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/ BARAK / 59 When Clinton phoned me at the beginning of July, however, he still hadn’t finally decided to hold the summit. I needed him to know that, on my side, he’d have a truly willing partner, aware of the political risk he’d be taking. Like Dennis, the President tried to probe my position on land swaps, and Palestinian sovereignty for at least some Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Finally, he asked if I would rule out those possibilities if they represented the difference between success or failure at a summit. I did not give him a definitive “yes.” I said we could think through those issues together. But when he phoned again, on July 4 from Camp David, I felt I had to go further. I said that, for his ears only, I was willing to give him the assurance that, assuming that Arafat was willing to move toward us on core issues, I would consider limited, symbolic moves on both land swaps and Palestinian sovereignty in part of East Jerusalem. Clinton replied: the summit was on. It would begin at Camp David in one week’s time, on July 11. Two days before leaving for the US, I brought my ministers together. “We can’t know what will happen at a summit,” I said. “But we have a responsibility to give it a chance, and recognize the situation in which we find ourselves. If we sit idle and don’t even try, we'll face an eruption of violence, and never know whether we could have avoided it. If, God forbid, we fail to reach an agreement, there will also be violence. We will face a new reality more difficult than you can imagine. But if we do manage the strike a deal, we are going to change the map and history of the Middle East.” I reminded them it would be up to Israelis to say yes or no, ina referendum, to the terms of any agreement we negotiated. “If we achieve a breakthrough, I’m confident they will do so, by a landslide.” I said I would hold fast to a number of principles. There would be “no return to the 1967 lines,” meaning that we would draw a new border with the West Bank to accommodate the largest settlement blocs. They were mostly around Jerusalem, or just beyond the 1967 border. In practical terms, over the years they had become part of Israel. Tens of thousands of people lived there. As the Americans and even the Palestinian negotiators recognized, no Israeli government, Labor or Likud, 345 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028193