 |
| Volume VI, October 1998, Number 2 |
| |
| Review Essay: The Oslo Peace Process through Three Lenses |
| |
Michael Rubner
Professor, International Relations, James Madison College, Michigan State University
For a printable version of this book review, click here.
Through Secret Channels, by Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). Reading, UK: Garnet Publishing Ltd., 1995. 224 pages. Appendices to page 246. Index to page 252. $19.95 paperback.
Making Peace with the PLO: The Rabin Government's Road to the Oslo Accord, by
David Makovsky. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996. 163 pages. Appendices to page
233. Chronology to page 239. $16.95 paperback.
The Process: 1,100 Days that Changed the Middle East, Uri Savir. New York:
Random House, 1998. 315 pages. Index to page 336. $27.95 hardcover.
Almost five years have passed since Israel and the PLO concluded secret negotiations at Oslo
that led to the extension of formal mutual recognition and the signing of the Declaration of
Principles (DOP) on interim self-government arrangements for the West Bank and Gaza. After
the historic handshake between then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat
on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993, the road traversed by the erstwhile antagonists
toward a just and durable peace has been tortuous, producing a curious admixture of significant
accomplishments and disappointing failures.
On the positive side, Palestinian self-rule was initially established over Jericho and much of
the Gaza Strip following the withdrawal of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and administrative
personnel from these areas in May 1994. After the signing of the Oslo II accord in late September
1995, the IDF withdrew from the six largest cities in the West Bank, enabling the newly elected
Palestinian Authority (PA) to exercise sole jurisdiction over an area (designated as "A" in the
Agreement) comprising 3 percent of the West Bank's territory and encompassing approximately
one-third of the Palestinian population. As part of this accord, it was further agreed that the
parties would share control over the 450 villages in the West Bank, comprising 23 percent of the
territory (designated as "B" in the Agreement) and containing 67 percent of the population, with
the PA exercising authority over civic matters (education and culture, health, social welfare,
taxation and tourism, among others), and Israel retaining jurisdiction over security matters. In
January 1997, 80 percent of the city of Hebron came under Palestinian jurisdiction, leaving only a
small enclave of some 500 Jewish settlers to be guarded exclusively by the IDF. Moreover,
several thousand Palestinian prisoners and detainees were released by Israel over the past five
years, and the ground was laid for more intensive economic cooperation between the Palestinian
Authority and the Jewish state.
As impressive as these accomplishments are, they have been overshadowed by severe setbacks
that shattered the immediate post-Oslo euphoria. Since 1993, well over 100 Israeli civilians were
killed and more than 500 injured in terrorist attacks perpetrated by Palestinian opponents of the
peace process. During the same period, scores of Palestinian civilians lost their lives in bloody
clashes with the IDF and militant Jewish settlers. Contrary to initial expectations, economic
conditions for most of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza have deteriorated as
well. According to a recent report by the International Monetary Fund's Middle Eastern
Department, the unemployment rate by the beginning of 1997 was 15 percent higher than it was
in 1993, and the per capita income had dropped by 20 percent. It has been estimated that one-fifth
of all Palestinians in the Occupied Territories live in poverty and that the current unemployment
rate among Palestinians is approximately 30 percent.
There is mounting evidence that neither the Palestinian Authority nor Israel has lived up to its
obligations under the Oslo accords. In addition to its failure to curb terrorism, the PA unilaterally
increased the number of its armed security personnel from 9,000 to 16,000. Although Israel
committed itself in the 1995 Oslo II accord to implement a total of three redeployments from the
West Bank by mid-1997, the second and third withdrawals have yet to take place a full year after
the mutually agreed deadline. Likewise, the so-called "final-status" negotiations covering
Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security arrangements, borders, and relations between the
Palestinian entity and other neighbors that were slated to begin no later than May 4, 1996, have
yet to take place.
