After 15 days of intense discussions, the Middle East peace talks at Camp David have ended in failure. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat could not agree on the final status of the city of Jerusalem, and broke off negotiations. Both men return home weakened. The failure to reach agreement is a blow to the peace process, but it need not be a mortal one. Progress has been made. Momentum will slow, but it must not be lost.
The gap that proved unbridgeable was Jerusalem. The city has holy sites of three religions -- Christianity, Islam and Judaism -- and both Israelis and Palestinians claim it as their capital. Jerusalem is home to some 200,000 Palestinians, about 30 percent of the city's total population. Most of them live in East Jerusalem, territory seized by Israel in the Six Day War, but there are Jewish settlements in that part of the city as well. As a result, the intermingling of Israelis and Palestinians means no simple boundary divides the two groups.
Mr. Barak went into the negotiations claiming, as had every one of his predecessors, that Israel would maintain sovereignty over all of Jerusalem. Mr. Arafat demanded East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state that would one day come into existence.