Clinton hosted Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat for intensive negotiations at Camp David. The summit aimed to reach a comprehensive agreement addressing all final status issues.
It didn’t happen because Arafat said “no”. No to a deal that gave him everything the Palestinians had demanded. “The only time Yasser Arafat lied to me” says Clinton. Perhaps the only time he lied to him. But Arafat lied to the west all the time. He said one thing to the west and a completely different thing to the Arab Street. Which we know be of the great work translating the Arabic to English, by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute. Which I recall reading first decades ago.
The dissembling continues to this day. It’s a doctrine of Islam, Taqiyya, that permits, even encourages, lying to non-believers.
