By this time, I had gotten to understand Barak...
By this time, I had gotten to understand Barak betterHe was brilliant and brave, and he was willing to go a long way on Jerusalem and on territoryBut he had a hard time listening to people who didnt see things the way he did, and his way of doing things was diametrically opposed to honored customs among the Arabs with whom Id dealtBarak wanted others to wait until he decided the time was right, then, when he made his best offer, he expected it to be accepted as self-evidently a good dealHis negotiating partners wanted trust-building courtesies and conversations and lots of bargaining

The culture clash made my teams job harderThey came up with a variety of strategies to break the impasse, and some progress was made after the delegations broke up into different groups to work on specific issues, but neither side had permission to go beyond a certain point

On the sixth day, Shlomo Ben-Ami and Gilead Sher, with Baraks blessing, went well beyond previously stated Israeli positions in the hope of getting some movement from Saeb Erekat and Mohammed Dahlan, younger members of Arafats tiffany co earrings team who we all believed wanted a dealWhen the Palestinians didnt offer Barak anything in return for his moves on Jerusalem and territory, I went to see Arafat, taking Helal with me to interpret and Malley to take notesIt was a tough meeting, and it ended with my telling Arafat that I would end the talks and say he had refused to negotiate unless he gave me something to take back to Barak, who was off the wall because Ben-Ami and Sher had gone as far as they had and gotten nothing in returnAfter a while Arafat gave me a letter that seemed to say that if he was satisfied with the Jerusalem question, I could make the final call on how much land the Israelis kept for settlements and what constituted a fair land swapI took the letter to Barak and spent a lot of time talking to him, often alone or with the NSC notetaker for Israel, Bruce ReidelEventually Barak agreed that Arafats letter might mean something

On the seventh day, July 17, we almost lost BarakHe was eating and working when he choked on a peanut and stopped breathing for about forty seconds, until Gid Gernstein, the old omega youngest member of his delegation, administered the Heimlich maneuverBarak was a tough customer; when he got his breath back, he went back to work as if nothing had happenedFor the rest of us, nothing was happeningBarak had kept his entire delegation working with him all day long and into the night

In any process like this, there are always periods of downtime, when some people are working and others arentYou have to do something to break the tensionI spent several hours of my downtime playing cards with Joe Lockhart, John Podesta, and Doug BandDoug had worked at the White House for five years while putting himself through graduate and law school at night, and in the spring had become my last presidential aideHe had an interest in the Middle East and was very helpful to meChelsea played cards, tooShe made the highest Oh Hell! score in the entire two weeks at Camp David

It was after midnight when Barak finally came to me with proposalsThey were less than what Ben-Ami and Sher had already presented to the PalestiniansEhud wanted me to present them to Arafat as UI understood his gold chanel earrings frustration with Arafat, but I couldnt do that; it would have been a disaster, and I told him soWe talked until two-thirtyAt three-fifteen he came back, and we talked another hour alone on the back porch of my cabinEssentially he gave me the go-ahead to see if I could work out a deal on Jerusalem and the West Bank that he could live with and that was consistent with what Ben-Ami and Sher had discussed with their counterpartsThat was worth staying up for

On the morning of the eighth day, I was feeling both anxious and hopeful, anxious because I had been scheduled to leave for the G-8 summit in Okinawa, which I had to attend for a variety of reasons, and hopeful because Baraks sense of timing and his enormous courage had kicked inI delayed my departure for Okinawa by a day and met with ArafatI told him that I thought he could get 91 percent of the West Bank, plus at least a symbolic swap of land near Gaza and the West Bank; a capital in East Jerusalem; sovereignty over the Muslim and Christian quarters of the Old City and the outer neighborhoods of East Jerusalem; planning, zoning, and replica fendi spy bag law-enforcement authority over the rest of the eastern part of the city; and custodianship but not sovereignty over the Temple Mount, which was known as Haram al-Sharif to the ArabsArafat balked at not having sovereignty over all of East Jerusalem, including the Temple MountHe turned the offer downI asked him to think about itWhile he fretted and Barak fumed, I called Arab leaders for supportMost wouldnt say much, for fear of undercutting Arafat

On the ninth day, I gave Arafat my best shot againIsrael had gone much further than he had, and he wouldnt even embrace their moves as the basis for future negotiationsAgain I called several Arab leaders for helpKing Abdullah and President Ben Ali of Tunisia tried to encourage ArafatThey told me he was afraid to make compromisesIt looked as if the talks were dead, and on disastrous termsBoth sides clearly wanted a deal, so I asked them to stay and work while I was in OkinawaThey agreed, though after I left, the Palestinians still refused to negotiate on the basis of the ideas I had advanced, saying they had already rejected themThen the Israelis omega speedmaster day-date ba