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/ BARAK / 66 Bet technician. I assumed that, one way or another, the Americans could listen in, but was fairly confident we were beyond the electronic earshot of the Palestinians. I kept myself fully informed of, but at a distance from, the specific work of our five negotiating teams. Though I could not have stayed engaged with all of them at the same time, I also hoped the arrangement would give them an opportunity to explore any realistic opportunity for a breakthrough and any sign of flexibility on Arafat’s side — without committing me until there was such flexibility. Yet for the first couple of days of the summit, there was not only no sign of flexibility. There was little meaningful engagement. Dennis Ross and his team drew up a paper setting out the main issues. For those on which we differed, our positions were marked with “I” and “P”. It wasn’t until around midnight on day- two that the we got a first look at the American draft. The main, unhappy, surprise was Jerusalem. This crucial issue was not marked with “TI” or “P”. It said outright that there could be two capitals, one Israeli and one Palestinian, within the city of Jerusalem. I was not opposed to the Palestinians calling Jerusalem the capital of their state. But even in follow-up talks after Oslo, when Yossi Beilin and Abu Mazen had explored avenues toward a possible resolution of the Jerusalem question, the maximum understanding was that Israel might expand the existing city limits to accommodate the “two capital” solution. The Palestinians’ capital would be in Abu Dis, one of the villages Arafat had asked me to hand back in May. The way the American document was worded suggested dividing Jerusalem as it now was: something ruled out by all Israeli politicians, of all parties, ever since 1967. When I phoned President Clinton, he asked me to come talk. We sat on the back terrace of his cabin, looking out incongruously on a beautifully tended golf hole installed by Dwight Eisenhower. I told the President that after all the hours we had spent together, I’d felt blindsided by the inclusion of a proposal on Jerusalem that went beyond anything we’d talked about. “It was my mistake,” he replied, obviously already aware through his negotiators of the error. He said that he’d put pressure on his negotiators to get the document finished, and that Dennis hadn’t had time to read it through. But it was already being fixed: the word “expanded” would be added to the Jerusalem section. I was grateful for that, but told Clinton I was concerned that even this “I and P” paper might have the unintended effect of delaying any real progress. “Since it’s an American document, it gives the Palestinians no incentive to compromise,” I said, suggesting that it might be better 352 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028200