All language subtitles for The.Human.Factor.2019

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[pensive music playing]

[man 1] I'm a big believer
in negotiations.

Nobody outsmarts anybody.

The idea that you can manipulate somebody
in a negotiation is an illusion.

And yet, at the crunch point,
it's ultimately about a manipulation

because you're trying
to convince the other side:

"I can do X, but I can't do Y."

And the other side has to believe
that's not a manipulation.

They have to believe that's real.

And the only way you get
to that point is by establishing

a relationship of credibility and trust
with who it is you're negotiating.

You can't ignore the human factor.

Someone who has the human touch
treats someone else with respect.

Someone who has the human touch
doesn't think they'll outsmart anybody.

Someone who has the human touch
will fulfill the empathy role.

The essence of empathy is the capacity

to put yourself in somebody else's shoes.

And what you're trying to do
as a mediator is,

first, to get each side
to adjust to a reality,

and the reality is they're not gonna get
what they need addressed

unless they will address
the needs of the other side.

[man 2] In the Middle East,
the challenge is building bridges

between different cultures.

And the most important tool is language

because diplomacy is all about language.

It is the art of using language.

It's the power of the word
and the notion behind the word.

For example, when you talk about
the possibility of peace

and you talk about the future,

actually, the word "future"
in the minds of the Arabs

is different than the word "future"
when we talk about it.

When we talk about the future,
we mean the future.

When the Arabs talk about the future,

they are talking about fixing
the injustice of the past.

Then you can talk about the future.

We talk about the future, assuming that,
okay, let's forget about the past

because tomorrow should be better,
and tomorrow is what we're talking about.

That's not the way it works.

I have served
about seven Secretary of States.

Maybe eight. I have to count.

And four American presidents.

The Middle East peace is always
a very attractive proposition.

It's a very sexy topic.

I cannot think of a Secretary of State

that did not want
to get involved in the Middle East.

And by the way, all of them think
they can reinvent the wheel,

and all of them think that they can

sort of, like,
ignore history and start fresh.

It will never happen in the Middle East.
The Middle East is all about history.

That is part of the problem.
That is the curse.

[jazz music playing]

It's gonna take
some really good-faith, affirmative effort

on the part of our good friends in Israel.

Everybody over there should know

that the telephone number is
1-202-456-1414.

When you're serious about peace, call us.

[man 3] Jim Baker was by far,
head and shoulders,

the most effective Secretary of State
with whom I worked

because of the degree
to which he understood

how to manipulate and use power.

He and President George H.W. Bush

were long-standing friends,

so Baker had an incredible asset

to be able to walk into a room,

and you literally are walking in
as the United States of America.

[man 1] It was the spring of 1991.

It's the end of the Cold War.

We were the only superpower
after the Gulf War.

It was difficult for anybody
to be saying no to us,

so I feel like
there's a possibility to do something

with Arabs and Israelis.

[pensive music playing]

[Kurtzer] It was early June of 1991

where Baker thought
after about three or four trips

that he had reached a point
where he could, uh,

form the Israeli-Arab conference.

And he sent a letter
to the Israeli Prime Minister Shamir

and to the Syrian leader, President Assad,

asking them to say yes to the idea
of a conference leading to negotiations.

They both basically said no,
they weren't gonna do it.

[indistinct chatter]

[man 1] Yitzhak Shamir was someone

who was profoundly distrustful
of the Arabs.

He felt every step was a risk.

He saw no benefit from his steps.

[Shamir] The land of Israel,
from the sea to the river,

it's my dream.

I am fighting for it.

His concern was that Israel
might have to give up something.

That's the last thing he ever
wanted to do, give up anything.

The Syrian president Assad,
from his side,

had a very traditional Arab concern,
and that was:

"Should we be making peace
with Israel at all?"

[in Arabic] We will keep fighting
for a just peace based on the return

of all Arab lands occupied in 1967
and the return of citizenship rights

to the Palestinian people.

[Kurtzer] Baker was able
to stare down Shamir and Assad.

We called him a consummate actor.

And what we meant by that was
that he could walk into a room,

sense what needed to be done
and what attitude to put on

and how to work the other side.

[man 2] I remember when President Assad

was saying
that American forces can play a role

in pushing the Israeli forces, uh,

outside the Golan Heights.

He knew that wouldn't happen,
but he thought he could throw it in.

[man 4] We were watching
from behind the curtain,

and we could see
Baker's frustration was rising.

He got so upset,
and he said the following to Assad:

"Yeah, Mr. President?

And if a frog could fly,

it wouldn't drag its balls
on the ground either."

[Helal] I looked at him and said,
"Do you want me to interpret this?"

He said,
"No, I think they got the message."

See, in the Middle East,

all sides would love
to take America for a ride.

There is the tendency that somehow
maybe you can fool the Americans.

Secretary Baker was willing
to tolerate some of that

but not all of it.

[man 1] So we have gotten
Syrian acceptance

for going to a conference,

and after we get Syrian acceptance of it,
then Shamir says to Baker:

"Assad only said yes
because he thought I would say no."

Baker says, "That's right,
so prove him wrong."

[Baker] If we can create a process...
So I hope to make new progress.

[camera shutters clicking]

[Miller] After that trip, Baker told me,
in his Texas accent:

"In my next life, I wanna be
a Middle East negotiator like you

'cause I'll be guaranteed
a permanent source of employment."

[man 5] Secretary Baker is
in Jerusalem today,

facing the challenge
of forming a Palestinian delegation.

Any delay will be
a major setback to Baker's plans

for an historic
Israeli-Arab peace conference.

In his final effort to bring all parties
to the negotiating table,

Baker will meet with leaders
from the occupied territories

without the green light
of the PLO's leader in exile,

Chairman Yasser Arafat.

[Helal] Arafat was the Palestinian cause.

He was the conductor,

and he basically was
the number one, two and three

on the Palestinian side.

The United States and Israel were
the last two countries

who did not deal
over the years with Arafat

because we saw Arafat as a terrorist.

At the same time,
the whole world recognized Arafat,

and he was treated everywhere
as a head of state.

[speaking in Arabic]

I said, and I say again,

that if the representatives
on the conference

will say that they speak

on behalf of the PLO,

we will not speak with them.

[speaking indistinctly]

[Kurtzer] So Baker is dealing
with this ad hoc group,

and they were
in a very challenging position

because they were representing the PLO,
but they couldn't say they were.

[Miller] We were sitting there
in our consulate in East Jerusalem,

and the PLO would not provide
the names of the delegation.

And Baker made it very clear
that his frustration was rising.

He pulled us aside and he said:

"I'm gonna slam my notebook shut,
I'm walking out of this room,

and you'll orchestrate this for me."

So in the middle of the conversation,

bam goes the notebook, out goes Baker

and the Palestinians are stunned.

Both Dennis and I said,
"Do you realize what's just happened?

The Secretary of State
of the United States of America

has just vacated the room,
he's gonna take a walk."

They got on the phone,

they called Tunis, Arafat gave the okay,

Baker came back,
and like a football coach in a huddle,

put his arms around the Palestinians.

I'm sitting there,
watching this whole thing, just amazed

at how a guy understands
how to use his own persona

and theater.

[camera shutters clicking]

The bus is not gonna come by again,

and Palestinians have more to lose
in its absence

than do anybody else.

[bells tolling]

[upbeat music playing]

[Helal] It was history in the making.

The idea of breaking through that taboo

and have all the Arabs
and Israelis together was unbelievable.

[Kurtzer] For the peace team,
the conference was actually unimportant

because it was a show.

[Bush] A Middle East where young people
no longer have to dedicate...

[Kurtzer] What was important was,

would there be the beginning
of bilateral negotiations

the next day after the conference?

[Baker] If you would like me to,
I'll tell you a little bit...

We have to crawl before we walk,

and we have to walk before we run,

and today I think we all began to crawl.

[Kurtzer] We got on the plane,
we were exhausted,

and Baker came
to our area in the airplane,

and he said to us that he would probably
be going back to the White House

to help the president get reelected,

which he did that summer.

But he said,
"Once the president is reelected,

I'm coming back to the State Department,
and we'll start signing peace treaties."

And then there were elections.

The good news was that, uh,

Mr. Rabin won the Israeli election
in June of '92,

and the other news was that, uh,

Mr. Bush lost the election
in November of '92,

which we didn't know at the time,

but it was to usher in
a very different period ahead.

Dan Rather reporting.

