Oslo Discords: Why Oslo Wasn’t A Real Peace Process

In 1993 an agreement was signed which – it was alleged – would bring peace to Israel and Palestine. Israel was to withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank within five years and the Palestinians would be free to set up an independent state. Far from ending the Israeli occupation however, the "Oslo Accords" simply repackaged it.

The fact is that the Palestinians are much worse off now than they were before Oslo. Edward Said, a Palestinian historian and professor of English at Columbia – said of the Palestinians that "their annual income is less than half of what it was in 1992; they are unable to travel from place to place; more of their land has been taken than ever before; more settlements exist; and Jerusalem is practically lost."

The Accords were a Declaration of Principles that laid out interim arrangements for redeployment - not withdrawal – of the Israeli army from unnamed parts of the West Bank, with important issues such as settlements and Jerusalem to be worked out "later." But Israel was not even a serious negotiator, postponing, modifying, or nullifying even what was agreed to. In later agreements (such as the Taba interim agreement which established sixty-two new Israeli military bases on the West Bank), the injustices were solidified. Israel maintained authority over issues of sovereignty, security, border control, water and air rights, and most of the land.

With all this well-documented in the world community, why have so many in the U.S. believed that the "peace process" was moving forward and would be well established but for "Palestinian non-compliance"? Israeli propaganda has made anyone opposed to its policies seem like an opponent to peace (even its current "policy of tracking down and killing suspected Palestinian militants" [Assoc. Press 7/4/01, italics ours]). The U.S. government continues to "unconditionally" [former VP Gore] back Israel, to the tune of $3 billion a year in mostly military aid. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who is being investigated for war crimes by an international tribunal stemming from the massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon in 1982, ]has been invited to the White House twice since Bush took office; Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat has not been invited at all.

Bill Clinton wanted bringing peace to the Middle East to be his big foreign policy achievement. He insisted on controlling the summits, even after the Palestinian negotiating team had lost faith in him and requested to have U.N. facilitation instead. Clinton didn’t bring justice or even peace to the region, but the meetings did bring the CIA in openly to help with Israeli "security issues".

The way the meetings worked was that the U.S. "mediators" would get Israel’s proposal before the Palestinian negotiators would. They would work with them on it, and it would be presented to the Palestinians as pretty much as a take-it-or-leave-it package. When Arafat’s team inevitably left it, always after giving up many of their core demands and receiving no concessions in return, the Palestinians would be presented in the U.S. media as obstructionists who did not really want peace.

In 1998, for instance, at the summit held at Wye River plantation in Georgia, Arafat was required to issue a decree prohibiting the "incitement of violence or terror, and establishing mechanisms for acting systematically against all expressions or threats of violence or terror." The Palestinian police were required to work with the CIA to track down and imprison those suspected of violence and carry out a weapons confiscation program. The Palestinian Authority was ordered to arrest 10 people identified as "fugitives" by the Israelis, in exchange for a promised 13% "redeployment" of Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank. [On the other hand, the israeli government was made "implicitly" responsible for curbing violence by settlers in the territories, but there were no consequences spelled out if they did not. As soon as this agreement, which was supported by less than half of all Palestinians, was signed, the Israelis began to impose new conditions which were not part of it, such as the arrest of an additional 30-40 Palestinian activists, before they would meet their obligations under the accord.]

Clinton’s last gasp attempt to broker a peace deal before he left office came in July 2000 at Camp David. The official U.S.-Israeli line on that two-week meeting, and the only one publicized in the U.S. media, is that then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians unconditional control of 95% of the West Bank, and Arafat refused, holding out for more. That 95% figure is itself a myth. The Israelis presented the Palestinians at that meeting with no map of the areas they proposed to return, but both U.S. and Israeli analysts have said the proposed Palestinian area comprised between 77.5 and 81% of the total West Bank, not 95%. The illegally built settlements in the Palestinian areas would remain, threatening the security of the Palestinians, and Israel would retain control over significant parts of East Jerusalem which were not part of its pre-1967 territory. Most significantly to the Palestinians, Israel would retain "security control" over the Haram al Sharif, or Temple Mount, granting "custody" of this Islamic holy site to Palestinian officials.

More importantly, the "state" the Palestinians were offered would be chopped up into discontinuous sections, with Israel retaining control over the roads between them, leaving no opportunity for Palestine to create a unified state. Israel would also retain its control over valuable mineral and water rights, without which any economically viable Palestine would be impossible.

Robert Malley, a member of the U.S. team at Camp David, wrote recently that "The Palestinians were arguing for the creation of a Palestinian state based on the June 4, 1967, borders, living alongside Israel. They accepted the notion of Israeli annexation of West Bank territory to accommodate settlement blocs. They accepted the principle of Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem - neighborhoods that were not part of Israel before the Six Day War in 1967. And, while they insisted on recognition of the refugees' right of return, they agreed that it should be implemented in a manner that protected Israel's demographic and security interests by limiting the number of returnees."

The U.S. media has consistently made the claim that Camp David was a test of Arafat’s sincerity, and he failed it. The facts rather support the contention made by Israeli journalist Amira Hass (Haaretz, 10/18/00) that "Israel has failed the test. Palestinian control of 12% of the West Bank does not mean that Israel has given up its attitude of superiority and domination… [The current Intifada] is the natural outcome of seven years of [Israeli] lying and deception." Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter says, "It is unlikely that real progress can be made … as long as Israel insists on its settlement policy, illegal under international laws that are supported by the United States and all other nations."

What the U.S. media doesn’t say is that the current Intifada, like the last one, has one root cause: OCCUPATION. Anyone who truly wants peace in the Middle East knows what it will take: Full Israeli withdrawal from 100% of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem; recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine; a concrete agreement to the right of return for all Palestinian refugees to their homeland, with full rights wherever they choose to live; an international peacekeeping force in the area (which Israel through the U.S. has repeatedly blocked in the U.N. Security Council, and release of all Palestinian political prisoners and prisoners of war.

Don’t believe the hype! Educate yourself about the truth of this situation. Some sources for further reading:

Edward Said, The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After; Nur Masalha, A Land Without a People: Israel, Transfer and the Palestinians1949-96; Zeev Sternhell, The Founding Myths of Israel; Uri Avnery, "12 Myths About the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict," www.pmwatch.org; Jeff Halper, "The 94 Percent Solution: A Matrix of Control," http://www.merip.org/mer/mer216/216_halper.html; www.electronicIntifada.net