Camp David II refers to the summit held from 11–25 July 2000 at the US presidential retreat in Maryland, convened by President Bill Clinton with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat. The summit aimed to conclude a permanent-status agreement on the core issues left unresolved by the 1993 Oslo Accords: borders, Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security, and water.
The talks collapsed without an agreement. Israeli and American negotiators reportedly proposed Palestinian sovereignty over roughly 91% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, with land swaps, limited Palestinian sovereignty in parts of East Jerusalem, and Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall and Jewish neighborhoods built after 1967. Arafat rejected the terms, particularly on Jerusalem and the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount, and on the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
After the summit's failure, Clinton publicly credited Barak's flexibility, a framing that drew sharp criticism from Palestinian negotiators and several participants. Accounts of who was responsible for the breakdown diverge significantly. US envoy Dennis Ross and Israeli negotiator Shlomo Ben-Ami largely blamed Arafat; Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and US official Robert Malley argued the Israeli offer was less generous than portrayed and that no map was formally tabled. Hussein Agha and Malley's essay in the New York Review of Books (August 2001) became an influential revisionist account.
Camp David II is widely viewed as a turning point. The Second Intifada erupted in late September 2000 following Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. Subsequent negotiations at Taba in January 2001 narrowed gaps further but ended when Barak's government fell. Clinton's December 2000 "Parameters" later served as a reference framework for final-status proposals.
The summit is sometimes called "Camp David II" to distinguish it from the 1978 Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel brokered by Jimmy Carter.
Example
In July 2000, Bill Clinton convened Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat at Camp David II, but the two-week summit ended without a final-status agreement on Jerusalem or refugees.
Frequently asked questions
The 1978 accords, brokered by Jimmy Carter between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, produced the Egypt-Israel peace framework. Camp David II in 2000 addressed the Israeli-Palestinian track and produced no agreement.
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