The dispute over Jerusalem is perhaps the best litmus for testing sincerity, at least with respect to the Israeli side. In a different situation, for example, if Jordan were still the partner for the negotiations about Jerusalem, one might assume that Israel would have been prepared to stand joint sovereignty. The necessity of handing over to Arafat, as opposed to any Arab state, the control of parts of Jerusalem is what makes the city a far more complicated problem. Arafat is still perceived as the head of a movement and not the head of a state, Palestine is a vague concept and the transition from a situation of occupation, of giving orders to the Arabs of the territories, to a situation in which Arafat has a status equal to Barak's, and a legitimate claim to Jerusalem that is equal to Israel's, is apparently still unbearable. Evidence for this may be found in the Pavlovian response by Israel every time Arafat talks about unilaterally declaring a state.
Israeli sincerity is perverted here in a very strange way.
If Israel is asking, and rightly so, that the final status agreement serve as a certificate that the conflict is over, it must recognize that the only red line is the non-forestalling of the agreement. That Jerusalem is the test it must pass, just like the test of the refugees. These two are the historical parameters that define the substance of the conflict and only through them can the end of it be reached. And it is these, not the technical arrangements, the division into quarters or the absorption of some tens of thousands of refugees that are the main issues, but rather above all the recognition that the future of a nation cannot be dependent on the control of a few quarters of a city that up until 33 years ago was only an unfulfilled dream, which in no way interfered with the orderly life of the state. Until this recognition is at the basis of the negotiations, the Camp David summit will continue to be merely another step in a negotiation that is not yet ready to bear fruit in an agreement.