bitterlemons-international.org
Middle East Roundtable /
Edition 36-2008
An Israeli View:
What Oslo didn't teach us
by Yossi Alpher
Back in September 1993, when the Oslo
Declaration of Principles was signed on the White House lawn, it was
fashionable among many Israeli and international political circles, on both
the left and the right, to declare that the Oslo process was "irreversible".
That statement betrayed a naive underestimation of both the depth of the
real conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and the power of negative
forces in the region.
Today the Oslo legal framework, embodied in
the Palestinian Authority, continues to prevail at least on the West Bank.
And the Oslo definition of the issues to be discussed in final status talks
still constitutes the agreed agenda of the government of Israel and the PLO
in their political negotiations. But "Oslo"--the concept of an agreed
solution that creates a Palestinian political entity alongside Israel--seems
farther than ever from realization. Its latest permutation, the Annapolis
process, is not unexpectedly grinding toward either total failure or a pale
anticlimax.
What went wrong? At the broad strategic level, since 1993 the two sides have
failed several key tests of maturity and made a number of critical wrong
choices. The Palestinians failed spectacularly at state-building: corruption,
cronyism, poor leadership and endemic violence have too often characterized
the efforts of the ruling national movement. Nor does that movement, Fateh,
still control all the territory designated for its state; it must now search
for ways to share power with Hamas, which rejects the very premise of Oslo.
While Israel's own mistakes--primarily the settlements, an error of
grand-strategic proportions--undoubtedly made a major contribution to this
failure at state-building, the Palestinians must confront their own heavy
contribution to the fiasco if they are ever to succeed.
Apropos the settlements, a series of leaders since Yitzhak Rabin has been
inclined to tolerate them and at times even "feed the beast" in the hope of
maintaining sufficient domestic tranquility to reach agreement with the
PLO--at which point the ever-aggrandized settlements would be removed. This
vicious circle was broken only once, by Ariel Sharon when he evacuated the
Gaza Strip. That move ultimately contributed little to tranquility beyond
improving the increasingly critical demographic balance.
Sharon may have proved it could be done, but weaker (and better intentioned)
prime ministers before and after his tenure have simply made matters worse.
The primary explanation for their failure rests with Israel's electoral/political
system, which produces governments structured for brief political survival
rather than peace and rarely generates coalitions that reflect the public's
overall support for a two-state solution. The Palestinian issue has brought
down every ruling government coalition for the past 20 years; if PM Ehud
Olmert resigns because of corruption charges, this will perversely
constitute a welcome diversion from the stranglehold that the conflict and
its solution maintain over Israeli politics.
There remain two additional strategic misconceptions that were produced or
have been nurtured by Oslo and that have hindered its success. One is the
notion that "the outlines of a two-state solution are clear; all we need are
leaders capable of signing." It's not true. Indeed, the depth of
disagreement becomes clear every time the two sides tackle the final status
issues. They do not agree on Jerusalem, and particularly the disposition of
the Holy Basin area including the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. And they are
far apart regarding the right of return of the 1948 refugees. That the roots
of these powerful historical narrative issues lie in the ancient past or in
1948 is not surprising: Oslo dealt with 1967 issues, i.e., the outcome of
the Six-Day War in the Palestinian context. Yet even the path of the border
between Israel and a Palestinian state still defies agreement insofar as the
two sides cannot agree on the territorial nature and concept of the
settlement blocs and of a Gaza-West Bank land link within the framework of a
land swap.
A second strategic mistake that originates with the 1967 occupation and was
virtually institutionalized by Oslo concerns the economic approach toward
furthering Palestinian independence. Oslo produced the Paris protocol, which
advocates economic integration between Israel and the Palestinian
territories and reflects the integrative approach associated with Shimon
Peres, one of the fathers of Oslo. In contrast Yitzhak Rabin, who actually
signed Oslo, saw the ensuing process more as a friendly divorce reflecting
Israel's security concerns rather than a marriage based on the premise that
close economic relations would guarantee peace. The Oslo process has
suffered grievously because of this conceptual contradiction, with security
and economic concerns constantly at odds.
Indeed, every Israeli government for the past 41 years of occupation,
confrontation and negotiation has employed economic carrots and sticks--made
possible by economic integration--in a vain effort to influence Palestinian
political behavior. We see this concept at work today in the sanctions and
blockade that are supposed to bring Hamas to its knees in Gaza and the
contrasting investment in development in the West Bank that is supposed to
constitute a peace-incentive. Neither tactic has had an appreciable effect:
this conflict is political, ideological and territorial--not economic.
Today, in our shared frustration, we contemplate radical alternatives to the
Oslo-based two-state idea. Palestinians talk more and more of a one-state
solution while we Israelis increasingly advocate everything from more
unilateralism, via involving Egypt and Jordan "on the ground"--to talking to
Hamas.
Yet the two-state solution is still the best. At the very least, Oslo should
have taught us that much.- Published 15/9/2008 © bitterlemons.org
Yossi Alpher is coeditor of the bitterlemons family of
internet publications. He is former director of the Jaffee Center for
Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.
Bitterlemons-international.org is an internet
forum for an array of world perspectives on the Middle East and its
specific concerns. It aspires to engender greater understanding about
the Middle East region and open a new common space for world thinkers
and political leaders to present their viewpoints and initiatives on the
region. Editors Ghassan Khatib and Yossi Alpher can be reached at
ghassan@bitterlemons-international.org
and
yossi@bitterlemons-international.org, respectively.
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17-09-2008 |