Equally distressing, since its ascent to power in May 1996, the Likud-led Israeli government
under the leadership of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has consistently taken unilateral
actions designed to predetermine the outcome of at least two issues that were specifically reserved
for the final-status phase: settlements and Jerusalem. Specifically, in December 1996, Jewish
settlements in the West Bank and Gaza were designated as "national priority areas," making their
present and future inhabitants eligible for significant financial advantages. Furthermore, the
Netanyahu cabinet has approved and initiated the expansion of existing settlements in order
accommodate the "natural" growth rate of the Jewish population in the West Bank. Likewise, Mr.
Netanyahu has implemented several policies intended to cement Israel's control over an ever-
growing Jerusalem metropolitan area. Specifically, these policies include the opening in
September 1996 of an exit to the northern end of an ancient tunnel under the Old City, close to the
Temple Mount; the approval in March 1997 of the Har Homa project envisioning the construction
of housing for some 32,000 Jews on a disputed hillside (known in Arabic as Jebel Abu-Ghneim)
in an area south of the city; the razing to the ground of Arab houses in East Jerusalem. In
addition, on June 21, 1998, the cabinet approved of a two-pronged plan to expand the city's
municipal borders: annexation of suburbs in Israel proper to ensure a Jewish majority of 70
percent in Jerusalem, and the inclusion of two Jewish settlements east and north of the city, and
the West Bank land between them, under a new "umbrella" planning authority with regional
power previously exercised by the military.
Tragically, the once-promising Oslo peace process has been moribund for the past 18 months,
and the prospects for its revival appear to be very dim as Israel and the Palestinian Authority
currently haggle over the magnitude and timing of a second and long-overdue Israeli withdrawal
from the West Bank. As a price for accepting an American proposal for an additional
redeployment of 13 percent, the Israeli government has insisted that the PA live up to its alleged
obligations under the Oslo accords by detaining terrorists, confiscating unauthorized weapons,
outlawing terrorist organizations, ceasing incitement against Israel in the Palestinian media and at
public meetings, reducing the Palestinian police to the number mandated by the agreement,
handing over for trial murderers of Israeli citizens, preventing the transfer of funds earmarked for
Hamas from American and European sources, and having the Palestinian National Council
rescind those provisions of the Palestinian Covenant calling for Israel's destruction.
Sufficient time has elapsed since the beginning of 1993 to enable one to step back and address
with requisite detachment a number of important questions about the entire peace process: What
factors motivated the PLO and Israel to enter into direct negotiations in the first place? What
roles did third parties, Norway and the United States in particular, play in the process that
produced the Oslo accords? What factors facilitated and impeded the attainment of the DOP?
What accounts for the breakdown of the peace process? What lessons can be drawn from the
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations?
Fortunately, the answers to these questions can be culled from three informative books that
have been published since 1995. The authors of two of these works actually took part in the
negotiating process. Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen), a member of the Executive
Committee of the PLO and head of the PLO's Department for National and International
Relations, served as a key adviser to Yasser Arafat during the negotiations. His Through Secret
Channels contains extensive minutes of each of the sessions that were held in Oslo and is
supplemented by five appendices that include relevant documents. As director-general of Israel's
Foreign Ministry, Uri Savir was his country's chief negotiator with the PLO between 1993 and
1996. The Process not only provides an unusually candid account of the secret Oslo negotiations
but also recounts the growth of Savir's warm and personal friendship with Abu Ala, his
Palestinian counterpart across the table who had initially been introduced to Savir by a Norwegian
diplomat as "your enemy number one." The third work, Making Peace with the PLO, was written
by David Makovsky, the diplomatic correspondent for the Jerusalem Post. Based on interviews
with Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian, American and Norwegian officials, Makovsky's reconstruction
of the Oslo process is enhanced by the inclusion of 20 relevant documents, ranging from Security
Council Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967, to a letter regarding Jerusalem from Israeli
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to his Norwegian counterpart, Johan Jorgen Holst, dated October
11, 1993.
While they go over some common ground, the three accounts differ sufficiently in their
treatment and coverage of the subject matter so as to provide distinct perspectives on the peace
process. Specifically, Abbas's book spans the period from the clandestine contacts between
Israelis and the PLO dating back to the late 1970s to the signing of the DOP in September 1993.