It appears a major change is coming
in the government of Israel

that could have far-reaching consequences
for the Middle East and world peace.

A big victory for the Labor Party,

led by former prime minister
Yitzhak Rabin.

Rabin has promised to break the logjam
in peace talks with Arabs.

Let's shift the confrontation
to negotiation.

Let's solve it not by using stones

but around the negotiation table.

[man 6] Israelis decided today
to take risks and make compromises,

to perhaps change the map
of their country,

in an effort to make peace
with their neighbors.

[man 1] After the election,
I was coming to Israel.

I go and I see Rabin
on a Friday afternoon.

And it's a couple hours before Shabbat,

and I say to him, "What are your plans?"

He says, "Look, I wanna go
for a full deal with the Palestinians."

And so I said,
"How do you plan to go about it?"

He says, "I'm not gonna rush into it.
I have to lay the groundwork.

But, you know, I'm confident I can do it

because I have all my boys
around me here in the military."

I said, "Is it that important to have
your guys in the military around you?"

He says, "I have to have that."
I said, "Why?"

He said, "When I take the steps
that we'll have to take

to resolve this with the Palestinians,
I'm afraid we could have a civil war,

and I need to have my guys.

You know, they trust me, and I trust them.

- And I need them when I face that."
- [interviewer] Whoa.

I'll tell you, it was a wow for me too.

He used "civil war."

I said, "I don't...
I don't fully know what that means."

But, I mean, he expects

there's gonna be full-born battles
internally within Israel.

[suspenseful music playing]

[man 7] When Bill Clinton was
elected president,

he asked me to go in with him
to the White House

to be his Middle East adviser.

And I told him,
"Everything is coming together in a way

that you will have a chance

to achieve four peace agreements
in your first term."

And he looked at me,
and said, "I want to do that."

[Clinton] Security conditions
that in my judgment are...

[Kurtzer] The first visit of Rabin
to the United States,

he has his meetings with the president

and Warren Christopher,
the Secretary of State.

But he also asks for a meeting
with the peace team

without the Secretary of State,
just with us, which was very unusual.

And what we heard was a Rabin monologue.

He spent an inordinate amount of time
thinking out loud

of why the Palestinian delegation
to the peace talks

was not empowered to make decisions,

and therefore there would be no progress,

why Yasser Arafat and the PLO

had the power to make decisions,

but he didn't trust them.

He basically said to us, "No Palestinians
can make any decisions without the PLO."

Which meant...

We actually asked him,
"Does that mean you'll deal with the PLO?"

He says, "No."

I remember leaving that breakfast saying,
"He's gonna deal with the PLO.

Not now but it's coming."

[suspenseful music playing]

[Indyk] The policy from the American
point of view was Syria first,

for several reasons.

The issues were relatively uncomplicated.

The Golan Heights was not a simple issue,
but it was just a territorial issue.

Palestinians, on the other hand,

had the PLO as their supposed
sole legitimate representative.

We had no ability to deal with the PLO.

We had legislation that was up to here

on preventing any kind
of official engagement with the PLO.

It was a terrorist organization
on our terrorist list.

And Secretary of State Christopher
believed

that there was a chance
to make an Israeli-Syrian peace deal.

[Ross] Warren Christopher and I,
we were going out to Israel.

We get into a meeting,
and Rabin wants only the two of us,

not the rest
of the American delegation.

And he says, "I want now
to go for a deal with Syria.

Let's see if Assad is prepared to do it.

I'm prepared to put in your pocket,
not to give to him.

It has to be completely secret.

If it comes out now, I'll deny it."

But he says he's prepared to commit
to full withdrawal from the Golan Heights.

[Indyk] So we had in our pocket

the critical ingredient for a peace deal,

that Israel was ready
to withdraw from the Golan Heights.

But Rabin said, "It's in your pocket.

You can't take it out of your pocket
until Assad meets my requirements

for security arrangements,
normalization and real peace."

[Ross] When we get to Damascus,

we ask Assad
to have a one-on-one meeting,

but Assad wanted to have two on his side.

And I remember saying to Assad:

"Rabin has made it clear,

if this leaks out,
he denies it ever existed."

And Assad said,
"Anyone who would leak this

would be damaging
Syria's national interests,

and they know
what the consequences are

for damaging Syria's national interests."

He said it just that way. It was chilling.

I mean, it was really chilling.

Then we talk about the pocket
and it becomes clear pretty quickly,

he's taken what's in our pocket
and he's prepared to pocket it,

and now what is important
to Rabin is negotiable.

What he got, he got.

And so he wants to know why Rabin wants
five years for the time of withdrawal.

And normalization?

He doesn't like the term "normalization."
Normal peaceful relations.

Everything is kind of grudging.

When we come back and present to Rabin
what was the discussion,

and by definition,
we put the best face on it.

[Kurtzer] Rabin was furious at us
for mishandling the deposit.

Because Rabin gives this
extraordinary commitment to Christopher,

does not want Christopher
to give it to Assad,

wants Christopher to put it in his pocket,

and wants Christopher to elicit from Assad

a parallel commitment,

which he puts in his other pocket,

and then at some point
takes the two out and says:

"Hey, folks,
we have a conceptual agreement."

And instead, Christopher gives away
the Israeli bottom line.

[dramatic music playing]

[Indyk] It's just worth noting
how skillful Rabin was

with outmaneuvering everybody.

He said to us
after we came back from Damascus

that we needed to keep working it.

He went out in the press conference
and said, "Good news from Damascus."

You have brought good news.
It's only the beginning.

[Indyk] When he said it, I looked
at Dennis, said, "What is he doing?"

We didn't know that at the same time
there was an official negotiation

between Israel and the PLO in Oslo.

So we didn't understand that
Rabin was pressuring Arafat at that point.

It was only discovered afterwards.

Dan Kurtzer said to us,
"I heard that the Oslo deal is completed."

And we said,
"Oh, yeah, sure, of course," you know.

I've been much impressed
with the serious engagement

of all the parties
we've been meeting with...

[Indyk] It suited him to act as if there
was real progress on the Syrian track

because the more it looked
like the Syrian track was moving,

the more Arafat would feel he better move,

or Assad...

And Assad and Arafat were sworn enemies.

Or Assad was gonna steal a match on him.

And so we went all off
for our summer holidays,

and Dennis calls me
from San Francisco.

He says, "Pack your bags."
It was the middle of the night.

"We're gonna have a ceremony
at the White House, uh,

for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement."

I was in shock.

I said, you know,
"You've gotta be joking."

Rabin and Peres went off,
essentially behind our backs,

did the deal with the Palestinians.

[dramatic music playing]

[Ross] Peres comes to see us
with the declaration of principles.

While we've been getting the briefing,
I'm also going through it.

When I finish,
Christopher says, "What do you think?"

And I said,
"I think two very different things.

First, this is a historic breakthrough.

These are two national movements
competing for the same space.

They haven't been prepared
to recognize each other.

And here's a document
that has them recognizing each other.

And we should embrace it."

Then I said to him,
"But it's aspirational.

Nothing is concrete here.

So the real hard work will begin now.

But a historic threshold is being crossed

because you're taking
what was an existential conflict

and you're turning it
into a political conflict.

That's huge."

Christopher said,
"The president will love this."

Morning.

Ladies and gentlemen,

today marks a shining moment of hope
for the people of the Middle East

and indeed of the entire world.

The Israelis and the Palestinians

have now agreed upon
a declaration of principles,

on interim self-government
that opens the door

to a comprehensive and lasting settlement.

The signing ceremony will take place
at the White House on Monday.

[woman 1] For Yasser Arafat,
the invitation to Washington

is the culmination of years of struggle
to gain international acceptance.

When he steps out
to the White House lawn on Monday,

he hopes to shake off
his guerrilla past once and for all.

The president asked me to find out

whether Rabin would agree
to shake Arafat's hand.

So I went to Eitan Haber,
Rabin's chief of staff.

And he said,
"Well, Rabin agrees to shake his hand,

but he has three conditions.

No gun,

no uniform

and no kissing."

[upbeat music playing]

[man 8] PLO leader Yasser Arafat

arrived here in Washington, D.C.
this afternoon.

He is scheduled to take part
in tomorrow morning's signing ceremony

for the Middle East peace agreement.

We'll now take a look at his arrival.

We went to see Arafat,
tried to convince him

and persuade him
that he simply cannot carry a gun.

So he wanted to say,
"Can I have the holster without the gun?"

