The Oslo Accords are all but dead
Settlement expansion persists as Israel's right-wing government continues to ignore the terms agreed to in the accords close to two decades ago.
By Akiva EldarIn October 1991 he came with U.S. President George H.W. Bush to the Madrid Conference, which squandered the fruits of the Gulf War victory. In September 1993 he celebrated, with U.S. President Bill Clinton, the birth of the battered Oslo Accords. In early 1997 he managed to get Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sign the Hebron Accord, which left tens of thousands of Palestinians to the mercy of the students of Rabbi Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba. In late 1998 he was among those who gave birth to the Wye River Memorandum, which died in infancy. In 2000 he was a senior partner to the reverberating failure of American diplomacy in Israeli-Syrian and Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. And here he is again, this time as U.S. President Barack Obama's special envoy responsible for prolonging the death throes of the terminally ill patient known as the peace process.
Before Dennis Ross' comeback, our acquaintance managed to write a new book (together with David Makovsky ) called "Myths, Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East."
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Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Former U.S. President Bill Clinton at the White House in 1993. |
| Photo by: Time Life Pictures/Getty Images |
It would be tough to find a bigger expert than Ross on the myths and illusions related to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. For years he has been nurturing the myth that if the United States would only meet his exact specifications, the Israeli right would offer the Arabs extensive concessions.
During the years he headed the American peace team, Israeli settlement construction ramped up. Now Ross, the former chairman of the Jewish People Policy Institute, is trying to convince the Palestinians to give up on bringing Palestinian independence for a vote in the United Nations in September and recognize the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people - in other words, as his country, though he was born in San Francisco, more than that of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who was born in Safed.
If they give up on the UN vote, Ross argues, then Netanyahu will be so kind as to negotiate a final-status agreement with them. Has anyone heard anything recently about a construction freeze in the settlements?
Ross is trying to peddle the illusion that the most right-wing government Israel has ever seen will abandon the strategy of eradicating the Oslo approach in favor of fulfilling the hated agreement. In an effort to save his latest boss from choosing between recognizing a Palestinian state at the risk of clashing with the Jewish community and voting against recognition at the risk of damaging U.S. standing in the Arab world, Ross is trying to drag the Palestinians back into the "peace process" trap.
If Obama really intended to justify his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize, he would not have left the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the hands of this whiz at the never-ending management of the conflict.
Let us hope that the Palestinians are not tempted to give up on the UN vote in favor of the appearance of negotiations, which will serve to further prolong settlement expansion under the cover of the Oslo Accords. All we need is to recall the statement by Netanyahu, in which he was recorded telling settlers in Ofra in 2001 that he had previously extorted from the Americans a commitment that he would be the one to determine what qualifies as the "defined military sites" in the territories that will remain under Israeli control.
Netanyahu said that from his perspective the entire Jordan Valley qualifies. "Why is this important?" he asked. "Because from that moment I put a halt to the Oslo Accords."
As for Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, the Palestinians need to trap him with his own words; he had previously threatened that if the United Nations recognizes a Palestinian state, Israel will annul the Oslo Accords.
If I were in Abbas' place, I would tell Dennis Ross that he should tell his president to forget about negotiations without recognition in writing from Netanyahu stating that the permanent borders will be based on the 1967 lines with agreed-upon changes and committing to a total freeze of settlement construction during negotiations and a set timetable for withdrawal from the territories.
You don't want Oslo? Fine, we don't need it. No more "Palestinian Authority"; no more Area A, B or C (a division that has in effect created a Land of the Settlers on 60 percent of the territory ); no more "peace process."
Restore military rule in the West Bank. At the same time, you can reoccupy Gaza and go back to Gush Katif.
According to the Oslo Accords, the final-status agreement was supposed to have been decided upon 13 years ago - meaning that we would be celebrating its bar mitzvah this year. On September 13, the accords themselves will be turning 18, the number signifying life in the Jewish mystical tradition. The time has come to put the Oslo Accords out of their misery.
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The Arabs never adhered to one comma in the agreement, and the only result was the intifadah
The US is broke and about to default (4 weeks or less). If a deal is made to avoid default, US aid to the PA will end sooner in all likelihood. Will the EU continue aid? Will Israel continue to forward the taxes? What happens when the PA stops paying its security forces? If/when the US defaults, what happens to world economy with the US dollar worth less than toilet paper?
The second intifada' hundreds dead, many wounded for life, proved to the Israelis that they were lied to, that they were stupid fools. Arafat was coached by Jimmy Carter himself how to be two faced, fork tongued, how to get western billions and support without giving up the strategic goal of destroying Israel. In arabic Arafat never wavered from destroying Israel but reality is a harder to accept than leftist fantasy, For example, heaven, an afterlife is a man made construct but no afterlife is very very hard even scary for a diehard atheist to accept.
By killing Israelis and setting up a terrorist entity they murdered peace. It became completely and absolutely untenable to go further after the Palestinians showed that any territorial or other concession would only be used as a platform for mass murder
....is the reputation of Dennis Ross and Israel in the world of state diplomacy--and there is no that from the dead anymore.....No sir! The only saving grace now is for both to accept getting out of the territories --before you are all part of that dead end too. It seems to me --that is the tombstone being written ther...Not necessarily Oslo. ( I see Oslo as merely another dead chapter in Israel's life.) Dutch P.S. Too bad, those foolish people remained so silent and passive when they should have been shouting and rolling up their sleeves offering to toss the settlers out! ( I imagine, that would have made all the difference...)