Makovsky's account begins with the Labor party's electoral victory in mid-1992 and ends three
years later, just prior to the conclusion of the Oslo II agreement. Savir focuses on his involvement
in the negotiations from mid-May 1993 until his resignation in mid-June 1996. Furthermore,
while Abbas's work is very descriptive, Savir and especially Makovsky infuse their work with
trenchant analyses.
ISRAEL'S MOTIVATIONS
Makovsky identifies several factors that impelled Israel to enter into direct negotiations with
the PLO. First, by late 1992 and early 1993, it had become apparent to the Rabin government that
the PLO had been severely weakened by the end of the Cold War and by the aftermath of the Gulf
War. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the PLO was deprived of a historically important
source of diplomatic support and military training. In addition, the PLO's annual budget was cut
by one half after Kuwait and Saudi Arabia stopped their contributions in retaliation for the PLO's
alignment with Iraq. As a result, the PLO was forced to shut down several institutions and to
curtail many of its activities in the occupied territories. A politically and financially weaker PLO
not only posed a reduced threat to Israel but also made it a potentially more malleable and
receptive negotiating partner.
Furthermore, by March 1993, the Labor government came to realize that previous efforts to
create a Palestinian authority in the West Bank and Gaza that would exclude the PLO's Tunis
leadership had failed. After the Israeli and the non-PLO Palestinian delegations resumed their
talks in Washington in April 1993, Rabin was convinced that Arafat would block progress as long
as the PLO was deprived of direct participation in the negotiations. Rabin therefore sought to
exploit the Oslo secret channel not only as an opportunity to gain important information on
various PLO positions, but also as a secret forum to reach compromises on issues that were
impeding progress in the official American-sponsored Washington channel.
According to Makovsky, Rabin expected to reap three important benefits for Israel as a result
of the direct negotiations with the PLO. First, a deal with the PLO would reduce the incidence of
terrorism and thereby enhance the personal security of Israeli citizens. Second, striking a bargain
with Israel would give the PLO added incentive to combat radical Islamic groups committed to the
destruction of the Jewish state, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Lastly, reaching agreement with
the PLO would enhance prospects for resolving longstanding disputes between Israel and
neighboring Arab states. Makovsky concludes that while Rabin would have preferred to strike a
deal with Damascus, he pursued the Palestinian track instead for two major reasons: unacceptable
Syrian demands and the urgency of the Palestinian problem, vividly highlighted by the intifada.
MOTIVATIONS OF THE PLO
Whereas Israel's willingness to negotiate directly with the PLO stemmed from security
considerations, the PLO's participation in the Oslo channel represented the culmination of the
organization's longstanding quest for recognition, legitimacy and the eventual creation of an
independent Palestinian state.
Mahmoud Abbas notes that beginning with the thirteenth session of the Palestine National
Council (PNC) in March 1977, the PLO sought on numerous occasions to establish contacts with
peace-oriented Israeli individuals and organizations. In fact, dozens of such meetings were held,
some of them even after the enactment by the Knesset in August 1986 of a law banning contacts
with the PLO under the penalty of imprisonment. For example, during July-August 1987, five
meetings were held between Moshe Amirav (member of the Central Committee of the Herut
party), Sari Nusseibi (a Palestinian academic and prominent figure in the Palestinian nationalist
movement), and Feisal Husseini (who is generally regarded as the PLO's leading representative in
the Occupied Territories), focusing on the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state, with
East Jerusalem as its administrative capital, following a three to five-year transition period.
Unfortunately, these contacts were broken off after Husseini's arrest and after then-Defense
Minister Rabin issued orders to bomb a Palestinian refugee camp on the West Bank.
Even more intriguing is Abbas's revelation that in June 1992, a few weeks before the Israeli
elections, an unnamed West Bank Palestinian representing the PLO established direct contact with
Likud leader Ariel Sharon in search of an alternative to the stalled bilateral negotiations in
Washington. Unfortunately, this channel was broken off by Sharon following premature
disclosures of its existence by the Israeli media. Frustrated by the first five rounds of the
Washington talks that were conducted under Likud, the PLO continued to seek an additional
channel with the newly-elected Labor government. Such a side channel, Abbas notes, would
allow negotiations to take place with a minimum of formalities in a setting that would enable
everyone to "talk freely and probe matters without inhibition." In the PLO's initial view, the
secret Oslo channel would not replace, but rather establish some common ground and work in
tandem with the official talks in Washington.
