Book review: (In)Sights: Peacemaking in the Oslo Process Thirty Years and Counting

A recent opinion column following Hamas’s attack of Oct. 7 had a reference to this book, “(IN)SIGHTS, Peacemaking in the Oslo Process Thirty Years and Counting.” The book is written by Gidi Grinstein and Prof. Ari Afilalo, neither of whom I had ever heard of before. But the Oslo Process was and maybe still is the best mechanism for a peaceful solution of the Arab/Israeli conflict and a Two State solution. Gidi Grinstein was a member of the Israeli team at Oslo. He was not one of the top level diplomats but rather one rung below. At times as he said, he carried their bags. After Oslo he has continued to play a role in every diplomatic and/or informal effort at a solution. From W. Bush’s Roadmap to Israeli Prime Minister Olmert’s numerous meetings with Abbas to come up with an agreement. Book chapters go into detail on the major issues at Oslo; borders, settlements, security, Jerusalem, refugees, etc. Some of those insights are anecdotal such as prior to the meetings in Sharm El Sheik the Israel team is putting together position papers detailing bottom lines and what they are willing to trade away. The author makes the observation that he doesn’t think such an effort was under way on the Palestinian side. The Israeli team was made up of professionals with education, and experience in diplomacy. While the Palestinian team was until recently in exile in Tunisia. He adds that the Prime Minister at the time, Ehud Barak, was a super smart individual who would read in detail each of these papers and comment and makes changes to them. While Arafat was reported to rarely read anything. One report suggested Arafat never even read the text of the Oslo agreement that he signed. One note of special interest to me, as I think very little of George W. Bush, was that the author thinks the framework of Bush’s Roadmap was better than the Oslo framework. In the Oslo framework a Palestinian state would only be declared after a final settlement. Nothing is agreed – until everything is agreed. In the Roadmap, a Palestinian state would have been declared within provisional borders that are later finalized. In the Roadmap, the different issues can be agreed on individually, before final agreement. Alas, as the author notes this wasn’t acceptable to Arafat either. The author speculates that ultimately why Oslo failed and why the Roadmap failed, was Arafat was never willing to accept less that his maximalist positions. After the War of Independence Israel held 78% of the British Mandate, with Jordan holding just 22%, together with Gaza held by Egypt. Arafat was never willing to accept less than that 22%. He was not willing to accept less than all of Jerusalem. He was never willing to accept less than the full Right of Return for all refugees, all five and a half million and counting with their descendants. Some of these refugees are second generation US citizens. Nope, they have right of return. That no country would be willing to give up its sovereignty to that extent didn’t matter. It was a principle. Oslo ended with the Second Intifada. Many think Arafat wanted to get through violence what he couldn’t achieve through negotiations. And for many that war served to convince that the Palestinians are never going to accept Israel. The author spends several pages on the beginning of the violence of the Second Intifada starting with Ariel Sharon’s walk on the Temple Mount. As the author notes, this walk was planned and approved by no less than Arafat himself. Unfortunately, unseen events and circumstances led to violence. Which led to more violence in a spiral that could not be easily stopped. Whether Arafat wanted to stop it or not is debatable. That it continued for nearly four years could only have been with at least some approval by Arafat. This book was published in February 2023. Reading it in November 2023 we know something the author doesn’t. I’ll quote at length from the book: “Meanwhile Hamas has been promulgating an alternative model for Palestinian national security by defying and rejecting Israel. Around Gaza a new equilibrium has emerged that is in essence an informal Hudna. Israel now acknowledges the reality of a Hamas government and no longer seeks to topple it, allowing it to be funded in cash by Qatar and facilitating movement of goods, labor, and business people across the border. As of the spring of 2023, thousands of Gazans cross to Israel daily. In return, Hamas helps to keep the border quiet, while Israel has built defenses above and below ground. Hamas seems to be inching towards a similar path of coexistence with Israel, like the one that Fatah took in the 1980s: de facto recognition of Israel's existence without abandoning the commitment to the struggle with Israel into the PLO Phase Plan. “As I've discussed earlier, Gaza and the West Bank remained fundamentally different in one crucial sense. Around Gaza Israel is deployed along the 1967 Lines, defines Gaza as “foreign territory,” and has no claim to any of it. This means that an independent Palestinian polity has emerged in Gaza - namely in a portion of “historic Palestine” with tacit Israeli recognition. That, of course, is a very significant move towards a reality of a two-states-for-two-people.” We now know that this was all a ruse, two years in the making, to lull Israel into a false sense that some “alternative model” has emerged. A Hamas with a Hudna that accepts Israel’s existence. When I lived in Israel the Labor Party was the major political Party. The Second Intifada so discredited their attempt at peacemaking that the Labor Party has all but ceased to exist. Now Gaza has erupted. When the shooting stops many have expressed the opinion that a peace process needs to be restarted with the express purpose of achieving that two-state solution. It is going to be a long time before Israelis will trust their security to a Palestinian State. I’ve read many books on Oslo and I rank this one as the second best. The best is still Padraig O’Malley’s, “The Two-State Delusion.” Actually, these two books complement each other well, or whatever is the opposite of complement. “Insights,” is as optimistic as a book can be. (No sure how the author feels today.) While “Two-State Delusion” is completely pessimistic as the word delusion in the title implies.