Opinion

THE 1993 OSLO ACCORDS

The Failure Of Oslo

Morton Klein and
Dr. Daniel Mandel
Special Commentary

New York

0

n June 20, 1995, the late Yitzhak

Rabin boasted, "[The opposi-
tion] promised us Katyusha
[rockets] from Gaza, but Gaza has
been under the primary control of the
Palestinian Authority for more than a
year now, and there hasn't been a single
Katyusha."
On Sept. 9, 1993, then Foreign Minister
Shimon Peres challenged the opposi-
tion, " [You] threaten that there will be
Katyusha rockets landing in Ashkelon.
Would you mind telling me why there are
no rockets fired from Aqaba to Eilat?"
The Oslo process, argued its originators,
was a success and reservations expressed
were all so much fearmongering.
Today, 15 years since Oslo, Katyusha
rockets have been falling like rain on
Sderot and Ashkelon (until a recent,
intermittent breather brought about by a
ceasefire). Much worse, more than 1,500
Israelis have been killed and over 10,000
more maimed by 15 years of suicide
bombings, drive-by shootings, roadside

bombs, lynchings, bulldozer rampages and
other inventive forms of multiple murder.
More Israelis have been murdered by ter-
rorists in the 15 years since Oslo than in
the entire 45 years of Israel's existence that
preceded it.
Not only has Oslo been a failure, but its
terrible consequences continue to metas-
tasize since its collapse in 2000, thanks
largely to efforts to resurrect it and pre-
tend it can work.
Ariel Sharon was elected in 2001
in response to Oslo's clear diplomatic
failure. Yet he, too, ended up recommenc-
ing talks with the P.A. and agreed to the
2003 Roadmap peace plan. The Roadmap
calls for major Israeli concessions in
advance of verifiable Palestinian compli-
ance with past agreements on jailing
terrorists and ending the incitement to
hatred and murder that feeds terror.
Worse, in place of making conces-
sions only by agreement and in return
for Palestinian concessions and commit-
ments (however systematically dishonored
by the P.A.) Sharon proceeded to make
unilateral concessions, withdrawing from
Gaza in 2005. Not only did this ensure that
Palestinian terror groups could redeploy
unhindered by the Israel Defense Forces,
but the whole area fell into Hamas' hands

last year after an internal struggle with
Abbas' Fatah.
Today, Gaza is an inviting home for Al
Qaida and other Islamist groups, while
the smuggling of offensive weaponry
into Gaza from Egypt, previously heavily
curbed by Israeli forces before the 2005
withdrawal, has increased massively since
Israeli forces left.
In surveys presented to the Olmert
government in July 2008, the head of the
Israel Security Agency, Yuval Diskin, point-
ed to the accelerated Hamas arms buildup
under the cover of the ceasefire, including
four tons of explosive materials, 50 anti-
tank missiles, light weaponry, materials for
manufacturing rockets and longer-range
missiles that could strike Kiryat Gat and
perhaps even Ashdod. Hamas is also min-
ing extensive areas in the Gaza Strip and
building bunkers.
It was often suggested by its support-
ers that the Oslo process would improve
Israel's standing in the world. The opposite
has been true. Even before Oslo's collapse
in 2000, Western governments and publics
ended up accepting the logic implicit in
dealing with the P.A.: that the Palestinians
were seeking just ends like statehood
alongside Israel, not Israel's elimination;
and that concessions from Israel was the

key to peace.
As a result, the world blamed Israel for
not giving enough when Arafat launched
a terror war, while anti-Israel boycotts
and divestment campaigns worldwide
have become commonplace, especially at
universities. Since Oslo, there has been
a surge of academics arguing openly for
Israel's replacement by an Arab-majority
state. Anti-Semitic activity in Europe has
risen steeply since 1993, according to all
statistical data.
Other proponents of Oslo, like writer and
Peace Now pioneer Amos Oz, prophesied
that Oslo would make Israel justifiably
tough on all Palestinian violation of agree-
ments. This was a delusion: P.A. atlases and
textbooks continue to pretend that Israel
doesn't exist; Fatah's Constitution remains
unchanged in its call for Israel's destruction
and the use of terrorism to that end, while
the group's 43rd anniversary poster shows
all Israel draped in a Palestinian keffiyeh;
terrorists like George Habash and Samir
Kuntar are personally lauded by Abbas; and
terror acts like the slaughter in a Jerusalem
seminary in March are lauded as deeds of
martyrdom and its perpetrators praised in
Abbas' own P.A. publications.
Far from paying a price, the P.A. con-

