Word: barak
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...prayer of succeeding in the first place. Maybe the Israelis and the Palestinians just weren't ready for peace yet; their hard-liners still had too much hate and killing left in them. Even then, it's clear now that President Clinton's game plan for getting Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat to sign a final peace treaty contained serious flaws...
...From the outset, Washington paid too much attention to Barak's operating style and not enough to Arafat's. The Camp David summit Clinton hastily convened last July was ideal for the Israeli prime minister - a hands-on manager who delegates little to his diplomats, Barak had convinced Clinton that the only way he and Arafat could reach a treaty was to isolate the two of them in a secluded spot where political enemies and the press couldn't "salami-slice" the concessions they'd have to make...
...When he couldn't close the gap after 15 days, Clinton called it quits and publicly chastised Arafat for not being as bold as Barak during the summit. The President's reaction was designed to prop up Barak, whose governing coalition was crumbing back home. "But the U.S. committed a very serious mistake by pointing fingers at the Palestinian side," insists Hasan Abdul Rahman, the PLO's Washington representative...
...however, Clinton is pleading with the two sides to come to him. He has invited Arafat and Barak to the White House for separate meetings. He wants to get the peace talks restarted. What about a final peace treaty? The next president will likely have to grapple with that...
...Still, with both Barak and Arafat politically unable to pursue long-term peace talks right now, and the next U.S. administration unlikely to try to force the pace in the style of the Clinton administration, both sides may be positioning themselves for a year or more of low-key hostilities...