Mistake 3: Don't lose control.
Camp David lasted 13 days, but the summit actually was over on the fourth day. That was the day we lost control of the negotiations and undermined our own credibility and respect as a mediator. Again, let's be clear: This conflict isn't owned by the United States, and the country isn't going to be in a position to force either side to do things it doesn't want to do. But to succeed, the American side requires the respect of both sides and a refusal to be pushed around at key moments.
One of those moments arrived on the summit's fourth day, and it involved something we never took seriously enough -- a negotiating text. Samuel Goldwyn, the great Hollywood producer, once quipped that a verbal agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on. At the first Camp David summit, involving Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin, and Carter, the Americans controlled the text -- incorporating changes from each side, working through compromises, accepting some, and rejecting others. That text went through 20-plus drafts before an agreement was reached.
On that fateful fourth day, July 14, we had prepared a text designed to identify where the gaps were on key issues. We showed it to Barak first. He hated it, and we changed it to accommodate him. We then showed it to the Palestinians, and Arafat rejected it too.
The exercise was dead -- and so, frankly, was our credibility. The president was reluctant to "jam" the Israelis, as he put it. Lead negotiator Dennis Ross reflected that we did have a substantive approach of our own, "but Barak says no, so we back off." The summit would go on for another nine days. That night, I concluded it was over.
In America, everything seems to begin today or yesterday. Maybe, we'll be more respectful of history's power and lessons next time around.
We also have to understand something else: Failure has consequences. There's no doubt that Clinton's successor -- George W. Bush -- and his advisors drew the conclusion that Camp David and the strategy of engaging Arafat (the most frequent visitor to the Oval Office in 2000) had been a disaster, sparking violence and making America look weak. And that, combined with the Second Intifada, persuaded them to walk away. Even Secretary of State Colin Powell -- without a doubt the most sympathetic voice in the Bush administration on the peace process -- couldn't believe that his predecessor had sat with Barak and Arafat for nearly two weeks (Albright really does deserve a medal for it). Powell quipped to me in early 2001: I'll be damned if I'd let my young president do that.
Had we bothered to take seriously the reasons why the 1977 Camp David summit succeeded, we might have understood why the 2000 Camp David gathering was doomed to fail. What made the earlier summit a success? Two strong leaders willing and able to make a deal, issues that were deemed to be manageable where the gaps were bridgeable, and a relentless mediator in Jimmy Carter.
There's no way to fairly compare the two experiences. Camp David 2000 was simply much harder -- with leaders who were more constrained and issues such as Jerusalem and refugees that were infinitely more complex than Sinai and airfields.
But that's exactly the point, isn't it? Jonathan Schwartz, our lawyer on the delegation and perhaps the most gifted mind in the negotiating business, said it best: We had no respect for the issues and how complex they really were. Perhaps, if there's ever another Camp David summit, we will.
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