Sham summit promised little for the
Palestinians. “The result? The world believes
that Mr Arafat turned down what he had always demanded, and the
cancellation of the Sharm el-Sheikh summit was entirely his fault.

Having claimed in the past that Israel was offering 92 per cent of the
West Bank – and then 94 per cent – to the Palestinians, the Americans
insisted that the latest Clinton proposals would give Mr Arafat 95 per
cent. But a careful reading of the Clinton document proves this to be
untrue. With the Dead Sea waters that would become Palestinian
‘territory’, with the Israeli army ‘buffer zones’, with the ‘rental’ of the
Kiryat Arba settlement land, with the exclusion of the West Bank land
illegally annexed into Jerusalem by the Israelis (including the massive
Male Adumim settlement), Arafat was still likely to get no more than 64
or 65 per cent.” The Independent