Former US president Bill Clinton held Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat responsible for the collapse of Middle East peace talks in 2000, and told him so.
In an interview published Monday in the British Guardian newspaper, Clinton said that as he was preparing to leave the White House, Arafat thanked him for his work and called him a great man.
“I replied: ‘I am not a great man. I am a failure, and you have made me one,'” Clinton disclosed.
He said then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was set to make bug concessions for peace, but the PA leader was not able to “make the final jump from revolutionary to statesman...he just couldn’t bring himself to say yes”.
But Clinton said his successor George Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon should work with Arafat if they want to make peace in the Middle East.
“Unless they just want to wait for him to become incapacitated or pass away or unless they seriously believe they can find a better negotiating partner in Hamas...then they need to keep working to make a deal,” he said. (Albawaba.com)
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
