that would
require our participation, other than financial, was not finalized.  But
there were a lot of ideas floated around.  None of it amounted to large
numbers of people.  But they were potentially significant in terms of the
psychology of the situation.  But there was no decision made about that.

          On the money, basically, you know, I think that the United States
should be prepared to make a significant contribution to resolving the
refugee problem.  You've got refugees that have to be resettled, you've got
some compensation which has to be given, and there are lots of issues in
that refugee pot that cost money, and then there's the whole question of
working out the economic future of the Palestinians and the whole question
of working out what the security relationships will be and the security
needs will be for Israel and in this new partnership that they will have --
the Palestinians.  How is that going to work and what should we do.

          I also, when I went to the G-8, I gave a briefing to the G-8, and
I asked the people who were there to help pay, too.  I said, you know, this
is going to have to be a worldwide financial responsibility, but because of
the United States' historic involvement, which goes back many decades in
the Middle East, we were the first country under President Truman to
recognize Israel, we've had Republicans and Democrats alike up to their
ears in the Middle East peace process for a long time, and because we have
such a lot of strategic interest over there, if there could be an
agreement, I think we ought to lead the way in financial contributions, but
the others who are able to do so should play their part as well.

          Thank you.

                                 END         12:30 P.M. EDT



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