Statement Announcing the Camp David Summit
(July 5, 2000)
The President. Good morning. Early next week, Prime
Minister Barak and Chairman Arafat will come to Camp David at my invitation.
A few days before that, their negotiators will arrive to help pave the
way for this summit. The objective is to reach an agreement on the core
issues that have fueled a half-century of conflict between Israelis
and Palestinians.
After lengthy discussion with the two leaders, and
after listening to Secretary Albright's report, I have concluded that
this is the best way--indeed, it is the only way--to move forward.
To state the task is to suggest the magnitude of the
challenge. Behind the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lie the most profound
questions about beliefs, political identity, collective fate. Etched
in each side's mind are intense fears and emotions and a deep-seated
commitment to defend their people's interests. There are no easy answers
and, certainly, no painless ones. And therefore, there is clearly no
guarantee of success.
Why this summit, and why now? While Israeli and Palestinian
negotiators have made real progress, crystallizing issues and defining
gaps, the truth is they can take the talks no further at their level.
Significant differences remain, and they involve the most complex and
most sensitive of questions. The negotiators have reached an impasse.
Movement now depends on historic decisions that only the two leaders
can make.
I will be there with them, and I intend to do all I
can to help them in this endeavor. But to delay this gathering, to remain
stalled, is simply no longer an option, for the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, as all of us has seen, knows no status quo. It can move forward
toward real peace, or it can slide back into turmoil. It will not stand
still. If the parties do not seize this moment, if they cannot make
progress now, there will be more hostility and more bitterness, perhaps
even more violence. And to what end?
Eventually, after more bloodshed and tears, they will
have to come back to the negotiating table. They will have to return
to face the same history, the same geography, the same demographic trends,
the same passions, and the same hatreds, and, I am sure, the exact same
choices that confront them here and now.
Of course, action does have its perils but so, too,
does inaction. The decisions will not come easier with time. Fundamentally,
that is what I have concluded. The leaders have to make the decisions
that are still there to be made, and the longer we wait, the more difficult
the decisions are likely to become. The Israeli and the Palestinian
people have leaders now who are visionary enough, courageous enough,
capable of building a fair, just, and lasting peace.
In coming here and accepting this challenge, Prime
Minister Barak and Chairman Arafat have shown they are ready to take
risks to pursue peace. The rest of the world, and especially the rest
of the region, cannot afford to be bystanders. For all those who are
truly committed to the cause of peace and to the well-being of the Israeli
and Palestinian people, now is the time to lend their support to the
peacemakers.
To the people of Israel and to the Palestinian people,
I would like to say this: Peace under circumstances like these is never
cost free. Neither side can achieve 100 percent of its goals. For the
optimal solution of each party is, by definition, one the other party
cannot and will not accept. Negotiations, therefore, must create an
outcome that is realistic, balanced, and fair, and that meets the fundamental
objectives of both sides, an outcome that strengthens the two parties
rather than weakens one of them, an outcome that accommodates both sides'
vital needs and dreams, an outcome that reconciles their competing grievances.
That is the only outcome that will permit Israelis
and Palestinians to offer their children a future far different from
the past, one with more opportunity and less fear, more hope and less
despair. And that, of course, is the ultimate prize of peace.
The objective is often overshadowed, I might say, as
all of you know, by the abject dreariness of the pursuit--one that you
will, no doubt, have occasion to comment on in the days ahead. The ups
and downs of the process, the daily hassles and disputes, the open-ended
nature of the negotiations--all these, over time, have blurred the vision
of what it is we are trying to achieve.
For Prime Minister Barak and Chairman Arafat, the challenge
next week will be to start drawing the contours of the long-awaited
peace, a peace that can fulfill the Israeli people's quest for security,
for recognition, for genuine reconciliation with Palestinians and genuine
acceptance in the region--acceptance in deeds as well as words--a peace
that can fulfill the Palestinian people's legitimate aspirations to
determine their destiny on their own land and to build a better future.
Almost 7 years ago now, we witnessed the historic handshake
between the late Prime Minister Rabin and Chairman Arafat. It began
a process that offered the Israeli and Palestinian people the chance
to achieve what I then described as "the quiet miracle" of
a normal life. That is still the vision that must inspire the efforts
and call forth the commitment, courage, and creativity of Prime Minister
Barak and Chairman Arafat next week.
Q. Mr. President, do you think that this is the last
opportunity for peace during your Presidency? And how long will you
give these negotiations? Are you talking days, weeks, what?
The President. Well, the answer to the first--actually,
the short answer to both questions is, I don't know. I'll tell you what
I do know. I know that Prime Minister Barak strongly believes that the
nature of this process is such that the final decisions cannot be made
except by a meeting between the two leaders and that he cannot go further
than he has gone without that sort of meeting.
Chairman Arafat understands that the nature of the
process is such that the final decisions will have to be made by the
two leaders. And so they're willing to give it their best shot. And
they understand, too, that as we have already seen, delay tends to make
these things worse, not better.
One of the most important judgments any political leader
has to make when dealing with a thorny problem is whether delay will
make it better or worse. Occasionally, you actually get problems where
the best thing to do right now is nothing, that delay will actually
cause them to become less severe. These are not such problems. Delay
only seems, to me, to make them more severe. So that's the answer to
the first question.
The second question is, we all know what the deal is.
We know what the issues are. We know at least within a range what the
options are. I think if we work hard, we can get it done in several
days, but I will give it whatever time is required, as long as we're
still moving forward.
Q. Mr. President, could you describe the extent of
your participation? Are you going to move up to Camp David, lock, stock,
and barrel, for as long as it takes? And are you going to present a
U.S., maybe a model plan, that might bring these two sides together?
The President. Well, I think the less I say right now
about what I'm going to do, the better. And I will spend as much time
there as I need to spend. I may come back here from time to time, depending
on what else is happening, what else I need to do. We've got a lot going
on in Congress now, even though they'll be gone a lot--some of the time,
perhaps. But I think they'll be here most of the time, we'll be here,
and I may have to come back. So we'll just see. But I will be there
a lot, and I'll work as hard as I need to work.
Q. What happens if this slips past the deadline in
September? How important is that deadline?
The President. Well, it's a deadline they set for themselves,
and I think they all see it in terms that are--both sides see it in
terms that are different from the deadline they set for the framework
agreement-- that is, they knew that there were problems inherent in
making the framework agreement that if they could overcome, they could
make the final agreement consistent with the framework agreement. So
that's one of the things, obviously, that has driven my decision here.
I think that neither of them really want to see us
go by September without a resolution of this, and I think they understands
the stakes here.
Q. Mr. President, can you talk about the symbolism
of the location of Camp David, what impact at all it might have on the
parties to help them bridge the difficult gaps between them?
The President. Well, it is a place where, obviously,
a milestone in Middle East peace was reached, and I hope in that sense,
I think, it has to be a positive environment. But I think they also
realize that from the very beginning, these were the hardest questions
that go to the core of both sides' identity and sense of themselves,
far more difficult to resolve, with all respect, than any issues between
Israel and the Egyptians or the Jordanians or even the Syrians. Although
we are not there yet with the Syrians, everybody knows pretty much what
the deal is there and that there are practical questions there that
are not nearly so charged with emotion and identity and almost national
consciousness as these are.
So these are the difficult ones. And obviously, I hope
that the setting will help to inspire them and to inspire us. I hope
we'll all be inspired by it. But it's also a great place for us to be,
because it gives us a reasonable chance to work in quiet and without
interruption and to observe the necessary discretion that, without which,
we won't be able to move forward.
Thank you.
Sources: Public Papers of the President |