The PLO's determination to break the deadlocked Washington negotiations was further
reinforced by the heavy toll inflicted on the Palestinians by harsh Israeli policies and by the
rapidly deteriorating economic and social conditions in the West Bank and Gaza. In addition,
Makovsky points out that PLO leaders entered the Oslo process believing that their compliance
with an interim agreement for the territories would inexorably result in Palestinian statehood.
Abbas confirms this expectation by noting that "the mechanism by which the terms of the [Oslo]
accord will be implemented will eventually give rise to the emergence and crystallization of many
features of sovereignty, and this process will go on until complete national sovereignty is
realized."
THIRD PARTIES: NORWAY AND THE U.S.
Collectively, the three accounts shed considerable light on the involvement of Norway and the
United States in the process that culminated in the DOP. Establishing a secret and unofficial
Israeli-PLO backchannel was the brainchild of Terje Larsen, a Norwegian sociologist who, along
with Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Jan Egeland and his Israeli counterpart Yossi Beilin,
helped to set up several rounds of exploratory discussions in Oslo beginning January 1993. Held
under the cover of the Norwegian Institute for Applied Social Science, the initial talks involved
two Israeli academics, Yair Hirschfeld and Ron Pundak, and three PLO officials: Abu Ala
(Ahmed Qurei), Maher al-Kurd, and Hassan Asfour.
Both Makovsky and Savir provide ample evidence that after the talks were elevated to an
official level in late May 1993, Larsen, Norwegian Foreign Minister Johan Jorgen Holst, and his
assistant Mona Juul played critical roles in advancing the talks. In addition to providing liaison
between Oslo, Tunis and Jerusalem, the three Norwegians offered their good offices and on more
than one occasion managed to bridge gaps between the parties. For example, it was due to their
mediation that Arafat retreated from a prior insistence that the Palestinian authority be empowered
to exercise control over the extraterritorial roads between Gaza and Jericho. Likewise, Foreign
Minister Holst was instrumental in extracting mutual concessions that led to agreement on several
sticky issues in the DOP, and he played a key role in proposing acceptable wording regarding
mutual recognition. Abbas emphasizes that in addition to assuring utmost secrecy and providing a
congenial atmosphere for the talks, Holst's integrity in relaying ideas and choosing subjects for
discussion with both sides was critically important for cementing mutual trust among the
interlocutors.
All three authors confirm that the United States had been aware of the Oslo channel long
before Foreign Minister Shimon Peres presented the agreed-upon DOP drafts to Secretary of State
Warren Christopher in California on August 29, 1993. According to Makovsky, when he was
informed by the Norwegians of the Oslo talks in February 1993, Christopher responded favorably
and promised further discussions which never materialized. Toward the end of March 1993,
Deputy Foreign Minister Egeland forwarded the initial draft of the DOP to Dan Kurtzer, deputy
assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, and at the end of May 1993, Foreign Minister
Holst informed Christopher that Israel had upgraded the talks to the official level. Curiously,
however, neither of these communications drew any American response. Nor did the United
States react when Peres revealed to chargÇ d'affaires William Brown in early July 1993 that Israel
was close to striking a bargain with the PLO.
Several factors may have accounted for the passive American orientation toward Oslo.
Makovsky speculates that Washington perceived the backchannel as a move engineered by Peres
which stood little chance of gaining support from Rabin. He also notes that news of other secret
talks between PLO and Israeli officials, all of which had ended in failure, had reached
Washington previously. It is also likely that American officials viewed the bilateral talks in
Washington as the most viable arena for attaining diplomatic progress. In addition, it is
reasonable to assume that Rabin, who was skeptical about the Oslo channel until late in the
endgame, saw no reason to secure greater American involvement for fear that the United States
would pressure Israel to agree to unacceptable terms. Savir, on the other hand, suggests that
Washington did not take the Oslo track seriously because it calculated, erroneously as it turns out,
that a breakthrough with Syria was more likely and more important.
