Bill Clinton: “No. Mr. Arafat said that he would join the talks here in Washington, but I know he's under a lot of pressure at home…”

“No. Mr. Arafat said that he would join the talks here in Washington, but I know he's under a lot of pressure at home, and I understand that. The only thing that I would say to the Palestinians who are pressuring Arafat not to resume talks is that that is the surest way to hand a victory to the madman who killed all the Palestinians in the mosque. Why should they do something that would hand a victory to the extremists on both sides? But he is under pressure. We are working on it. I talked firstly to Prime Minister Rabin. We've been in touch with Mr. Arafat. I'm hoping to have a conversation with King Hussein today, and I've talked to President Mubarak, and we're all working on this hard. But I think that they want to come back. And I am not resigned to the fact that it won't happen.”