And we said, "That won't work either."

[Indyk] The kissing issue,
I delegated to Ed Djerejian,

who was the one who had to go out
to Andrews Air Force Base to greet Arafat.

And I said, "You've got to figure out
a way to stop Arafat from kissing you.

Because if he kisses you, the game's up.
He'll end up kissing everybody."

So Ed figured out a way
to shake hands with Arafat

where he shook hands with one hand

and held him at arm's length
with the other on his bicep,

and it looked like it was a warm embrace.

The next morning, we coached the president
on how to do this double-handed handshake.

I have this wonderful photograph
of him practicing

with the national security adviser,
Tony Lake.

So the kissing was solved.
The question then was the uniform.

And Arafat always wore this,
what looked like a uniform.

He never was seen in anything else.
It was part of his image.

So I talked to Bandar,
who was the Saudi ambassador,

and Bandar went to Arafat and said:

"You cannot come
to the ceremony in a uniform.

And I have arranged for my tailor
to be at your hotel room.

He will make you a beautiful suit
that you'll be able to wear tomorrow."

So Arafat says, "Oh, okay."

And they go to his hotel room,
and there's the tailor.

Arafat take off his uniform
and put on this suit coat,

at which point
everybody bursts out laughing.

As soon as they laughed at him,

he realized that
this was gonna be humiliation for him.

He said, "Forget about it."
Sent the tailor and Bandar away.

But Bandar never called me and told me.

So the next morning,

when Arafat and Rabin are supposed to be
on their way to the White House,

and there's a phone call from Eitan Haber,

saying, "Rabin is watching
Arafat get into his limousine,

and he's wearing a uniform,
and Rabin is not coming."

I got the Situation Room
to track down Bandar,

who was at that moment
in the car with Arafat.

I said,
"He's not wearing a uniform, is he?"

And Bandar says:

"Uh...

It's a safari suit."

I said, "Safari suit? Oh, okay.

Are there medals on this safari suit?"

He says, "No, no. No medals, no medals."

So I get Eitan on the other line.

He said, "Wait a minute."
He goes, comes back.

He says, "All right. Rabin is coming."

- [man] How are you, sir?
- How are you?

[indistinct chatter]

[Ross] Arafat is beaming.

For him, he's arrived.

He's at the White House.
The world is watching him.

You know, he's just beaming. He's happy.

- [Rabin] It's going to be very difficult.
- [Clinton] Look, we've just got to try...

[Ross] The president, when he's alone
with him, says, "We need a handshake."

And Rabin is like, just, you know, his...

He can't hide how uncomfortable he is.

This was emotionally wrenching for Rabin,

knowing he was going
to have to shake Arafat's hand.

[man 9 over PA]
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Arafat,

chairman of the Executive Council
of the Palestine Liberation Organization,

His Excellency Yitzhak Rabin,
prime minister of Israel,

the president of the United States.

[crowd applauding]

[in Arabic] I want to promise
the Israeli people and its leadership,

I am sure that the difficult decision
we reached together

was one that required great
and exceptional courage.

We will need more courage
and determination

to continue the course of building
coexistence and peace between us.

[Rabin] Let me say to you,
the Palestinians,

we, the soldiers
who have returned from battles,

stained with blood,

we, who have come from a land

where parents bury their children,

we say to you today,

in a loud and a clear voice,

enough of blood and tears.

Enough.

[crowd applauding]

[all cheering]

[pensive music playing]

[Ross] I went to see Arafat in Tunis.

I go into his office.

I walk in,
and the guys around him are sitting there,

watching the TV show The Golden Girls.

[on TV] Stan and I went through a period
where we had no marital relations.

I totally cut off his sex.

- You mean, it grows back?
- [laughter on TV]

[Ross] The Golden Girls
is an American show.

They're effectively Jewish,
and they live in Miami.

I turn to the people with me, I go:

"These guys are revolutionaries,
and they're watching The Golden Girls?"

Arafat comes in,
apologizes for being late.

And it begins what is a tradition.

Every meeting with him is a meal.

And the first entrée is not only chicken,

but he insists
on cutting my chicken for me.

I said, "The last person
who cut my meals for me was my mother.

It's been a long time."

I was thinking,
I'm watching The Golden Girls,

he's cutting my meal,
there's a Jewish mother syndrome here.

But what I see in this first meeting

is that Arafat has
a completely different concept

of what the Oslo agreement is.

Everything that he discussed
is about independence

and the symbols of independence.

So I immediately see
that there's a huge conceptual gap

between the two sides.

[Helal] For the Palestinians,

the Oslo agreement was supposed
to be an interim short period

that would lead them
to establish their own states.

And on the Israeli side,
it was a testing period, if you will.

If you do one, two, three,
we might give you four, five, six.

If you don't, we will halt.

It was based, like many other agreements,

on that diplomatic tool
called "constructive ambiguity."

I think it should be called
"destructive ambiguity"

because sooner or later,

the points of differences
will come back to haunt you.

Uh, I remember at one point,
President Assad of Syria said:

"Every line of that agreement needs
a thousand page to explain it."

There was ambiguity about
what the endgame was going to look like.

It didn't spell out

what the ultimate resolution
of the conflict would look like.

These two negotiating partners
were in different universes.

Arafat was never a negotiator.

And for him, the breakthrough
of getting recognition of the PLO

meant that everything else
was unimportant.

And I think it is right that he believed

that over time,
things would develop his way.

And as a result of this position,

he got a very weak
Swiss cheese declaration.

So from the Israeli perspective,

it was a significant negotiating victory

because Rabin and Israel

didn't have to face
any of the issues that were hard for them.

No mention of Jerusalem.
No mention of settlements.

No mention of territorial jurisdiction.

And no mention of a state as an outcome.

The Oslo agreement is not an agreement
that we would have negotiated.

It left too much
to an implementation process

in which both sides were able to basically
not fulfill their obligations,

and that really ate away
at the core of the bargain.

[dramatic music playing]

[man 10] A settler opened fire
with an automatic rifle

in a crowded mosque
in the West Bank town of Hebron.

At least 4 0 Palestinians were killed,
scores more wounded.

[man 11] The aftermath
of a house of prayer

transformed into a slaughterhouse.

[man 12] The killer,
an American-born Jew, Baruch Goldstein...

People who know him
say he was dead set

against the Israeli-PLO peace process,

filled with hate for Arabs
and out for revenge.

The Goldstein massacre was the equivalent
of a heart attack for the Oslo process.

After that,
the Israelis were constantly buffeted

by suicide bombings.

[man 13] A bomb blast in central Tel Aviv
has killed more than 20 people.

There'd be a terrorist attack that would
take place while we were sleeping.

I would wake up, drive straight into work,

get on the phone with Dennis
on the way in,

and we'd talk about
what is it now we can do

to try to get the process back on track?

[Ross] We do
the first implementing agreement

with the Palestinians on May 4th,
the Gaza-Jericho Agreement.

What it means is you're gonna have
the Palestinian Authority

set up in Gaza and in Jericho.

We have a three-way meeting,

and we resolve
what is the two final issues.

One has to do with the size
of the Jericho district,

and the other has to do
with the Allenby Bridge,

whether or not the Palestinians
can have a policeman there.

And in each case, Rabin agrees that
he will consider each of these issues.

He won't agree to it now,
but he agrees that he'll consider them,

and that's good enough for Arafat.

Then at 2 in the morning, suddenly,
Arafat raises those same two issues again,

and Amnon Shahak starts to laugh.

And Arafat says, [as Arafat] "Am I a joke?

Do you think I'm a joke?"

[in normal voice]
And Rabin puts his hands up like this

and says,
"No, we take you very seriously."

Just like that.

And you could see it calms Arafat down.

[sirens wailing]

[man 14] Israel's fragile peace process
with the PLO

suffered a major blow today,
one that even...

[woman 2] Dozens of Israeli soldiers
were at this bus stop

at about 9:30 a.m.

when a suicide attacker
detonated the first bomb.

[man 15] Two militant Muslim groups,
which oppose the peace process,

Islamic Jihad and Hamas,
claimed responsibility.

[man 16] At midday,
Prime Minister Rabin visited the site

and was loudly heckled
by onlookers calling him a traitor

for pursuing peace with the Palestinians.

[all clamoring]

[in Hebrew] Rabin is a murderer!
Rabin is a murderer!

Rabin is a murderer!

[ominous music playing]

One Shabbat afternoon, I'm with him.