FACILITATING FACTORS
Several factors enhanced the likelihood that the Oslo negotiations would eventually produce
mutually acceptable agreements. Makovsky notes that at the very beginning of the process in
January 1993, all participants agreed not to delve into historical grievances and to maintain total
secrecy in order to maximize opportunities for uninhibited exchange of views that could be
retracted without incurring political costs. He concludes that the secret sessions enabled both
sides to "explore the parameters of a deal without making irrevocable concessions."
Abbas, on the other hand, is considerably more ambivalent in assessing the utility of secrecy.
While acknowledging that the participants were indeed able to probe difficult matters without
inhibition, he argues that as long as the talks were shrouded in secrecy, Israel could either deny
the existence of the Oslo channel, or it could reveal it and thereby kill it off. As things turned out,
both sides maintained their commitments to secrecy and no leakages occurred despite the fact that
the PLO, according to Abbas, had shared information about the talks with the governments of
Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Russia.
Israel made a critically important move when it decided in late May 1993 to upgrade the talks
to the official level by dispatching Deputy Foreign Minister Savir to Oslo. Prior to this
development, according to Abbas, the Palestinians were unclear about the extent to which Pundak
and Hirschfeld, the two academics, represented the Israeli government and could make
commitments on its behalf. While the Palestinians suspected that their interlocutors were close to
Yossi Beilin in the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Pundak and Hirschfeld kept denying that they were
representing any official body. Makovsky regards the upgrading of the talks as a pivotal turning
point because it transformed Oslo from exploratory exchanges to official and genuine
negotiations. Savir's presence also provided the PLO with new tactical leverage because it could
now match Israel's ability to threaten the disclosure of the channel. Most significantly, by
upgrading the talks, Israel in fact agreed to recognize the PLO as a legitimate bargaining partner.
According to Savir, a critical point was reached in mid-July 1993, when both sides agreed to
proceed in three successive phases: an initial Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Jericho, a five-
year interim arrangement for the West Bank and Gaza, and final-status negotiations. On numerous
occasions before and after this juncture, both parties agreed to abandon previously held positions
and to compromise on issues that were critically important for each side. For example, early on in
the negotiations, the PLO agreed to exclude Jerusalem from the area of interim Palestinian self-
rule. The PLO also moved away from its earlier insistence on exercising full jurisdiction in the
territories by agreeing to exempt Jewish settlers and Israeli military installations from Palestinian
control. Yet another pivotal Palestinian concession was made by Yasser Arafat in August 1995,
just prior to the signing of the Oslo II accord, when he agreed to three additional Israeli
withdrawals from the West Bank over an 18-month period without securing any clarifications or
assurances about their size and locations.
For its part, Israel eventually agreed to withdraw from Jericho and Gaza within three months
following the signing of the DOP, after initially proposing a two-year transition period during
which Gaza would be placed under some sort of international trusteeship. Likewise, in return for
Arafat's agreement to exclude East Jerusalem from Palestinian self-rule, Foreign Minister Peres
agreed to send a letter to his Norwegian counterpart committing Israel not to interfere with
activities of existing Palestinian institutions in the eastern part of the city. In order to assuage one
of the PLO's major concerns, Israel further agreed to forward to the Palestinians the 1992 Labor
government's decision to freeze settlement activities in the territories. Savir emphasizes that
"[W]ithout such a policy there clearly would have been no agreement."
The most vivid and telling example of mutual give and take, one that also highlights the
political costs entailed in making concessions on highly charged issues, involved the city of
Hebron. As a price for renewing the talks that had stalled after an Israeli settler, Baruch
Goldstein, massacred 31 Palestinian worshipers inside the Cave of Patriarchs in February 1994,
Arafat insisted on the removal of the approximately 500 Jewish settlers from the heart of the city
and demanded that the PA be permitted to dispatch to the city a Palestinian police force alongside
an international contingent. Demonstrating the ability to make politically difficult decisions,
Arafat eventually dropped the demand for removal of settlers and agreed to have the matter of a
Palestinian police presence in Hebron discussed by a joint committee.
