Tag Archives: Oslo Agreements

Or Worse

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Once upon a time I was staying in a New York Hotel. Waking up and switching on the TV, I learnt that Israel and the group which, from then on, was to be recognized as the Palestinian Authority (PA) had reached an agreement designed to open the way towards what later became known as a “two-state solution” and full peace. Never in my life have I felt happier! The date? 13 September 1993.

Today, Thursday, is 14 September. So follow some Q&A about the Oslo Agreements, so called after the Norwegian capital where much of the negotiation process had taken place.

Who were the signatories of the Oslo Agreements?

On the Israeli side it was then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin; on the Palestinian one, PA chief Yasser Arafat.

What were the main points of the Oslo Agreements?

Given that the Agreements comprise over 300 pages containing 5 “chapters” with 31 “articles”, plus 7 “annexes” and 9 attached “maps,” this is a hard question to answer. Still, the following essentials are indispensable for any kind of understanding. First, the PA promised to give up terrorism, agreed to recognize Israel’s right to exist, and undertook to enter negotiations towards a “final” peace. 2. Israel recognized the PA as representing the Palestinian People and agreed to work with it in order to reach a peace agreement.  3. The West Bank was to be divided into three discontinuous zones. One under full Israeli control (both security and civilian), one under the joint control of Israel and the PA, and one under full Palestinian control; Israel’s security forces were to “redeploy” accordingly. 4. The various Palestinian paramilitary organizations then existing in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were to be united under the authority of the PA and used to look after the security of those areas; no additional such organizations were to be recognized or newly established. 5. Israel and the PA were to work together in suppressing terrorism. 6. The agreements were deemed to be provisional, allowing five years for reaching a permanent settlement based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. 7. Both signatories would treat each other with due regard to internationally-accepted norms and principles of human rights and the rule of law, including an end to hostile propaganda and education.

Why did the Agreements fail?

One cardinal reason was the assassination by a Jewish terrorist of Prime Minister Rabin, the only Israeli with the authority to—perhaps—pull it off. Followed by his replacement, a few month later, by a series of more right-wing leaders—of whom the most important by far was Benjamin Netanyahu—who refused to do so.

That apart, almost from the beginning, both sides failed to act in the spirit, sometimes even the letter, of the Agreements. Though there were ups and downs the PA, either because it couldn’t or because it wouldn’t, never put an end to terrorism either in the West Bank of in the Gaza Strip.  Nor did it stop its propaganda against Israel. Israel on its part only redeployed its forces in a symbolic way, leaving both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (the latter, until 2006 when it finally withdrew its forces) under full military control.

More important still, three cardinal problems. They are, 1. The question of the settlements, now allegedly containing a population of 500,000, which Israel has built in the Territories and which it insists on eventually turning into part of its own sovereign territory. 2. The right of the Palestinians to return to the homes they were forced to leave back in 1948 and 1967, including not only those in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip but in “old” Israel: too; and 3. The question of Jerusalem, which Israel insists must remain under its sole control and the PA demands be divided between the two sides.

And the future?

Bad for everyone. The Holy Land remains a not-so-dormant volcano ready to explode at any moment. To this, one might add the quite real possibility of Israel going up in flames as Left and Right battle each other over profound political, social and constitutional issues that are even now tearing it apart.

Meanwhile, for demographic and other reasons, both Israeli’s system of government and its public opinion have been moving steadily to the right. The younger the voter the more true this is, causing the future to look dark indeed. The worst scenario would be an attempt by some future Israeli right-wing government to use terrorism as an excuse to do away with what is left of the Agreement and expel the Palestinians of the West Bank in particular into what is now the Kingdom of Jordan. Such a move, akin to the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 and 1967, would very likely draw additional countries such as Iran, Lebanon and Syria into the fray. In addition, it would almost certainly nullify much of the progress that has been made towards a wider Israeli-Arab- and Israeli-Islamic peace. Feeling beleaguered on all sides, and possibly beset by civil war as well, Israel’s government, or what remains of it, might get to the point where it threatens using some of the 100-400 nuclear warheads which, according to various foreign sources, it has.