And there was a demonstration outside
of his apartment, you know, in Tel Aviv.

He was on the top floor and...

We're sitting there, you could hear it.

[in Hebrew] Traitor! Traitor!
Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!

And he can tell
I'm a little bit distracted by it,

and he says, "Dennis, don't worry.
It's not about you. It's about me."

[crowd in Hebrew] Traitor! Traitor!
Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!

Yeah, we're working hard.
We're gonna continue to keep working hard.

Things looks quite tough, Mr. Ross.

[crowd in Hebrew] Rabin is a murderer!
Rabin is a murderer!

Rabin is a murderer!
Rabin is a murderer!

[Ross] I was increasingly worried about
the stability of Rabin's government.

I saw what the mood in Israel was.

I saw a mood that was increasingly ugly.

I was worried about
what was happening with Israel.

I was worried about
the strength of the right.

[in Hebrew] Arafat's victory march
into the Palestinian territories

is the height of humiliation
and an absurd parade.

[crowd in Hebrew] Rabin is a traitor!
Rabin is a traitor!

[Ross] It made me think
of what Rabin had said to me,

that the potential
for a civil war was there.

[in Hebrew] Through blood and fire,
we'll get rid of Rabin!

[Ross] There's a point at which
Arafat does a serious set of arrests.

He doesn't just arrest a lot of people
and then release them.

He does a serious set of arrests,
and he keeps it this way for a while.

Rabin says to me, "Arafat is doing things
that are hard for him."

He says, "I know I have
to give up more than the other side.

I need to know they're prepared
to do things that are hard for them."

The closer we get
to the interim agreement,

the more he begins to say to me
that Arafat is actually taking steps,

and I can see that something changes
in the relationship.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Indyk] September '95 was
when Arafat, Rabin,

Mubarak, and King Hussein of Jordan

all came to Washington

for the signing ceremony
of the Oslo II agreement.

This was a moment
when the Israelis and Palestinians

put together the Oslo II Accord,

which was immensely complicated

because it provided for the establishment
of the Palestinian Authority,

and giving it control,
in effect, sovereignty,

over 40% of the West Bank.

The major towns
and cities of the West Bank

would come under Arafat's control,
so it was a big deal.

[Ross] It meant at the time

that the core of a state
in the West Bank was now going to exist.

[Rabin speaking indistinctly]

I also saw something change
in the relationship between these two men.

Rabin's approach
to Arafat was totally different.

Here, he's at ease with Arafat.

In fact, there's a moment
before the deal is concluded

where the leaders are
all sitting together in the Oval Office,

and I get a message from outside
that the negotiators need to see me.

So I go outside the Oval Office,

and they're saying,
"We have one last issue.

It has to do with the location

of a whether or not the Palestinians
will have a police station near Hebron."

And they said, "We can't resolve this.
Only the leaders can resolve it."

So I go back in,
and in front of everybody, I say:

"Look, Mr. President, I need to borrow
the prime minister and the chairman."

[tranquil music playing]

The president has,
next to the Oval Office,

a small dining room, so we go over there.

And I explain the issue.

And before Rabin can say anything,

Arafat says, "What's ever acceptable
to the prime minister."

Just like that.

And Rabin looks at me,
looks at him, and he says:

"We will have a police station there."

And they shake hands, and that was it.

[camera shutter clicks]

[Indyk] Arafat and Rabin left the room.

Arafat put his arm across Rabin's back.

And I thought
that really captured that moment

where they had moved from
being adversaries to partners in peace.

That night, there was a reception

for the Arab American
and American Jewish communities

at the Corcoran Gallery
across from the White House,

and Arafat gave a very reasonable speech.

This was a speech about his Jewish cousins

and how peace was necessary.

And Rabin then got up, and he said,
"You know, Mr. Chairman..."

In our tradition,
there is a saying that, uh...

What is a Jewish sport?

Speechmaking.

[audience laughs]

I start to believe, Chairman Arafat,

that you are close to be Jewish.

[audience laughing]

But then Rabin went on to say,

for the first time,
"The Palestinians need a state."

He had never said that.
It wasn't in the Oslo Accords.

"Need a state of their own,

so that we can separate out of respect,

not out of hatred."

On the 4th of November,
I had taken one of my kids to the doctor.

And I was on the way back, um,
from the doctor, and I got paged.

And I said, "Well, I'll... It's...

I'm ten minutes from home,
so I'll just call in when I get home."

Debbie, my wife,
when I walked in the door,

said, "Rabin's been shot."

And I said, "What?"

Um...

So I, uh...

I called, um...

I called in immediately,
and then as soon as I called in, I mean...

Christopher came on the phone with me.

And while we were on the phone,

they said, "We learned that he died."

Um...

And so, you know,
here I'm on the one hand, I'm, uh...

I'm emotionally shaken.

And at the same time,
I'm trying to think about...

What do we do?

And...

You know, it, um...

It's obviously still a moment
that I really can't talk about.

[solemn music playing]

[interviewer] You were with your wife.

Yeah.

And, um...

And all three kids
and they'd never seen me cry before.

So...

I'm... She's trying
to explain to them why I'm crying.

And then I'm trying
to explain to them why I was.

You know, it was a... [clears throat]

In a lot of ways, it was something...

It was something I couldn't imagine.

My wife came in with the phone,
and it was Eitan Haber.

And he said to me, "Rabin's been shot.

Meet me at Ichilov Hospital."

And hung up. I was stunned.

So I raced to the hospital.

Uh...

And as we were going down empty streets,

the place was totally empty, eerie.

I got there,
and I was taken down into the basement,

and Eitan was there.

But he was writing something,
and he didn't...

I said, "Eitan, hi,"
and he didn't look at me or anything.

He just kept on writing.

And so I turned around
and didn't know what to do,

and then Rabin's
chef de cabinet hugged me,

and he whispered in my ear,
"Rabin is dead."

And that's how I found out.

[on TV] Just reported
that the prime minister was impacted

by those bullets fired at short range.

CNN has confirmed that he was...

He is being treated
in the emergency ward of Ichilov Hospital.

[man 17] Truly shocking news
from the Middle East tonight.

Israel's prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin,
has been assassinated.

The 73-year-old Rabin was shot three times

after addressing
a huge peace rally in Tel Aviv.

He died of his wounds a short time later.

[camera shutters clicking]

The world has lost one
of its greatest men.

A warrior for his nation's freedom...

and now a martyr for his nation's peace.

Yitzhak Rabin was my partner
and my friend.

I admired him,

and I loved him very much.

Because words cannot express
my true feelings,

let me just say, shalom, chaver.

Goodbye, friend.

[softly] Thank you.

[solemn music playing]

I am very sad...

and very shocked...

for this awful and terrible crime...

against one
of the brave leaders of Israel...

and the peacemakers.

[Ross] Then we were on the plane
very quickly on the way to the funeral.

- [Bush] We're emotional in our family...
- [Ross] We had the ex-presidents.

We had the leaders
of the both Senate and House.

My role was to brief them
on how they should behave

and what we were going into.

And so I told them:

"You're walking into an Israel
that is in a state of shock.

You're walking into a country
that's in a state of depression.

What's the one pillar
they have outside of Israel?

The United States.

You need to send the message,
the U.S. is there for Israel."

Shimon Peres became the prime minister,

and Clinton asked,
"Where's Peres right now?"

And I said, "He's shaken."

I said, "Peres has lost a guy
with whom he's been a rival for 50 years.

Understand what that means.

He's been a rival, but that means
he's been this steady rock for him.

You're gonna have
to be his rock right now.

He has to know
that he's got you to count on."

And when Clinton sees Peres
when we get there,

Peres walks towards him
and extends his hand,

and Clinton envelops him in a hug

and just holds him that way
for an extended period of time,

and it was like he was imparting already
what the relationship was gonna be.

[solemn music playing]

The assassination is transforming
for Clinton.

In March 1993, he meets Rabin.

And he tells Rabin,
"You take risks for peace,

and my responsibility is
to minimize those risks."

So when Rabin is assassinated,
the burden falls to Clinton in his mind.

He owes this debt.

He said, "Take risks for peace,"
and now he's dead.

People say
that Clinton just wanted a legacy.

That wasn't it.

He had a sense of mission because of this.

[Miller] Rabin made Clinton
a part of history.

The young Bill Clinton,
with almost no foreign policy experience,

was made a part
of the historical narrative

as a consequence of historic undertaking.