A few months thereafter, Peres cut a deal with Arafat permitting the PA to have a police station
in the city. After IDF commanders objected strongly and expressed concerns about the Jewish
settlers' opposition to the presence of a Palestinian police force in Hebron, Peres is reported by
Savir to have exploded in anger with the following admonition:
|
|
You want 150,000 Hebronites to remain under our control because of 400 Jews? There's a limit to
arrogance and a limit to timidity. I'm telling you that we can break Arafat, if that's what you want.
But then we'll be left with Hamas, an intifada, and terror. We've made a decision to strive for a
political settlement. Today we must decide who's in charge in this country: the government or a
handful of settlers. And to you generals, I say: you too must weigh this matter from the standpoint
of security. Enough of this dread of how the settlers will react.
|
| |
A short while thereafter, Peres's proposal was accepted unanimously.
Makovsky identifies several additional factors that enabled Israel to reach agreement with the
PLO. First, the most crucial decisions were made by only two officials, Rabin and Peres, and both
of them enjoyed considerable discretion throughout the process. Their influence was further
enhanced by the exclusion of the highest ranking military officers as well as the inner and full
cabinets from the decision-making process. It is also evident that Peres and Rabin supplemented
each other's strengths in shepherding the Oslo accords to eventual approval by the Knesset.
Whereas Peres recognized the need for the Oslo channel, successfully convinced Rabin of the
need to go forward with the PLO, and helped formulate policy positions, Rabin enjoyed immense
political credibility that enabled the Israeli government and public to accept Oslo. Rabin's
reputation as a security "hawk" dated back to his former service as IDF chief of staff and defense
minister, but it was further enhanced by more recent actions that he had ordered as prime minister:
the deportation of over 400 Hamas activists to Lebanon in early December 1992; the sealing of the
territories in March 1993 following a spate of stabbings by Palestinians inside Israel proper; and
launching attacks against Hezbollah bases in southern Lebanon in July1993 in retaliation for the
lobbing of Katyusha rockets against Israeli settlements in the northern Galilee.
Lastly, all three authors recognize that Oslo would not have been possible without the
willingness of the parties to defer resolution of the most vexing and complicated issues
including Jerusalem, refugees, final borders and settlements to the final-status phase. Makovsky
notes that this format represented fundamental concessions on both sides: Israel, because it agreed
for the first time to place these emotion-laden issues on the bargaining table, and the PLO,
because it agreed to postpone resolution of these critically important issues in the first place.
STUMBLING BLOCKS
Unfortunately, several factors prolonged the Oslo negotiations and eventually complicated the
implementation of the DOP. Makovsky notes that because Hirschfeld and Pundak had received
little direction from either Beilin or Peres, the two academics put forth during the initial
exploratory talks several proposals that deviated sharply from official Israeli policy positions.
Specifically, the initial version of the DOP, drafted in March 1993, failed to specify limits on the
Palestinian Authority's jurisdiction, included East Jerusalem in the Palestinian self-rule area,
envisioned a U.N. trusteeship in Gaza, and incorporated acceptance of binding third-party
arbitration to resolve outstanding disputes. As a result, Israeli officials were compelled to offer
several subsequent concessions to the PLO merely in order to retract positions previously
articulated by the unofficial Israeli interlocutors.
The tendency of the Palestinian negotiators to withdraw earlier concessions and to introduce
new demands reinforces Savir's observation that the talks "resembled a marathon chess game
fraught with feints, bluffs and diversions." According to Makovsky, the PLO sought toward the
end of the Oslo talks in mid-July 1993 no less than 26 revisions in a draft to which it had agreed a
week earlier. The Palestinians now demanded exclusive control of the Allenby Bridge across the
Jordan River and over the roads between Gaza and Jericho, and they insisted that Arab residents
of East Jerusalem be eligible to run in the elections for the self-rule council. Toward the end of
July 1993, the PLO introduced several additional demands regarding the size of the Palestinian
police force in Gaza and Jericho, control of the border crossings, and the timing of Israeli
withdrawal from Gaza. In the end, Abu Ala persuaded Arafat to reverse the PLO position on
eight of the 16 points in the DOP that were still in dispute between the parties, and Savir
successfully convinced Rabin and Peres to change their position on the remaining eight issues that
blocked the agreement.