United States can play that role.
We in the American Jewish commu-
nity often remember the fact that the
Palestinian Authority failed to reform its
security services and failed also to rein in
disgruntled militants. But we often forget
to mention ongoing Israeli settlement and
land-grab policies, and the pre-emptive
strikes the military frequently makes.
Neither side can claim innocence, and
both sides have reason to feel betrayed.
But if Oslo (or the Wye River agreement,
or the Roadmap to peace, or ...) had
included mechanisms to ensure compli-
ance — not just a hand shake and photo/
op, but the threat of real consequences
for failing to abide by signed agreements
— Israelis and Palestinians might have
found it much harder to disregard.
"Peace" cannot be just words; it has
to become practice. For that to happen,
people have to change their expectations,
behave in ways that don't feel natural and
swallow compromises they don't like. It's
a rough road, and if Israeli-Palestinian
negotiations are to have any chance of

succeeding, the American government will
have to be there every step of the way. And
if not, the Israelis, Palestinians and (yes)
American people will continue to pay a
very high price.
The drive to establish a durable,
two-state peace between Israel and the
Palestinians is not naive, bleeding-heart or
crunchy granola. It is cold, hard sense.
The occupation and settlement project
cost the Israeli people enormously in
terms of resources and defense capabil-
ity; simply put, money spent sending the
military to guard the 282,000 settlers of
the West Bank (57,000 more than when
the Israeli government agreed to a settle-
ment freeze in 2003) is money that can't
be spent defending Israel's border with
Lebanon, or Tel Aviv.
The occupation and conflict have
brought the Palestinian economy to a state
of collapse, with hundreds of thousands
of people dependent on international aid
agencies for basic food supplies — need-
less to say, this is a drain on the coffers

The Failure on page A41

The Flaws Of Oslo

Sheldon Klimist and
Rene Lichtman
Special Commentary

Detroit

N

o one who has advocated for a
two-state solution to the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict can look
back on the Oslo process with satisfaction.
What began with good intentions and high
hopes ultimately deteriorated terribly, with
the Al Aqsa intifada (uprising), launched
in the wake of failed efforts to revive the
process, serving as Oslo's death knell.
As any peace process will be, Oslo was
flawed. There is no perfect way to bring
two deeply distrustful parties to the table,
no quick fix to decades of violent hatred
between two proud, suffering peoples.
Good intentions are important, but they
will never be enough.
Smart peacemaking recognizes that,
almost more than anything else, negotia-
tors are fighting human nature. Battered,
bruised and angry, former enemies are

A40

October 30 • 2008

not able to give up old patterns of behav-
ior just because they've decided to try. It
is to be expected that at the first sign of
trouble, people will hunker down, blame
the other side and revert to conflict.
And so, Oslo's biggest, most significant
flaw was a failure to recognize this simple
fact, and guard against it. Reams of paper,
dozens of maps, language argued down to
the letter, but no one thought to establish
an infrastructure to ensure compliance.
The truth is that we've seen this failure
play itself out again (and again) over the
past eight years, as well. The Bush admin-
istration said many important things
— calling for a settlement freeze, declar-
ing the establishment of a Palestinian state
alongside Israel an American goal — but
never, in eight years, did the White House
take any action to give weight to its words.
For negotiations to succeed, there has
to be a third party on board, one with
the position and resources to make sure
that Israelis and Palestinians actually do
everything they've signed up to do. In this
world, at this point in history, only the

The Flaws on page A41