This is part of the context.

This is part of Bill Clinton's DNA.

[crowd in Hebrew] Long live Bibi,
the king of Israel!

Good evening,
Israel has elected its next prime minister

with a razor-thin margin
separating deeply divided sides.

[speaking in Hebrew]

[man 18] Clinton hosted the Israeli
prime minister at the White House today.

It was the first meeting of the two men

since Netanyahu's election in May.

The prime minister did not back away
from his hard-line position

on the Arab-Israeli peace process
that the president supports.

[Ross] The question was,
how could you manage a process

when you now had a leader who clearly
was cut from a different kind of cloth?

In a sense, we had to figure out
what you could do with him.

Did you want
the whole process to fall apart?

Did you want to lose the ability
to make peace at all?

At that first meeting,
he was lecturing Clinton and telling him:

"You don't understand the Arabs.
I understand the Arabs.

And here's how we're gonna deal
with the Arabs.

We know what to do,
and this is what you have to do now."

And he said, "They have to understand.

It's a new world now.

Uh, and they'll adjust.
You'll see, they'll adjust."

And at the end of the meeting,
he walks out, and Clinton says to me:

"Who does he think the superpower is?"

- [dramatic music playing]
- [crowd clamoring]

[gunfire]

[man 19] We are still keeping a close eye
on the trouble in the Middle East.

The violence began when the Israeli leader
decided to open a new entrance

to an ancient tunnel
near a Muslim holy site in Jerusalem.

[Arafat] This is a crime,

a big crime,
against our religious and holy places.

[gunfire]

[man 20] Good evening.

The prospects of a lasting peace in
the Middle East are fading fast tonight,

as the clash between Israelis
and Palestinians over Jerusalem

now has exploded
into a mini-war on two fronts.

President Clinton today indirectly
criticized the Israelis.

[Clinton] This has gone on too long
and hurt too many innocent people.

[Ross] I go over to the White House,
and I say:

"Look, the only way to stop this

is if you bring everybody here
to the White House.

This is getting out of control,
and from a distance, we can't stop it."

[tense music playing]

[whispering indistinctly]

[Ross] We're having lunch
in the White House,

and King Hussein says to Bibi:

"You don't have the maturity
to be a leader.

You're not like Rabin.

Rabin understood
that when you have a negotiating partner,

you have to do things
that give them the ability to operate too.

You have to grow up and become a leader,
and you're not one today."

And there was absolute silence
in the room.

And then Bibi asks if he can go off
just with Arafat and me.

He gets with Arafat, and he says, "Look.

Let's begin a negotiation,
and we can surprise the world.

No one expects that we can do anything."

And Arafat says, "Okay."

[pensive music playing]

At that time, it became clear
that in a lot of ways,

the Clinton who was interested in this
before is not the Clinton afterwards.

He feels he has a responsibility
to fulfill the Rabin legacy.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Miller] We took over the negotiations
with a renewed commitment to ensure

that Rabin wouldn't die in vain.

We had a historic responsibility.

It was a team
that was dedicated, motivated,

mostly American Jews at the working level,

convinced that this was fundamentally
in the national interest

of the United States,

schooled, taught,
conditioned to the notion

that solving the Arab-Israeli conflict
was critically important.

We were hammered during this period
by being too accommodating of Netanyahu,

too enabling of settlement activity,

but without process,
there would have been nothing.

- [interviewer] Dennis, you're Jewish.
- I am.

Beside Gamal,
all the negotiating team are Jews.

Yes.

How is this perceived by the other side,
as you're supposed to be unbiased?

I think it's easy for them
to portray us as being one-sided

when they look at all the negotiators
as being Jewish.

Now, the reality is, it was also each
of those people who was Jewish

who carried the greatest passion
about wanting to see this settled.

But you are biased. You are biased.

- In a way, you are. You say yourself...
- Wait, look. But you know what? That's...

The notion that, uh, mediators

have to be, quote, "perfectly neutral,"

the only people who say that have never
done any mediation of any hard issue.

I'm not an observant Jew.

I was raised in a very traditional
Conservative Jewish household.

I don't think I, or anyone, frankly,
who's ever worked on this process

is free from the prejudgments
and prejudices and biases.

You are the sum total of your experiences.

The downside is that you grow up
in a milieu and an environment

in which you're much more familiar
with the needs and requirements

of one side but not the other.

[birds chirping]

Good morning, everyone.
I'm Thalia Assuras.

President Clinton convenes the latest
Mid-East peace summit this morning.

On the table, a U.S. proposal

for further Israeli troop withdrawals
from the West Bank.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Clinton]...why our commitment
to Israel's security remains rock solid,

why we'll continue
to do whatever is necessary...

[Ross] I had gone to Arafat, Arafat said,
"We need 30% of the West Bank."

Bibi says, "I can do the lowest teen."
The lowest teen is 13.

So after real hard effort,
I get Arafat to agree, "Okay, 13 percent."

When I go back to Bibi,

I say, "Okay, look,
I got Arafat to 13 percent."

He said, "Well, I said I agree to 11."

I said, "You said, lowest teen."
He said, "Yeah, 11."

I said, "Does 11 sound like a teen?
Thirteen is a teen."

He said, "Well, I meant 11."

I said, "You didn't say 11."

Both Netanyahu and Arafat are not
particularly responsive in these meetings.

Neither one was.

And at one point,
Arafat got outraged by Netanyahu.

[Arafat] Unbelievable.

[Ross] He feels that he's not showing him
sufficient respect and dignity.

[Arafat] This cannot be acceptable...

And Clinton blew up at Bibi in front
of Arafat and the Palestinian team.

Uh, in a way that was...

When Clinton would get mad,
he would, like, just lose it.

Uh, and then Clinton walked out.

Bibi then was...

Initially he was stunned.
And so he says, "What do you suggest?"

So I began to make suggestions, uh,
and he was prepared to go along with them.

[indistinct chatter]

[Miller] At that point, even Netanyahu,
with all his cynicism,

also understood certain realities.

Only the believers could have believed

that we could create
not one but two agreements

between the PLO
and this Israeli prime minister.

Here was the first
and only Likud prime minister

in the history of the State of Israel

not just to return West Bank territory

but a guy who vowed he'd never
shake hands with Yasser Arafat,

a guy who vowed he'd never become
a partner in any negotiation with Arafat,

was willing and able to do that.

[audience cheering]

This agreement gave Clinton
a sense of confidence

that if you put me in a room
with an Israeli and a Palestinian

who are even remotely
interested in cutting a deal,

I could cut that deal.

[woman 3] New allegations that President
Clinton had an affair with a former...

[man 21] The president,
seen in a video with Monica Lewinsky...

[man 22] The intern had
a sexual relationship...

[woman 4] Hillary Clinton called
the charges false.

[Ross] The Lewinsky affair takes place,
as announced,

between meetings
of Netanyahu with the president

and Arafat and the president.

[Clinton] The allegations I have read are
not true, and I will be vigorous about it,

but I have got to get back
to the work of the country.

I was up past midnight
with Prime Minister Netanyahu.

I've got Mr. Arafat coming in.

I have got to get back to work.

[Ross] The president has to go out
to the opening of the Gaza Airport

and to preside over the PNC meeting.

And we're en route out there,

and suddenly he opens the door and asks,
"Where's Hillary? I gotta see Hillary."

And I find out after that,
that the news had just broken

that there's gonna be impeachment,

and the first person
he wanted to talk to was Hillary.

During that whole trip,
she was with him all the time.

I would come up late at night
to brief him, and she would be there.

We were flying down to Gaza
on the helicopter,

and he said to me,
"I didn't sleep at all,"

and he was troubled by all this.

[solemn music playing]

We had a three-way meeting
with Arafat and Bibi,

and I was sitting next to him.

I could see he was writing on his notepad:

"Focus on your job. Focus on your job.
Focus on your job."

Uh, and what's even more stunning,

the speech he gives at the PNC,
he completely ad-libs.

I was with Chairman Arafat,

and four little children came to see me
whose fathers are in Israeli prisons.

Last night, I met some Israeli children

whose fathers had been killed
in conflict with Palestinians.

If I had met them in reverse order,

I would not have known...

which ones were Israeli
and which Palestinian.

A stunning speech.

He is as much preacher as teacher
in this speech.

We must acknowledge
that neither side has a monopoly on pain

or virtue.

The end of the speech, I was crying.

I mean, it was unbelievable.
Hillary sees me and hugs me.

