Details are beginning to emerge about the stances taken by the Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the failed Camp David summit.
According to a “very senior source” traveling on Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s plane to Israel from Washington, these positions were put forward:
Israel agreed to grant the Palestinians 88 percent of the West Bank;
Israel agreed to absorb several thousand Palestinian refugees within the framework of family reunification;
Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat refused to back off his demand for the right of all Palestinian refugees to return to the homes they abandoned during the 1948 War of Independence.
The Palestinians rejected a proposal by President Clinton to put off a decision on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and the Old City for several years.
Israel agreed to grant the Old City a special status under which it would remain under Israeli sovereignty while granting free access to holy sites to all religions.
Israel agreed to grant the Palestinians autonomous rule over the Temple Mount, but with a request that a special section be reserved for Jewish prayers. Israel also proposed that the Palestinians have free access to the site via a road or bridge.
Israel proposed that a Palestinian capital be established adjacent to the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem and be under Palestinian municipal rule, but with Israeli law still in effect.
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