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/ BARAK / 49 al-Hama, which I knew Assad had said he considered rightfully Syrian during talks held under Rabin. But the details turned out not to matter. President Clinton agreed to present the map to Assad in what we both hoped would be a step to reopening the path for peace. The two of them met in Geneva in late March. Though the President also came with full details of our positions on the other negotiating issues, he began by telling Assad that I had agreed to the Syrians’ longstanding point of principle on our future border: it would be “based on the June 4, 1967 line” before the Six-Day War. Then, the President unfurled the map. It was shortly after five in the afternoon in Israel when Clinton phoned me. He sounded as if he’d been punched in the stomach. “Ehud, it’s not going to work,” he said. “The moment I started, he tuned out. He just said: ‘Do I get my land?’ I tried to get him to listen, but he just kept repeating: ‘Do I get all my land?’ According the President, Assad would countenance nothing less than being able to sit on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and “dip his feet in the water.” Clinton said he’d done his best, and that was true. “I understand the effort is over,” I replied. “Probably, he’s too frail and ill by now.” In fact, Assad would die of leukemia barely two months later. His immediate focus was on ensuring an uncontested succession to his son, Bashar. When Dennis Ross came to see me in Jerusalem, I think he expected to find me more distraught than I felt. Of course, I was disappointed. But I told him I was grateful that Clinton had stayed with a negotiating effort that had been frustrating for all of us. When I became Prime Minister, I’d assured the Americans that as long as our vital security interests were protected, I was ready to go further than any previous Israeli leader to get peace with Syria, and with Arafat too. I might fail, but it would not be for lack of trying. I believed that even a “failure” would tell us something: whether the other side was truly ready for peace. With Syria, I told Dennis, “It’s not what we hoped for. But at least now we know.” 335 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011806