[Helal] He was received
as a conquering hero,

and the entire region saw it.

Here is an American president
visiting a Palestinian area.

In that itself,

there was an implicit recognition
of a future Palestinian state.

[dramatic music playing]

Good morning, everybody.

Voters in Israel have given their country
a new leader and new hope for peace.

The election of war hero Ehud Barak
puts an end to three stormy years

under Benjamin Netanyahu.

[all cheering]

[in Hebrew] I came here to pledge
to the Israeli public

and to my friend
and commander Yitzhak Rabin

that this is the new dawn of a new day.

[all cheering]

[man 23] Ehud Barak had a plan.

A plan from day one.
I think he had a plan from before day one.

He knew where he wanted to go
and where he wanted us to be

to take him there,
and the Palestinians and Syrians there.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Indyk] Barak tells Clinton:

"I have a mandate
to finish the job that Rabin started,

and I want to do it in my first year
and your last year in office."

Clinton had only one year left
when Barak was elected.

[Malley] Clinton had a meeting
with Barak in Camp David.

The two had a tête-à-tête for hours,

and Barak had put his whole plan
on the table.

The president asked us to come
because he was afraid

that he was gonna forget
what Barak had told him,

so he has to take notes
on everything he had said, his plan.

"First, I'm gonna do a Syria deal.
Then I'm gonna do the Palestinian deal.

Here's what I'll do with one.
Here's what you'll have to do."

Astronomical sums of money
that the U.S. would give to the Israelis

to help them with steps they would take,
resolution of the issues,

how it would be done.

And so I remember thinking,
"This is completely impossible.

This is an unrealistic plan."

It assumes things about how
the Palestinians and Syrians would react

which are divorced from reality.

[Clinton] We can make progress
on all fronts. We just do the best we can.

The president is enthusiastic
after seeing him.

He says, "He's serious.

He's prepared to make big moves.
He's prepared to go very far.

But he can do more

if he doesn't have to carry out
further withdrawal on the West Bank,

which Netanyahu already agreed to do."

When I see Barak, I tell him,
Arafat's gonna be very suspicious of this.

[Arafat] It takes two to tango.

[Ross] He's going to think
you're trying to humiliate him,

that you're not showing him
sufficient respect and dignity.

But Barak was someone
who felt he knew best.

He wants to do Syria first, so he's
holding back on the Palestinian track.

[woman 5] The U.S. Secretary of State,
Madeleine Albright, arrived in Damascus,

where she was greeted by the Syrian
foreign minister Farouk al-Sharaa.

Albright then went on
to meet President Hafez Assad

to discuss resuming
peace talks with Israel.

[indistinct chatter]

[Indyk] Amazingly, this time,
Assad said he was ready.

He said, "I'm ready, and I'm ready to send
my foreign minister to meet with Barak."

The foreign minister was sitting there,
Farouk al-Sharaa:

"What? I've got to go and meet an Israeli?
You're kidding."

Assad said, "Yeah, you're gonna go."

Uh, so there we were.

It was like a sea change
in Assad's attitude.

[Ross] When we fly to see Barak, he says:

"Wow, in all my history it says,
when you have an opening, go for it."

Today I am pleased to announce

that Prime Minister Barak
and President Assad have agreed

that the Israel-Syrian peace negotiations

will be resumed
from the point where they left off.

[upbeat music playing]

[Miller] I was sitting
with Arafat in December

when they announced
the Sharaa talks at Blair House.

And he kept squeezing my hand
until it ached.

And I said, "Mr. Chairman,
what do you think about this?"

And he only said one thing to me:
"Barak should not take me for granted."

[al-Sharaa] We are approaching
the moment of truth,

and there is no doubt
that everyone realizes

that a peace agreement
between Syria and Israel

would indeed mean for our region
the end of a history

of wars and conflicts.

[Indyk] A month later,
we brought them all to Shepherdstown

to see if we can make a deal.

And, uh, I went out
to the airport to meet Barak.

And he asked me to come up
and sit with him on the plane,

which was kind of unusual.

And he said to me:

"I can't do it."

Meaning, "I can't give the commitment
to withdraw from the Golan Heights.

My people aren't ready."

I was like,
"If you can't do that, we're not gonna...

We're gonna be out of business
if you're not prepared to do that."

He said, "No, I can't do it."

I remember going from there
to the Daily Grill.

Madeleine Albright was sitting
with Dennis, having dinner.

I came from the airport
and sat down with them.

I said to Madeleine,
"Houston, we've got a problem."

[pensive music playing]

What we hear is
that Barak has gotten polls

that show this is not a popular thing.

And he has to show
it's harder to produce it.

But in the meantime, we're here.

The Syrians actually move
on a number of things.

They move on security arrangements.
They move on the border.

They're moving on everything.

And we can't get Barak
to move on anything.

Clinton took him to the woodshed.

Clinton said to Barak,
"I'm a better politician than you.

I know your people will support this.

You need to do this.
You need to do it now."

But all of his persuasive powers,
which were considerable,

were not enough to move Barak.

[woman 6] The peace talks between
Israel and Syria are winding down today

without a solid agreement.

[man 24] That isn't good news
for President Clinton,

who wants to preside over a peace deal
before he leaves office.

[Ross] Assad says to us,
"I don't know what Barak wants.

How can we do a deal
if we don't know what Barak wants?"

Then Barak is really anxious.

He says,
"Look, we're gonna lose this possibility.

Clinton has to see him."

To produce the meeting,

Clinton has to call Assad and say,
"I now know what Barak wants."

[suspenseful music playing]

We go into the meeting,
and Clinton starts by saying:

"I'm gonna do something unusual.
I'm gonna read.

Barak has agreed to withdraw
to the June 4, '67 lines

and have a mutually agreed border."

And Assad says, "Then we have a problem."

And Clinton says, "Let me explain this."

So he does the next line that explains

that the border will be
off the water line.

And this is where Assad says,
"I used to go swimming in the lake.

I used to put my feet in the lake."

Every possible attempt
that the president tried to do,

secretary tried to do, Dennis tried to do,
uh, it was over by then

because he interpreted
"mutually agreed border" as:

"The Israelis will have a say
in determining where will the border be."

And he never accepted that notion.

[Ross] At the end of the meeting,
Assad could see Clinton's face is all red.

He doesn't want a total blowup with us.

So he walks over to me,
and he shakes my hand,

and he puts his arm up
on my shoulder here,

and says,
"We've always had good relations."

And I put my arm up
on his shoulder right here.

What you feel when you grab
someone's arm is you feel muscle.

I felt no muscle. I felt only bone.

So I knew he was wasting away and dying.

He thinks doing a deal at that point
will threaten the succession to his son.

So what happened essentially was,
yeah, Barak chased Syria,

and he dissed Arafat,

and then when Assad said no
in Geneva in March

and was dead in the first half of June,

Barak turned to Mr. Arafat,

and Arafat said:

"Okay, the price just went up."

[Malley] The week after Geneva failed,

Barak says
he has to speak urgently to Clinton.

And Sandy Berger, who was then
the national security adviser,

wanted to protect Clinton because
he knew what Barak was gonna say,

which is, "Now let's turn our attention
to the Palestinians."

And Sandy said, "We just went
through an experience with the Syrians

that ended in failure.

We tried it your way.
It ended in failure."

At great cost obviously
to the Israelis and the Syrians

but also at great cost
to the credibility of the United States.

This one we have to do differently.
We have to take it more carefully.

[ominous music playing]

[Ross] Barak doesn't give up.
He comes to Washington.

When I see him though,
he spent the whole night at Blair House.

He's up all night.

I can see he literally has
yellow pages spread everywhere.

He's been working all night.
He's been working everything through.

And he's telling me he wants to go
to a summit with the Palestinians.

But first of all,
he's going to withdraw from Lebanon.

[man 25] In the Middle East,
Israel's 15-year occupation

of a South Lebanon security zone
came to an end today,

six weeks ahead of schedule.

The last retreating soldiers locked
the door behind them

as Hezbollah guerrillas jeered
the departing Israelis.

[man speaking in Arabic]

[Malley] Barak decides
to withdraw from Lebanon,

not as a result of a peace deal

but of continuing firing by Hezbollah.

So in the Palestinian psyche,
the lesson was, what pays?

Is it diplomacy, or is it violence?

[Ross] The meeting I had with Arafat
after the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon

was probably one
of the worst meetings I ever had with him.