Or worse.

His name was Szymon Perskiy

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His name was Szymon Perskiy, and he was born on 2 August 1923 in Wiszniew, Poland (today, Vishnyeva, Belarus) to a well to do Jewish family. When he was nine his farther left for what was then Mandatory Palestine; the rest of the family followed two years later. Young Simon Peres, as he came to be known, started his political career in 1941 when he was elected to various youth movement and kibbutz posts associated with the largest Jewish Party, Mapai (Labor) Party. Always more of an administrator and politician than a soldier, he attracted the attention of Israel’s leader, David Ben Gurion. Sufficiently so for the latter to appoint him Secretary of the Navy in 1948. Never mind that the entire navy consisted of a handful of rickety boats bought second hand in order to smuggle in Holocaust refugee and later perhaps equipped with a gun or two. Never mind that, at the time, the nascent State of Israel was engaged in its life-and death struggle for independence. And never mind that Peres himself was just twenty-five years old.

This is hardly the place to describe his subsequent career in any detail. From 1952 to 1965 he ran the ministry of defense, first as its director-general and then as deputy minister of defense. In this capacity he was deeply involved both in the 1956 Suez Campaign and in the construction if Israel’s nuclear reactor. In 1974 he became minister of defense under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a post he held until 1977. From 1984 to 1986 he was prime minister. Later he served as foreign minister, deputy prime minister, and minister of finance. Later still he went on to become prime minister again (1995-96) as well as President of Israel (2007-14); but that is not part of the story I want to tell you today.

What I do want to do is focus on the year 1993 when he was serving as foreign minister. In September he and Rabin, who in 1991 had been elected prime minister for the second time, signed the Oslo Agreements with PLO leader Yasser Arafat. They promised, or seemed to promise, peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Whatever may have happened later, rarely did any treaty give rise to such high hopes all over the world. His reward, which he shared with Rabin and President Clinton, was a Nobel Peace prize

generic levitra online Kamagra is made of Sildenafil citrate. Traditional Chinese medicine could relieve the pain http://www.icks.org/data/ijks/1482457576_add_file_5.pdf cialis prescriptions of prostate by comprehensive nursing and symptomatic treatment. Kamagra Oral Jelly is responsible for sexual viagra prescription uk stimulation. Just make sure that you scramble your address uk cialis before you allow it to be published online. In the same year he published The New Middle East. In it he set forth his vision of the future of the region. The way he saw it, the Oslo Agreements were a natural continuation of Israel’s peace with Egypt which had been signed back in 1978. Step by step, they would be followed, first by a relaxation of tension and then by the normalization of Israel’s relations with its remaining Arab enemies. Peace, always the ultimate objective, was, if not exactly at hand, at any rate no longer impossible. All it required were goodwill and hard work. As well as, here and there, a nudge by the international community, specifically the US as the world’s sole Superpower with a strong interest in the peace of the region. It was, after all, the place from which the world got its oil, the commodity of which everyone wanted to get as much as possible at the lowest possible price. Enough said.

Peace, Peres went on to argue, would be followed by prosperity. An entire region would move from underdevelopment towards freedom, health, education and plenty. Throughout his career, Peres had come under attack for being visionary. Time after time he had advocated and undertaken grandiose projects that seemed way beyond tiny Israel’s capabilities. Time after time he left his critics confounded.

He died in 2016 after more than seventy years spent mainly in politics. By that time he had almost every honor a human being can receive bestowed on him. True, not everyone liked him. Especially within Israel, where too many people saw him as dove always ready to make one concession after another. Not every part of his vision came true; in particular, the Oslo Agreements have not yet fulfilled the promise he and many others saw in them. But now, with one Arab country after another either signing a peace agreement with Israel or preparing to do so, it is time to remember him.

May his visionary ideas, including some kind of just peace with the Palestinians, prevail.