Double Overtime

A funny thing happened on the way to a failed summit. It seems the talking never stops when Middle East negotiations are involved, even when officials announce the talks have ended.

At 10:50 p.m. Wednesday night, National Security Council spokesman P.J. Crowley, speaking for White House spokesman Joe Lockhart, told reporters "The summit has come to a conclusion without reaching an agreement."

Palestinian president Yasser Arafat was rumored to be headed toward Andrews Air Force Base to return to the Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Barak was due in Frederick, Maryland, for a news conference to explain the Israeli position.

Then came the evening's biggest surprise: Two hours after his spokesman declared a conclusion to the summit, President Clinton appeared at the Thurmont Elementary School press center to tell reporters Barak and Arafat had agreed to stay at Camp David and continue to work with Secretary of State Albright while Mr. Clinton headed to Japan for an economic summit.

"Nobody wanted to give up. After all these years, as hard as these issues are, they didn't want to give up," said the President.

Mr. Clinton will not return from Japan before Sunday evening. Everyone hopes for a little progress, but the first thing on the minds of negotiators at Camp David is to get some sleep. They've been pulling "all nighters," as college kids like to say, for the last four nights.

Sometime Friday Secretary Albright will assemble the U.S. team and work out ways to move things forward. "Gaps remain substantial," according to President Clinton, who cautioned reporters there should be no illusions about the difficult task remaining. "This is really, really hard," he said.

Middle East negotiations seem to dance to their own, often dissonant tune. Arafat, in May, 1995, held up a signing ceremony in Cairo after all the documents had been prepared and everyone thought they had a deal.

Arafat is known as a master of brinksmanship in negotiations, someone who Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli diplomat, said "would negotiate until the last minute, and even five minutes beyond the last minute."

The biggest sticking point seems to be Jerusalem and the question of what type of control Israel is willing to let the Palestinians exercise over Arab sections of the divided city.

But overriding all issues is a political dynamic. Both leaders are politically weakened and neither wants to return home unless he is convinced he has squeezed the best deal possible out of the other party — and the people back home will see that.

The last factor affecting both Barak and Arafat is that they trust Mr. Clinton, who has invested a lot of time in this process and has mastered the details. No one can guarantee the next president will have the desire or expertise Mr. Clinton now holds.

As Mr. Clinton said just before leaving for Japan, "we all thought it was over, at least for now. Then we dscovered nobody wanted to give up."

It all boils down to the fact that whatever deal negotiators might be able to forge here is likely to be the best deal anyone can put together for a long time. And both Barak and Arafat seem to understand that and see their political futures tied to an agreement brokered by Mr. Clinton.

By Charles Wolfson
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