He was in a terrible mood.

He was swearing every other word,
which is out of character for him,

because he felt
he was made to look the fool.

That he is negotiating,
and what is he getting?

They don't negotiate,
they do violence, and they get it all.

Regardless of what's happening
on the ground,

Barak is insisting to move immediately
to a summit with the Palestinians.

He's telling me,
"We need the pressure cooker of a summit

because no one reveals
their real positions

except if they're in a pressure cooker
and the stakes are high."

And I'm telling him:

"We can't rush to a summit
not knowing what's gonna happen."

[Miller] He was Churchill,

and he told me years afterwards that
that's how he saw himself.

So he pivots.

But he pivots without thinking,

and he creates a world unto himself.

Now Barak puts more pressure
on the president.

[Malley] He said to Clinton:

"I'm promising you
that I'm gonna go further

than any Israeli prime minister
has ever dreamt of going,

but I need your help.

You only have six months left
in your presidency.

I'm prepared to go extremely far,
but in order to go far,

I need the summit
in which it will be me and Arafat,

and we can present everything
that he'll get if he agrees

and everything he'll lose if he disagrees.

If you don't do that, the result is
gonna be the collapse of the process."

[suspenseful music playing]

[Miller] The president himself,
at the end,

had great uncertainty about the summit.

We came to his office,
and he went around the room

and asked people,
"Should I go? Should I go?"

Everybody more or less said
the same thing:

"Yes, you must go, Mr. President."

When he came to me,
I had a decision to make.

I could have said what I should have said:

"Mr. President,
you will not reach an agreement.

They're not ready, and you're not ready."

But I chose not to.

I took the weak way out.

And I regret that.

[Ross] We're meeting him
in his office there,

and he's waxing a little bit nostalgic

because the end is coming
for him as president.

At this moment,
he suddenly is sort of hesitant.

And at that moment, Sandy, Madeleine
and I all make the case to go

and not to be afraid to take the risk.

If we don't take the risk,
we'll never know if a deal was possible.

[camera shutters clicking]

Good morning.

After lengthy discussion
with the two leaders

and after listening
to Secretary Albright's report,

I have concluded
that this is the best way,

it is the only way, to move forward.

Movement now depends on historic decisions
that only the two leaders can make.

To delay this gathering,
to remain stalled,

is simply no longer an option.

[pensive music playing]

[Helal] We literally dragged Arafat
into Camp David.

He did not want to go.

I think he was convinced

that we are dragging him to Camp David
in order to squeeze him,

and there is something going on
between the Israelis and the Americans,

and somehow,
he will be trapped at Camp David.

[Ross] I had this conversation
with Clinton before Arafat comes.

I said, "He's coming here.
He's full of suspicions.

He feels it's a gang-up.

So your whole point here
is to lift him up.

Play on who he is.
Play on his aspirations.

Play on how much you want to be there

when the Palestinian flag is raised
above a state.

Play upon that,
and don't get into any of the substance."

[suspenseful music playing]

We needed to control, in a sense,
how the summit was going to unfold.

I wanted the president,
in day one, to meet with the two,

to outline to Barak and Arafat

what were gonna be the parameters
of all the issues, except Jerusalem.

But when the president meets Barak,
Barak says, no.

He doesn't wanna agree
to the parameters we lay out.

He doesn't wanna proceed
the way we proceed.

The president comes out
and says, "Barak doesn't wanna do it."

Barak said, he felt that this was
a betrayal of the No Surprise Rule.

We should not put something on the table

that was not discussed
with the Israelis first.

And so he told us he thought it was gonna
destroy the trust between our delegations.

[Indyk] From that point on,
anything we put on the table

was coordinated with Barak
and seen by the Palestinians

as a fulfillment of Arafat's worst fears,

that Barak and Clinton were ganging up
to impose a deal on him.

[Clinton speaking indistinctly]

[Miller] Let's be clear.
And I'll put this right on the table.

If an honest broker means
that here are the two sides,

my left hand and my right hand,

and an honest broker essentially means

you adopt positions
that are in the middle,

that's not the United States.

We have rarely played that role.

[Kurtzer] In fact, the Americans'
negotiating philosophy has been

the United States
coordinates positions with Israel,

finds out how far Israel can go,

and then tries to market
that outcome to the Palestinians.

If you're a Palestinian,
you have to ask yourself:

"Why do I want the United States
in the room?"

Since all the United States is doing is,
in Aaron Miller's words:

"Acting as Israel's lawyer."

I know a lawyer when I see one.

And too many people
in the Clinton administration,

myself included,
functioned far too frequently

as Israel's lawyer
during these negotiations.

Did we have
a Palestinian lawyer on our team?

[pensive music playing]

The idea of Camp David
that Barak put to us was,

we need a leader summit.

We get to Camp David,
and Barak doesn't wanna deal with Arafat.

President Clinton wants to broker
a meeting between the two leaders.

Barak doesn't wanna meet.

They have dinner.
Barak spends time not talking to Arafat.

So the whole logic,
again, became contradictory.

Why do you even need the summit
if they weren't gonna speak?

[Ross] After the first days,
I feel like we're in deep trouble.

I have a sinking feeling in my stomach

that this thing now is entirely
on the wrong track.

I would occasionally call Debbie, my wife.

She'd say, "How's it going?"
And I'll say, "Badly."

I said, "Everything I'm trying,
doesn't matter what, it's failing."

[Miller] And here we were
in an undisciplined summit,

with terrific food,

a lot of activities,

movies, golf carts,

which the Israelis and Palestinians
love driving at excessive speeds.

I remember one senior American official
saying to me,

Camp David was about
getting up every morning

and asking ourselves,
"What do we do today?"

"What do we do today?"

At a presidential summit?

Only the second in the modern history
of the Arab-Israeli conflict,

where a president gathers the leaders
to try to reach an agreement?

[thunder rumbling]

[Ross] The first seven days,

Barak resists everything.

And it's only at the point where
the president becomes fed up with him,

where the president says,
"Look, it's gonna break my heart,

but I've drafted a speech
to say we've failed,

and I'm prepared to go give it."

Only when Barak understands
the president is prepared to walk away

does he finally give us the serious set
of moves on all the issues.

The very logic.
In a sense, I said to everybody,

Barak said,
"Get everybody in the pressure cooker."

And it worked.
It worked on him, not Arafat.

Now Barak finally said,

here's what he was prepared
to offer on borders

and what he was prepared
to offer on Jerusalem as well.

He's prepared, in Jerusalem,

for all the outer neighborhoods
to have Palestinian sovereignty,

and he's prepared

to allow the Christian and Muslim Quarters
of the Old City to be Palestinian.

[Indyk] You have to understand
that the issue of Jerusalem

was never negotiated before Camp David.

So when he came to Clinton with this offer

that the Arab suburbs of Jerusalem
would be under Palestinian sovereignty,

this was very impressive.

And so we grabbed it,
and Clinton proposed it to Arafat.

[Ross] When Clinton finally does it,

I'm listening
through the crack in the door,

and the president does it brilliantly.

He goes through
how hard it was to produce this.

This is what's possible.

He's gonna have a state.

He's gonna have a capital
in a part of Jerusalem.

He's gonna have sovereignty
in the Muslim and Christian Quarters.

He goes through it all.

He says to him:

"In the past, Palestinians didn't control
their own destiny.

And each time
after you weren't able to say yes,

you were worse off.

This time, if you say no,

when people look back and they regret it,
they'll have nobody to blame.

It'll be you. This was your chance.

Don't let the next generation blame you
for missing the opportunity."

And Arafat says he has to think about it.

He has questions.
He has to think about it. He goes off.

And afterwards,
the president's feeling good.

He feels like he did it well.
He feels like...

The way he reads Arafat,
he feels like Arafat was...

You know, he felt like he had him.

So it's like 1 in the morning.
I go to sleep, and I fall asleep.

The next thing I know, it's morning.

Uh, and I'm told
that they came back during the night,

and Sandy has, you know, basically said,
"Look, it's take it or leave it."

Uh...

And so they say no.

[solemn music playing]

I felt sick.

I felt physically sick.

I felt in my stomach

that this was a high-stakes venture
that had failed...

and that I bore responsibility
because, in the end, I pushed for it.

- [interviewer] But you didn't push for it.
- But I did in the end. But I did.

I did in the end. I knew better.

I should have known also that this wasn't
the only time to hold a summit.

I should have known that.

