Grit at Camp David

The past long week shows why the issues being argued by Israelis and Palestinians at Camp David were left for the end of their seven years of intermittent efforts to find a basis for peaceful coexistence.

These issues--involving national boundaries, sovereignty, the claims of Palestinian refugees and most of all the status of Jerusalem--were put off until the final phase of the peace process because each side’s long and, each would insist, principled determination that the needs of its people must prevail all but precluded the compromises necessary for successful negotiations. Even President Clinton’s formidable efforts as an honest broker apparently failed to crack the bedrock rigidity.

On Wednesday night it appeared that the summit was about to break up without making the advances that would assure that the peace process would stay active. Bags were packed, limousines summoned, announcements scheduled. And then, as an exhausted Clinton told the world early Thursday morning, “we discovered that nobody wanted to quit.” And so, while Clinton flew off to Japan for a meeting of the seven major industrial states and Russia, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and their delegations remained at Camp David, ready to go on talking, perhaps at least until Clinton returns Sunday night.

Whether this readiness to keep trying indicates a genuine belief that accommodation still may be possible is far from certain. It might just as likely show that each side, brought to the edge of the abyss, wasn’t quite ready to face the consequences of failure. Even with success, both Barak and Arafat could find themselves contending with domestic violence from Israeli and Palestinian rejectionists. If there is failure, the violence and casualties almost certainly will be far worse, as an explosive response from frustrated Palestinians is answered by heavy Israeli force.

The news blackout at Camp David cloaks the reasons for deadlock as well as any progress that might have been made. The Israeli press has reported agreements on a few practical nuts-and-bolts matters but little more. Presumably by now both sides have put virtually all of their cards on the table and the U.S. team has done all it can to bridge differences by proposing creatively ambiguous language. The bag may now be close to empty. American presidents and secretaries of State have long said that the United States can’t want peace in the Middle East more than the parties to the conflict want it. That truth endures.