But things doesn´t bet any better in Helsinki, Stockholm or Copenhagen. Let´s transport Netanyahu and Abbas to the Samoa-islands, and force them to live together in the same bungalow until they have signed a deal. The "Apia-accords" will be much better than Camp David and Wye and Annapolis - and Oslo.
Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians will accept any of these accords, or the international consensus. Neither will give up on their national dream, for the Israelis a Jewish state in all of biblical Israel, and the Palestinians goal of liberating all their lands. These are the majority positions of both peoples. Since Israel is the dominant party, and the international consensus is in the direction of what the Palestinians want, it highlights Israel's intransigence more clearly. Throw the other regional conflicts into the mix...Islam vs the West, Shiite vs Sunni, Saudi Arabia vs Iran, and a continuation of the conflict is the reality. Quite depressing.
Akiva Eldar now understands what Bibi understood back in September 1993. Maybe in another 10 years, Eldar will realise that Itnatkut was a mistake as well.
OSLO was dead on arrival with the PLO having no intentions to honor them. This is now a historical fact revealed in documents found in the hands of the PLO and in books written by PLO members who orchestrated OSLO. OSLO was a trick and Israel fell for it, and our friends and family died for it.
... never did understand the styelized dance that has been going on around the legendary "Oslo Accords"...
Eldar and her ilk is the problem. She persists in blaming Israel for a lack of peace when the absolute core of the problem is the Arab's resolute refusal to accept Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people and desire to flood Israel with the only refugees, uniquely defined at that, left from the era of WWII. It all starts from there.
Well, yeah, for Israel it would be a Very Big Problem Indeed. Israel is the occupying power, and therefore under int'l law it holds ultimate responsiblity for this occupied territory and the people that it has under its military occupation. BECAUSE of Oslo the Israelis have been able to pass on the bill to the EU and America. WITHOUT Oslo those donors will cease to foot that bill, and Israel will have to pay the full cost. Which is a bill that Israel simply does not have the money to pay.... Didn't you know that "occupation" is a very expensive business?
Akiva, This conflict has two central protagonists claiming one land - Jews and Palestinians. You demand Jews recognize a Palestinian state and give up land - West Bank land - but not demand that Palestinians recognize a Jewish state and make this a final peace. Yours is a recipe for continued conflict, with Israel back in the 1967 borders - sorry, pal.
It isn't because of the "settlements". The issue was clearly delineated in the Oslo Accords. As per the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, the Arabs committed a "material breach" by starting a war more than a decade ago. Some people here are the last to still not figure that out.
Oslo was dead the minute that former Housing Minister Ariel Sharon proudly announced in the late 1990s, before the Second Intifadaa, that Israel would be "creating facts on the ground" by doubling the number of settlements. If I, as an American Jew, knew it was all over for peace certainly the Palestinians had to know that as well.
Nothing in those Accords stated that the settlements were legal, or that continued construction in those settlements was kosher. I'll point out, of course, that according to Article 47 of Geneva Convention IV any accord that *did* claim to legalize the settlements would be null and void under int'l law.
Eldar forgot to mention that the Oslo Accords did not forbid further expansion of Israeli settlements, and that Ross also wrote another book("The Missing Piece")in which he unequivocally blamed Arafat for the failure of Clinton's 2000 camp David summit. He does not mention that the idea for a settlement freeze came from Obama, not from Abbas.
13 years of a speeded-up cycle poverty, 13 years of illegal settlement, 13 years of anger, 13 years of bare livelihood and enforced government for the occupied people, 13 years that are gone forever and you'll never have again.
Eldar and company are either stupid or suicidal. Or both. And still harping on Bibi's words from 10 years ago. Unfortunately, he is extremely popular and will soon to be the longest serving PM is Israel's history. Haaretz and the NYT and Obama hate Bibi; Israel loves him.
the right doesnt trust him and only tolerates him because he gives them whatever they want. But he flip-flops more than a fish out of water. What it boils down to is- he only wants to stay in power and the right gives him that. He has no moral compass, no core ethics. He was for the Gaza pullout before he was against it. NOBODY "loves" him because he believes in nothing other than staying in office.
Unfortunately, the PA gang are benefiting from the night mare inflicted on the people of Palestine by Israel and the US. If they have any honor left in them, they should end the protection of the Israeli colonies built on stolen Palestinian land. Sadly, the PA boys have very little honor to act in the best interest of the Palestinian people.
Rabin never moved on to final status negotiations. Rather even while he was still Prime Minister the rate of Settlement expansion increased. This was not sufficient to appease the right wing which even then had total control of Israel. Rabin was assassinated because of Oslo and despite his failure to implement it. Oslo has been dead for decades and only the most deluded fail to understand that. If there was any support in Israel for Oslo, then the governments elected since then never would have been given the approval of the Israeli electorate.
Don't try to pretend that` the Palestinians had nothing to do with their death. What we've had is two so-called heads of government who should have been used-car salesmen, each trying to sell a junker car to the other without buying one.
The problem isn't Ross or Bush or Clinton it's the Arabs what all of Israel proper and Israel wants the Jewish kernel called Judea and Samaria. The reality UK screwed everyone and over promised the Promised Land to two people when only one owner is possible without a change in mindset.
Akiva, oslo is dead long time ago, how about the leftist? are they dead yet or not if not how soon?
If not Oslo, Palestinians will come up with some other ambiguous gimmick.Their goal is to bring down Israel through Arabs united in war against Israel or through Western boycotts and sanctions. Ending Oslo won't change that.
Arafat talked of a million martyrs for Jerusalem, while Israeli leaders promised the settlers that they could keep, and even expand, the settlements; while both pretended to accept the principles of the Oslo accords. No wonder they died so soon. Still the heaviest responsibility lies with Israel, as the side with power.