IGP Hosts Workshop with Israeli and Palestinian Negotiators from Camp David Summit

On December 6, SIPA’s Institute of Global Politics (IGP) hosted a workshop on the permanent-status negotiations for Palestinian statehood that took place between Israeli and Palestinian representatives at the Camp David Summit in 2000. The workshop was co-led by Ghaith al-Omari and Gideon “Gidi” Grinstein, who both served as the secretaries of the Palestinian and Israeli delegations, respectively. Al-Omari is currently the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Senior Fellow in The Washington Institute for Near East Policy's Irwin Levy Family Program on the US-Israel Strategic Relationship. Grinstein is the Founder and President of the Reut Group, an Israeli nonprofit that specializes in strategy, development, and leadership. 

More than 30 students attended the workshop from across Columbia, including Columbia College, SIPA, the Columbia Business School, and the School of General Studies. Al-Omari and Grinstein organized the day-long session into five modules designed to contextualize the Camp David Summit within the history of the two-state solution before diving into the building blocks of Palestinian statehood and how the negotiations unfolded. 

The day began with the students sharing their motivation for participating in the workshop, some joining because of familial connections to the conflict, some to challenge the narratives they had learned about the conflict throughout their upbringing, and others seeking essential knowledge and tools for their future diplomatic careers. 

Early in their careers, al-Omari and Grinstein both landed junior roles which carried significant responsibility on their delegations. As secretaries, they had to translate the political rhetoric of their principals – Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak – into written policy that both sides could accept and sell to their respective publics.

Intrinsic to big ideas about Palestinian statehood were detailed strategy challenges which required close collaboration between delegations to address, al-Omari and Grinstein said. For instance, both sides had to work through points of contention like the resolution of the Palestinian refugee issue, succession to the PLO, and the timing of the declaration of a Palestinian state.

The sequencing of the negotiation topics also presented a challenge, al-Omari and Grinstein told the students. The Israeli delegation wanted to hammer out the details of Palestinian statehood before agreeing to recognize a state whereas the Palestinian delegation wanted an agreement on the recognition of a state before negotiating its details. Both sides arrived at their preferred sequence based on, in part, inherent biases that colored perceptions of the other, they said. Arafat thought Israeli reluctance around recognition supported his fear that the negotiations were an American-Israeli trap. Barak thought that Palestinian insistence on addressing the details of statehood last demonstrated their flippancy.

Al-Omari and Grinstein said that overcoming these perceptions required the members of the delegations to address the identitarian and political narratives animating the conflict. Refusal to do so could become anathema to progress on any aspect of the negotiations.

Though the deal ultimately fell apart, al-Omari and Grinstein attribute their continued friendship to the mutual respect they gained for one another throughout the summit. In the windows where negotiations went well, they did so because the delegations worked collaboratively on the same side toward a palatable compromise, rather than against one another toward a zero-sum outcome.

The workshop was the first of two sessions that will continue early next semester.