Tell us about Camp David in 2000, the meeting between Yasser Arafat, Bill Clinton, and you.
We had answers to all the problems – borders, security, refugees, Jerusalem. And we didn’t ask Arafat for a «take it or leave it» proposition. In a way, we offered him 92 percent of what he asked for, and we told him that we didn’t ask him to accept it, just to see it as a basis for negotiations with me and Clinton.
When he rejected this and deliberately initiated terror attacks, we learned something. Arafat was not ready for peace back then.
One of the proposals was to link the West Bank and Gaza?
Yes, we saw they needed a connection, so we planned an overhead highway, about 48 kilometres, to the nearest point in the West Bank. This would have neither an Israeli military checkpoint nor be guarded by Israeli police.
All three of you were in Oslo in 1999. Did you talk to Arafat, then?
Yes, I took Arafat aside in Oslo when Clinton and we were there – 9 months before Camp David. I said to Arafat: This will be like parachuting simultaneously, where you control my parachute release and I control yours like jumping out for peace and making sure that both will land eventually.
You knew Arafat personally and are one of the few Israeli politicians who speak Arabic?
Yes, he was in my private home, and I was at his. He knew my wife and daughters, and I knew several of his closest associates. I also visited him at Camp David in his cabin; we had Baklava together and discussed other things.
Another thing: Hasn’t the economic control of Palestine long been a problem, especially after the Paris-94 protocol?
Yes, it was a mistake. For Palestinians to emerge as a genuine, completely independent state, they must build their own economy. I told this to Yitzhak Rabin several times as a military person. Why should we control their imports and exports? It was only with Salam Fayyad that a better economic solution came. He is a proud Palestinian but was also very practical economically.
We must avoid the one-state solution at all costs. Divorces can be done in a mature and friendly manner.
What about the future of Israel and…
Excerpt from an unpublished film interview. Published in NY TID’s Palestinian supplement.
