An airstrike on Gaza last night illuminates the view from the Israeli border town of Sderot
MOSTAFA ALKHAROUF/ANADOLU/GETTY IMAGES
Three days before he left the office of chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, Yasser Arafat called President Clinton to say goodbye. “You are a great man”, said Arafat. “The hell I am,” replied Clinton. “I’m a colossal failure and you made me one.”
Clinton’s memoir, My Life, is one of those books that columnists endure so that readers don’t have to. Jon Stewart, the American comedian, once said: “I haven’t finished it yet ... I’m on page 12,000.”
One passage that is vivid and tragic is Clinton’s account of the Camp David summit in July 2000. Clinton relates how, to avoid any misunderstanding, he read “slowly” to Arafat the text of a document that had been endorsed in advance by Ehud Barak, the