Makovsky attributes the long delays in the implementation of the Oslo accords to the failure of
the parties to address in the DOP several issues that needed and deserved much earlier resolution,
including control of the border crossing points, the actual territory in Jericho and its environs
from which Israel was expected to withdraw, and the nature of security arrangements.
According to Savir, the post-Oslo negotiations dragged out for a variety of other reasons:
the absence of established Palestinian political structures and procedures, the excessive
concentration of power in Arafat's hands, and the continuous bickering among Arafat's closest
advisers. The negotiations were further impeded by the Palestinians' belief that time was on their
side, which justified their reluctance to examine details with requisite attention, and by the
opposite tendency of the Israelis to exploit time and to become obsessed with minutiae. Savir
concludes that ultimately, the parties stumbled from one impasse to another because
|
|
[W]hile committed to achieving a division of powers with the Palestinians, Israel tried to impose
on them a security doctrine requiring everything Israel considered important to remain in its
control. The Palestinians were likewise asking for the impossible. They wanted to separate
themselves completely from Israel without taking into consideration Israel's most vital interest:
combating violent opposition to the peace process as the foundation of a joint strategy. Thus,
contrary to the guiding principle of the Oslo negotiations, each side wanted to extract the maximum
from the other, rather than exploit the advantages of a partnership.
|
| |
BREAKDOWN AND COLLAPSE
Because their accounts end several months before Rabin's assassination and the ascent of
Likud to power, neither Abbas nor Makovsky anticipated the breakdown and eventual collapse of
the Oslo process. Savir, on the other hand, is refreshingly candid in exploring the reasons for the
gradual disappearance of the mutual trust that had made Oslo possible in the first place and that
now lies at the heart of moribund peace process.
He argues that both parties committed serious errors not long after the ink on the 1993 Oslo
accord had dried. Despite prior commitments to combat terror, Arafat could not prevent the
deaths of 15 Israelis at the hands of Palestinian militants during the first six months of autonomy.
Subsequently, in retaliation for the deaths of innocent civilians, Rabin ordered the closures of the
territories in October 1994, thereby committing the mistake of imposing collective punishment on
all Palestinians and exacerbating the already high levels of unemployment in the West Bank and
Gaza. The declining economic conditions, according to Savir, simply encouraged additional
violence and enabled Palestinian opponents of reconciliation with Israel to portray the Gaza-
Jericho agreement as a continuation of the occupation by remote control.
Relations between the parties worsened in March 1995, when the Rabin government scoffed at
Arafat's demands for release of Palestinian security prisoners, lifting the closure of the territories
and imposing an unqualified freeze on Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank. On
October 6, 1995, a few days after Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo II accord, Likud leader
Binyamin Netanyahu proclaimed at a large protest demonstration in Jerusalem that the agreement
was an "act of surrender" and constituted a "danger to the existence of the state of Israel."
Lamenting the failure of the Israeli Left to defend the peace process against attacks from the
Right, Savir notes that "[T]hese autumn months were an occasion not to take peace for granted but
to make a stand in the streets, as Americans had done during the Vietnam War and French had
done during the withdrawal from Algeria."
The prospects for peace did not improve even after the fallen Rabin had been replaced by
Shimon Peres, the chief architect of the Oslo process. On the contrary, a series of terrorist
bombings in the heart of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv left 55 Israelis dead and scores injured in late
February and early March 1996 and compelled the dovish Peres to blame Arafat for the
bloodshed. Savir maintains that the deadly terror wave not only intensified the anti-Oslo
propaganda campaign of the Israeli Right but also cost Peres the election.
