The failure of Oslo

I am one of those people who held out great hope that Oslo would bring peace to the Middle East. Its failure is difficult to accept. Not just by me, but by many others which is why several attempts have been made to restart or duplicate the process. Following the last round of fighting in Gaza President Biden committed to helping rebuild. I have to admit I was cautiously optimistic. It was however doomed to failure as Biden stated that the US would be working with Fatah, the recognized government on the West Bank, not Gaza. Fatah then murdered a dissident fueling several days of violent demonstrations throughout the West Bank, further plummeting the popularity of Fatah. However, in that initial stage of cautious optimism I decided to read a bit more on Oslo and try to get a better understanding of why it failed. And more importantly, is there a way to fix the failures and arrive at some peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. To that end I set about reading some of the lesser known books on Oslo written by those who were there but did not occupy the highest diplomatic levels such as Dennis Ross. There have been many critics of Dennis Ross’ book, “The Missing Peace.” With the main criticism being it is way too US and Israel friendly, dismissing Palestinian offers and concerns above Israel’s. While that criticism could to a certain extent be considered valid when reading the book, one should remember that Dennis Ross did represent US interests. Even if the US is playing the role of balanced or impartial broker, the US has interests in the process, and the region, and cannot be a truly uncommitted bystander. The other point in favor of The Missing Peace, is there is nothing missing from the book. Regardless of what other books one reads, the facts, i.e., the events and meetings are the same. The interpretation of how much weight those events should have is opinion and should be understood by the reader. Nowhere does Ross say something happened that didn’t happen. Or fail to report something that did happen. Actually, that’s not true, but it’s something on the other side. A demand by Arafat that Dennis Ross fails to mention that as I will point out later would have caused Oslo to fail even if all other parts had succeeded. For what it’s worth, here is my interpretation of why Oslo failed. The two main reasons Oslo failed: a faulty premise of land for peace, a decision that all the issues, (settlements, Jerusalem, refugees, termination of the “armed struggle) had to be resolved together, the parts couldn’t be resolved separately. In the end however, Oslo failed as Arafat was not willing to make an agreement. Many people may think that he should not have accepted any agreement, and they may be right, but the Oslo agreement and process was predicated on finding an agreement. The faulty premise of Oslo’s was the concept of land for peace. After the six-day war Israel adopted a policy of land for peace. Israel would return the areas it occupied in return for peace. (Because Israel is a democracy and doesn’t speak with a single voice it’s not hard to find sentiments that the land should not be returned.) For the first several years Israel had no takers. Actually, rejection in the form of the Arab League’s three no’s: no peace, no negotiation, no recognition. And a subsequent war in 1973 served only to convince many in Israel that peace was not to be had. That changed in 1977 when Egypt’s Anwar Sadat went to Israel to extend a message of peace. And while it wasn’t easy, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty returning all of the Sinai for full peace and recognition including an exchange of Ambassadors. That treaty worked because of land for peace. Of the four issues at Oslo, the settlements are probably the most visible in the news. In this it is important to remember the history and scope of the settlement. Obviously, there were none prior to 1967, but after 1967 and up to Sadat’s peace overture, there were virtually no settlements. Settlements expanded only after 1977 with the election of Menahem Begin and the Likud. But even, in 1994 at the time of the signing of Oslo, there weren’t that many settlements. Removal of all the settlements would have been feasible in 1977, had Jordan stepped forward for the Palestinians, or if the Palestinians had someone other than the PLO to represent them. By 1994, removal of all the settlements was already not realistic. Some plan of a land swap, 3% to 5% might have worked. (The Olmert agreement in 2008, called for a 6.3% land swap.) Again, perhaps there shouldn’t be a land swap, that they should all be dismantled. That would however mean that the Palestinians have three non-negotiable demands. Palestinians refuse any limits on the right of return – even Palestinians born in say the US with US citizenship must have the right of return. And on Jerusalem, that demand of Arafat’s that I mentioned above, regarding Jerusalem. Arafat was holding to a position that Jerusalem belonged to all Muslims and must be negotiated will all the world’s Muslims, or at a minimum, the entire 22 nation Arab League. Like the right of return, this is an outrageous demand that really can’t realistically be met. Many people can disagree with me when I say Arafat didn’t want an agreement, but it’s hard to argue that with these two absolute demands, the right of return and Jerusalem, that Arafat was willing to come to an agreement. However, when I think Arafat was to a large extent the reason for Oslo’s failure, we really should also be fair. Clinton blamed Arafat, and I think he was wrong to do so. Arafat didn’t want to go to Camp David. He specifically told Clinton that he didn’t want to attend as Arafat feared he would get the blame for failure. Clinton more or less forced Arafat to attend, so then blaming him for its failure was not correct. The person who wanted Camp David was Israel’s Ehud