Clinton agreed with Arafat that Barak is "politically inept, frustrating, and devoid of personal warmth," but believed, in spite of this, that Barak wanted peace. Arafat believed that Barak did not want peace; he only wanted to convince the world that the Palestinians don't want peace. As a matter of fact, since the summit Barak's main boast has been that he "unmasked Arafat."
Clinton broke his word to Arafat. Before the summit, he promised that if it fails, he would not blame the Palestinians. Only on this condition did Arafat agree to come to the conference, which took place without proper preparation. After the failure, Clinton put the sole blame on Arafat, in order to help Barak in his reelection campaign.
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When Barak's admirers were compelled to admit that the story about "the generous Camp David offers" is a legend, they fell back upon another line: "True, at Camp David no reasonable offers were made, but later, at the Taba meeting in January 2001, much more generous offers were made. These met all Palestinian demands, but were nevertheless rejected by them. At Taba the Israeli negotiators also submitted a map that reduced further the areas that Barak wanted to annex."
Here are some of the responses to this line:
If Barak really wanted to make much more "generous" offers, why did he not make them at Camp David, even when he realized that the summit was about to break down?
The failure of the summit caused the outbreak of the intifada, as we (and, it now appears, the Americans, too) prophesied. From that moment on, the political reality on the Palestinian side changed completely, hundreds were killed, and it became much more difficult for Arafat to convince his public to halt the uprising without achieving an important political concession in advance.
The Taba proposals were never put on paper, and until this very moment it is not clear what was proposed, or who proposed what and on whose authority. Barak, of course, repudiated everything the next day.
In the meantime, the election campaign had started in Israel and all the polls showed that Barak was about to be defeated by a landslide. How could Arafat make sweeping concessions to a man who, almost certainly, would lose power within two months? Especially since Barak did not reveal the proposals to his own public?
Arafat did not reject the Taba proposals, but declares even now that