Visions in Collision: What Happened at Camp David and Taba?

Overview

Amid continuing despair over the stalled implementation of President George W. Bush's "roadmap" for peace in the Middle East, Jeremy Pressman of the University of Connecticut offers a glimmer of hope. Pressman begins with an analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian-U.S. summit at Camp David in 2000 and the talks in Taba, Egypt, in 2001. He explicates the Palestinian, Israeli, and U.S. claims about what happened at the talks and compares each version to the evidentiary record. He concludes that although the negotiations did not produce a final peace settlement, they were not the dismal failures that Israeli and U.S. officials, in particular, have portrayed them to be. Pressman asserts that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators made significant progress on a number of crucial issues, creating "building blocks" that can serve as the foundation for an eventual peace agreement.