Lesson Page-2
       Who? 
  (Pres. Clinton)
         What?
    (delayed trip)
       When?
(did this happen)
       Where?
   ( did it happen)
        Why?
  (did it happen)
         How?
     (did it happen)
        Return to Lesson Page-1        Return to Practice News Story

The 5W's and How question details are identified by the color code above.  See if you can identify some more details.
 
July 19, 2000
            Talks Yield High Hopes, Few Fruits

                     By JANE PERLEZ

                           HURMONT, Md., July 18 -- The White House described the scene inside Camp David
                           today as one of little sleep and unwavering intensity, with President Clinton negotiating until
                           dawn with Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel and then, after just a few hours' sleep,
                     meeting with the Palestinian leader,Yasir Arafat.

                     Informally, officials were suggesting that Mr. Clinton's artificial deadline of Wednesday morning,
                    when he is scheduled to leave for Japan, could be stretched as much as 21 hours, an element of
                    information that added to a steadily building drama.

                     At times today, it seemed the impossible might be possible: an agreement on all the issues,
                   including Jerusalem. At other times, the temperature fell to the more sober expectation of a rather
                     modest agreement and a second meeting before Mr. Arafat's Sept. 13 deadline for declaring a
                     Palestinian state.

                     These polar extremes were fed by the pitch of diplomacy that dribbled through the phone wires of
                     the mountain retreat. Members of the Israeli delegation have called home in the last 24 hours,
                     leaking news that the question of Jerusalem had been under discussion since Monday and hinting
                     at progress on this most intractable issue.

                     In contrast, Mr. Arafat was reported to have called his headquarters in Gaza and told his aides to
                     spread the word that he was considering packing his bags and leaving.

                     Both sides were playing to their constituents, and preparing public opinion for possible outcomes.
                     Mr. Arafat, presumably, was showing that he was not going to give up on his long-held stance that
                     East Jerusalem must be the capital of a Palestinian state.

                     As part of the same script, Mr. Barak was demonstrating that he was a man of reason, and was
                     prepared as Channel 2 in Israel reported tonight to make "unprecedented steps" toward the
                     Palestinian position on Jerusalem. If an agreement were not reached on the status of Jerusalem, Mr.
                     Barak would be able to say that he had tried his best and that the Palestinians were unmovable.

                     But the fact that Jerusalem was on the table was itself progress over the seven-year time line of
                     negotiations.

                     "I was astonished by the degree of progress in the last few hours," said an Israeli who was in
                     contact with the delegation by telephone.

                     Only several months ago, Jerusalem was virtually taboo in back channel talks in Stockholm, where
                     the top negotiators of Mr. Arafat and Mr. Barak met and made progress on a variety of issues.
                     These included what might constitute the territorial boundaries of a Palestinian state and what would
                     be the fate of the three million Palestinian refugees scattered across the Middle East.

                     But on Jerusalem, there was only generalized talk in Stockholm.

                     According to reports attributed to Israeli officials, the Israeli delegation at Camp David was
                     presenting a plan that would incorporate the Israeli bedroom communities that are now a de facto
                     part of the capital into the legal entity of Jerusalem. Among these West Bank settlements near
                     Jerusalem being mentioned are Maale Advmim and Givat Zeev.

                     The plan also calls for areas populated by Palestinians, such as Beit Hanina and the Shuafat refugee
                     camp, to be placed under Palestinian control. The moves together would provide more demographic
                     balance in Jerusalem.

                     But this version of a solution for Jerusalem leaves unanswered the top concerns of Mr. Arafat, who
                     has insisted all along that East Jerusalem, annexed by the Israelis in the 1967 war, should be the
                     capital of a Palestinian state.

                     From the Palestinian point of view, the Israeli plan does not deal with the heart of the matter: it
                     leaves under Israeli sovereignty the Old City of Jerusalem, home of the main religious sites of
                     Judaism, Islam and Christianity.

                     There have been some suggestions from outside the Camp David negotiations in the last few days
                     that the future of the Old City could be set aside for future generations to decide. But there have
                     also been reports that Mr. Arafat...

                     (Source:  New York Timeson the Web, Learning Network, July 19, 2000)