Few months back, I watched Rose program on PBS and he was interviewing Ross, who was very involved from our side in the negotiations between Barak and Arafat. Ross point of view was that Arafat simply did no want a peace agreement, when asked why he said he did not know, but had two speculations, one, Arafat feared of being murdered like Saddat and Rabbin before him, and second, that deep inside, he thought he can still force demoralization on the Israeli and they will leave. Arafat was supposed to bring a resolution to the Palestinian parliament and the the PLO governing body (changing the PLO current "charter") recognizing the right of Israel to exist in recognized and secure borders to be negotiated by the parties, he never did.
Zeev