OVERALL ASSESSMENTS
Reviewing the entire process, Makovsky laments that the Oslo accords were sold to the Israeli
public as a historic breakthrough despite the fact that Rabin and Peres had known that neither the
mutual recognition nor the DOP could "produce an outbreak of idyllic harmony between Israelis
and Palestinians." Regrettably, the unrealistic expectations generated by the Rabin-Arafat
handshake simply heightened the disappointment that accompanied the post-Oslo terror waves.
Savir, on the other hand, concludes that "the greatest weakness of the three-year negotiation
effort was that its message did not filter down enough to the people." He argues that both Israeli
and Palestinian decision makers frequently reacted to internal criticism by maintaining that
diplomacy was the best means to attain traditional policy goals: security for Israel, eventual
statehood for the Palestinians. As a result, there was insufficient emphasis on reconciliation and
even less appreciation for the other side's dilemmas.
For his part, Abbas reminds us that the negotiating phase of the Oslo process and its likely
outcome reflect the asymmetrical bargaining positions between Israel, the more powerful party in
control of the critical bargaining chips, and the considerably weaker PLO. As Abbas correctly
notes, those "provisions in the [Oslo] accord that might be considered the seeds of [Palestinian]
independence are not enough to bring about full independence, because what really determines the
final outcome is might, for might is more compelling than law, despite what the world says about
sovereignty and respect of the law."
Since Netanyahu's ascent to power in mid-1996, the asymmetrical power positions between
Israel and the Palestinian Authority have become especially manifest in a number of ways. They
explain why a Palestinian international airport at Dahaniya, near the Gaza Strip's southern end, is
yet to be opened for traffic; they account for the fact that the newly constructed port in Gaza still
remains closed; they help us understand why safe passage for Palestinians traveling between Gaza
and the West Bank is yet to be implemented; and they surely account for the continuous growth of
the Jewish presence in the territories and the 134-percent increase in the number of new housing
units in Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank during the first quarter of 1998 as
compared to the same period in 1997. Ultimately, the asymmetrical Israel-PLO power
relationship has enabled the Netanyahu government to transform the Oslo process from one of
mutual rights and reciprocal obligations to a situation where Israel has nothing but rights and the
Palestinians have only commitments and duties. This peculiar asymmetry is most vividly captured
in Prime Minister Netanyahu's recent acknowledgment that "when I am convinced that we have a
good arrangement of the kind I have been working to achieve, one which provides security,
protects the Israeli settlements, and safeguards national interests while strictly requiring
Palestinian compliance with obligations undertaken, I will not hesitate to bring it to the
government and the Knesset."
The foregoing statement lends credence to Savir's plaint that for the present Israeli
government, "Oslo is a problematic legacy that contradicts its ideology on the Land of Israel, its
perception of constant hostility toward us, and its conviction that peace can be achieved only by
deterrence." In the meantime, the clock that was set into motion by the Oslo process keeps ticking
down to May 4, 1999, the date on which the five-year interim agreement is due to expire. While it
is difficult to predict the future, it is nevertheless very likely that the next few months will be
fraught with danger. Yossi Alpher, former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at
Tel Aviv University, suspects that violence will flare up again between Israelis and Palestinians
due to the failure of the parties to reach the final-status talks. On the other hand, Menahem Klein,
a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University, fears that terror may erupt during the final-status
negotiations, if they ever begin, because both sides will confront each other from maximalist
positions.
If and when the interim agreement expires and there is nothing to replace it, Mr. Arafat has
vowed to unilaterally declare an independent Palestinian state in the areas currently under the
control of the PA. Prime Minister Netanyahu, on the other hand, has promised to respond to such
a move by formally annexing the remaining areas in the West Bank. Either move will deal a death
blow to what looked like a promising beginning only five years ago. In that context, Abbas,
Makovsky and Savir have performed an invaluable service. Read collectively, their accounts not
only remind us how far Israelis and Palestinians have come in such a short period, but they also
enable us to understand how much further the parties must travel if they are ever to reach a
genuinely just and lasting peace between them. |
| |
|
