CLINTON, WILLIAM (BILL) J.

(1946- )

   President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. As president, he became deeply and directly involved in Arab-Israeli diplomacy, most notably efforts to achieve a permanent settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He hosted the signing of the historic Israel-Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Declaration of Principles (September 1993). He mediated the negotiations that culminated in the Wye River Memorandum (1998) and the Sharm el-Sheikh cease-fire agreement (October 2000). He also served as an interlocutor in the unsuccessful Camp David II-Taba talks. Clinton witnessed two major Israel-Jordanian agreements, the Common Agenda of 14 September 1993 and the Peace Treaty of 26 October 1994, and expended tremendous energy in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to achieve an agreement between Syria and Israel over the Golan Heights. He hosted bilateral talks with senior Israeli and Syrian officials in Washington, DC, and Shepherdstown, West Virginia, and held an unprecedented meeting with Syrian president Hafez al-Assad in Geneva, Switzerland, in March 2000.

   See also Arab-Israeli Conflict.