Barak. Barak was facing an election that he knew he would almost certainly lose. Knowing he was probably going to lose the election allowed Barak to make concessions that he knew would be almost impossible, if not downright impossible to get Knesset approval. Afterwards, Barak claimed that when Arafat rejected those concessions, it gave Israel the high road. But those Israeli concessions were tied with Palestinian ones, which were unacceptable to Arafat. Had Arafat accepted them, he feared they would have been the floor for future negotiations. When I said I sought out alternate views of Oslo, I feel I really did make an honest attempt. But there is one glaring hole, missing from all I’ve read are Palestinians voices. Does that matter? When you deal with a democracy there are lots of competing voices. Leaders are pulled one way, then the other by political forces. When dealing with an authoritarian, such as Arafat, there really is only one voice. And while Arafat may have forces outside his control pushing a different way, such as Hamas, those factors play less a role than a leader who needs to worry about the next election. There are two more sources of Oslo’s failure. The first is to a certain extent tied to land for peace. After Yitzhak Rabin was elected Prime Minister but before Oslo, then Secretary of State James Baker met with Syria’s Assad who told him he would be willing to sign a peace treaty with Israel in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from the Golan. Baker flew to Israel where Rabin indicated a readiness to withdraw for peace. For ten years until Assad’s death backroom negotiations between Israel and Syria would repeated displace Oslo. They remained backroom negotiations as Assad never agreed to meet face to face with Israelis leaving Israel to always doubt the extent to which Assad was actually willing to go. Assad for his part, wanted to always back away from full peace. A second problem was democracy. Arafat didn’t have to worry about elections, but both Israel and the US did. After Rabin’s assignation Shimon Peres became Prime Minister of Israel but he never enjoyed popular support. I never really understood why but Peres understood only too well that the next election was going to be very difficult. And of course, he lost. Benjamin Netanyahu was elected and Oslo came to a complete halt. Netanyahu was not interested. Netanyahu was in office from June 1996 to July 1999, and when he left office, a new election was starting in the US. While Clinton couldn’t be reelected, Al Gore and the continuity of the Democratic Party is severely challenged. Clinton who first knew Rabin and came to believe, as have most other observers, that Rabin was really willing to make peace and offer up a Palestinian state. Clinton wants it with every bone in his body, a willing Ehud Barak and a willing Arafat it might just work. But of course, it didn’t. And in the middle of the US election the Second Intifada starts, dooming the reelection of Ehud Barak. A final postscript regarding land for peace. Sadat get all of the Sinai back. In those negotiations between Syria and Israel, Arafat was only too aware that all the Golan was on the table to be returned. But all the West Bank was not on the table. Later Ehud Barak withdraws from all of Lebanon, even has the UN certify the return of 100%. Then Ariel Sharon withdraws from all of Gaze, even pulling up the settlements. But Arafat can’t get all of the West Bank. Whether or not Arafat understood, the West Bank is not the Sinai, the Golan, southern Lebanon, or even Gaza, the West Bank is too central, to integral to Israel’s security to ever give up. For people who recognize Israel’s security needs it is hard to envision any assurances of a termination of the “armed struggle” that Israel could rely on and withdraw from the West Bank. It’s just not possible. It would have been possible in 1977, and many of us waited with baited breath at the time for Jordan’s Hussein to step forward. But he didn’t, and now it’s probably too late. The best of the books on Oslo was probably the last one I read, “The Two State Delusion”, by Padraig O’Malley. However, if you read this book be prepared to be depressed, the author sees no hope for a solution and musters all the evidence to support that argument. Another good source is “Shattered Dreams: The failure of the peace process in the Middle East, 1995 to 2002”, by Charles Enderlin a French journalist who closely followed the negotiations. But for a first source, one should read Dennis Ross’ Missing Peace. Regardless of how one thinks of his evenhandedness or lack of, all correspondence and negotiations went through him. Added note: I’m currently reading a biography of Jimmy Carter by Kai Bird. The author states that when Carter interviewed Cyrus Vance for the position of Secretary of State, Carter told him he wanted “bold, comprehensive initiatives – not the incremental diplomacy practiced by Kissinger.” I can’t help but wonder if that isn’t exactly why Sadat chose such a bold initiative as traveling to Israel and speaking directly to the Israeli Knesset. And it was the engineer in Carter that decided to essentially lock Sadat and Begin up in Camp David until they ironed out the differences and come to an agreement. It worked that time. And this same tactic worked when used by Clinton with the parties in the Kosovo war at Dayton. It didn’t work with Israel and the Palestinians. A new book just out that will be waiting for me when I return from Germany is Martin Indyk’s, “Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the art of Middle East Diplomacy.” Generally lost to memory is that Kissinger fostered three separation agreements; two between Egypt and Israel and one with Syria. The one with Syria still stands. If a Palestinian state isn’t in the foreseeable future, perhaps a return to an “incrementalist” approach can at least help improve the lives of Palestinians.