[Indyk] Arafat said no.

We couldn't understand it.
How could he reject such an offer?

He could never have hoped
to get such an offer.

But we didn't understand at the time...
It's obvious in retrospect.

But at the time,
what we didn't understand was,

this was an end-of-conflict deal.

This was it.

There was no chance to revise it,
get a better deal later.

Barak was insisting this was it,
end of claims.

And the proposal would have left Israel
with sovereignty on the Temple Mount,

Haram al-Sharif,

with the Al Aqsa Mosque in Israel's hands.

This was exactly what Arafat needed
to be able to reject the whole thing

because no Arab leader,
as he told Clinton,

no Arab leader would accept

that sovereignty
over the third-holiest mosque in Islam

would be in Israel's hands.

Arafat thought that if he would agree,
he would be killed.

And I remember Barak saying that:

"So be it.
I could be killed, you could be killed.

And any leader who wants
to change the reality could be killed."

[Miller] We were the ones
who were supposed

to present Arafat
with a series of ultimatums

and pressure him to accept it.

That was Barak's whole logic, to use us

and use the president's credibility
to pry out of Arafat

concessions in the cauldron
and the heat of the summit.

As if Arafat, with the burden
of Jerusalem on his shoulders,

was going to cave in and collapse

in front of this mighty effort
on the part of President Clinton,

when you had a billion Muslims
in the world

who would have issued fatwas for his death

had he compromised
on any aspect of the Jerusalem issue?

[indistinct chatter]

Barak and Clinton, each in their own way,

wrongly believed
that the power of personality

and the power of persuasion
and the power of manipulation

could somehow transform
and change Arafat.

They wanted to ascend a mountain

by the very power
of their own personas, their own logic

and what they believed to be,
wrongly again,

a moment for Clinton and for Barak.

And that is why both of them
hold Arafat in such contempt,

fundamentally responsible
for not recognizing his moment.

It was their moment,
and yet Arafat didn't understand

that he was part of this plan
of great leadership.

[solemn music playing]

Trying and failing is much better
than not having tried at all,

and I remember
the president saying that to us.

I was inspired by it.

But, you see, that's a slogan
for a college football team.

It's not a substitute for a foreign policy
of the most consequential nation on earth.

Failure costs.

I don't know. I mean,
I don't wanna be too hard on the process.

I include myself in this.

I was as much a part
of this enterprise as anybody else,

in terms of wanting it to succeed.

I just believe, when I look back now,

we saw the world
the way we wanted it to be.

We did not see the world the way it was.

- [dramatic music playing]
- [crowd clamoring]

[in Hebrew] The picture that is emerging
is that there is no partner for peace.

This truth is a painful one,

but that's the truth
and we must face the consequences.

[sirens wailing]

That summit, with the best of intentions
and the best of purposes,

laid the basis for a trauma
in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship

from which
that relationship has not yet recovered.

It was a very hard time,

as everything we'd strived for

had just come apart, destroyed.

All of our efforts had gone up in flames.

Instead of comprehensive peace,
we ended up with misery

on both sides,

and there was nothing I could do about it.

[Ross] Two or three days
before the end of Clinton's presidency,

Arafat calls to say goodbye to him,
and he tells him, "You're a great man."

And the president says,
"I'm not a great man. I'm a failure.

And you made me a failure."

[dramatic music playing]

[Miller] In March of '02, I was trying
to help negotiate a ceasefire

between Israelis and Palestinians.

I went to see Arafat at the Mukataa.

The door was barricaded. Mukataa was dark.

We made our way up
to Arafat's second-floor conference room.

There in the conference room,
with the windows blacked out,

candles on the table,
Arafat in full battle regalia,

with his machine pistol
sitting on top of the table.

And it was then I understood

that the struggler was
so much a part of Arafat's identity

that he was,
in many respects, in his element.

The last time I saw him
was October of '04.

Arafat had so fundamentally
changed in appearance

that I didn't even realize
it was the same person.

He had on a ski hat.

He looked like a senior
in a retirement community in Florida.

And I thought to myself
how absurd this was, the whole enterprise.

Within two weeks, he was dead.

[solemn music playing]

[man 26] President Bush ramped up talks

with the Israeli
and Palestinian prime ministers.

[woman 7]...promised high-level talks...

[man 27] Another bloody day
for Israelis and Palestinians...

[man 28]...have gathered
in Annapolis, Maryland, to talk...

[woman 8] The goal, a peace agreement
by the end of next year.

[various voices speaking indistinctly]

[woman 9]
...Israeli officer just outside Jerusalem.

[woman 10] The attacks
across the Gaza Strip have left over...

[woman 11]
...efforts to secure Arab-Israeli peace...

[woman 12] Secretary of State John Kerry

goes to Jerusalem today
to meet with Israeli...

[man 29] This morning, Israeli police shot
and killed a Palestinian youngster

after he stabbed an Israeli officer...

[man 30] President Obama tried to revive
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks...

[solemn music playing]

It's a history of missed opportunities.

And the missed opportunities were
not just, as Israelis love to believe,

it was just the Arabs or the Palestinians
that missed the opportunities.

Israel and the United States missed
the opportunities too.

And it's a tragedy.

It's a terrible tragedy

that we couldn't get the Syrian deal
and we couldn't get the Palestinian deal.

[Miller] Looking back right now,
if I could change one thing,

I would take the word "peace"
and I would find another word for it.

We've never had it
between Arabs and Israelis

in the sense
that you and I would understand.

We don't have it now.

And I would essentially not use that word
because it creates false expectations,

and it creates a level of aspiration
that we can't achieve.

[Malley] For decades,
we've tried so many ways on negotiations

in so many different iterations.

It all failed.

Even today, there are a lot of people

who say that all we need to do
is just keep the process alive

because without a process,
just the process,

things will get worse,
things will collapse.

It's the bicycle metaphor.
The bicycle needs to keep moving.

There's the other view, which is,
if we simply keep the process alive,

we are distorting
the perceptions of both sides,

we're enabling the status quo,

and, in fact,
far from pushing towards a decision,

we are facilitating the perpetuation

of a status quo
that we claim is unsustainable.

Because if we keep saying,
"Let's bring them together and negotiate,"

and they don't reach a deal,
at some point, this looks like a farce.

[camera shutters clicking]

The United States will encourage a peace
and, really, a great peace deal.

We'll be working on it
very, very diligently.

Bibi and I have known each other
a long time,

a smart man, great negotiator,
and I think we're gonna make a deal.

Might be bigger and better
than people in this room understand.

That's a possibility.
So let's see what we do.

Let's try.

- Doesn't sound too optimistic, but...
- [audience laughs]

[interviewer] Dennis, the Middle East is
in the middle of profound transformation.

There are many in Israel relieved
that you never succeeded

with the Palestinian and the Syrian.

I know they say that.

Israel would have handed over
the Golan Heights,

leaving itself directly exposed to attacks
from Assad's friends, Iran and Hezbollah.

The whole Middle East might've
been different if you had peace.

You know, it's like the track,
the possibility not taken,

you don't know all the other things
that would've taken place.

People today say, "Oh, how lucky we were
that the deal wasn't made."

But what they miss is
that it would have changed everything.

[interviewer] What do you mean?

Because I believe we would have gotten
a comprehensive peace,

with the Palestinians,
the Syrians and the Lebanese.

Do you think that the fate of Syria
would have been different?

- If Syria...
- You cannot tell me...

If Syria had made
a peace deal with Israel,

circumstances would've been different.

The future of the Middle East
would have been different.

I can't tell you exactly how,

but it would be dramatically different
to the way it is now.

[pensive music playing]

[Helal] It's a mistake to assume
that all sides are eager to have peace.

It's always easy
to have an enemy out there.

Peace is, uh, hard work,

and changing minds,
changing hearts, accepting the other side.

You really have to look at tomorrow
and what you're gonna do about tomorrow.

Uh, a lot of parties feel comfort
in the past.

As a matter of fact, today,
I cannot think of a way

to really settle
the Palestinian-Israeli issue.

Is the idea
of two-state solution still possible?

I doubt it.
I really don't think it's there.

When you look at the animosity
and the hatred that exists,

the human side is completely out.

People just love
to demonize the other side.

All their ills is
because of the other side.

All their problems
because of the other side.

And unfortunately, today,

the leaders are basically
a reflection of their own societies.

And unless you are planning
on accepting the other side,

there is zero hope for a solution.

[pensive music playing]