Oslo Cabinet Meeting Transcript Released
Leadership had Misgivings
Articles are appearing today on the declassification of the cabinet deliberations that led 30 years ago, to the approval of the Oslo accords. I remember the mixed feelings I had when Yitzchak Rabin, with a little encouragement from Bill Clinton, shook the hand of Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn.
With the declassification of the cabinet minutes, we learn that even Rabin and Peres acknowledged that the Palestinians weren’t making many tangible concessions. It seems they weren’t sure that the Palestinians would actually give up terrorism as they had committed themselves to do in the agreement.
I remember at the time I was hopeful. A majority of Israelis were willing to embrace the risk. My Israeli family and friends got busy with grass-roots peace building, including building personal relationships with Palestinian Arabs. We watched as Israel welcomed the PLO into the territory they controlled.
In the 1980’s Israel had driven the PLO from Beirut into exile in Tunisia. Under the aegis of the newly constituted Palestinian Authority (PA), Israel surrendered day to day self-government to the Palestinians, first in Gaza and Jericho, and later in additional cities in the territories. The PA took charge of health and welfare and local administration. The Palestinians set up an armed police force under the control of the PA President, Yasser Arafat, as provided for in the accords.
I watched anxiously for evidence that the Palestinians were serious about peace, even as a wave of terror attacks were launched by armed factions opposed to accommodation with Israel. At the same time, the Likud, under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu vociferously opposed the accords, denouncing the government leadership as traitors.
The Rabin government pressed on, equally undeterred by violence from the Palestinians and angry rhetoric from the Israeli right. The sad truth is that Palestinian violence never stopped and the right wing anger against Oslo and Rabin became ever more extreme. The Rabin coalition which approved Oslo included Meretz and Labour, but also Shas, which would be unimaginable today. The leader, Arye Dery then as now, said that Rav Ovadia Yosef, the Shas spiritual leader was deeply committed to peace and that is what drove Shas to support the Oslo agreement.
The wave of terror eventually led Shas to pull out of the government and it lingered in power with support from Israeli Arab parties. When Rabin was assassinated in 1995 while campaigning for reelection, it fractured Israeli society in a way that has still not healed. Israelis then elected Netanyahu, who put the breaks on concessions to the Palestinians, but Israelis were sufficiently committed to peace to subsequently elect Ehud Barak who attempted to negotiate a permanent peace, still under President Clinton’s auspices.
As we know the effort by Barak ended in failure and Barak fell from power, succeeded by Ariel Sharon. The visit by Sharon to the temple mount in 2000, in which he was assailed by a Palestinian mob, several of whom were killed by his bodyguards; was followed by the launch of the second Intifada, in which it became apparent that Arafat had no further intention of trying to build peace. If Arafat thought that violence would force Israel to offer a better deal, he was sadly mistaken.
The second intifada discredited the Israeli peace movement. Today its remaining adherents stubbornly insist that the failure of Oslo is the fault of Netanyahu and the settler movement. In this, they ignore the fundamental breach of faith by Arafat who sent armed Palestinians affiliated with the Palestinian Authority to blow up Israelis on buses, in restaurants and in the streets of Israeli cities. This is not to say that Israel is blameless, but it profoundly misguided, and frankly bewildering to me, to put the principal blame on Israel for the failure of the Oslo accords to yield a peace agreement.
Today, a solid majority of Israelis are convinced that there is no Palestinian peace partner, which means that even if they are for territorial compromise in principle they will not vote for parties that want to make further concessions under current circumstances. This is a recipe for permanent rule of the right or center right, a coalition of parties that oppose territorial compromise, and parties that might contemplate compromise if the Palestinians showed an interest in peace.
While Israel deploys enormous resources to resist and disrupt terrorism, they don’t seem to have the power to make the Palestinians stop their efforts. That is why, although Israel has most of the military power, it is only the Palestinians who can move away from the status quo to a better future. As long as Palestinians are seen by Israelis to favour using violence to resolve the conflict, Israelis will vote for parties that promise strong security and firm action against terrorism.
The status quo is difficult for Israelis and puts continuing stress on the country. The profound disagreement over military service by the ultra-orthodox is exacerbated by the fact that young Israelis are going weekly into harms way to keep Israel’s people safe. That protection benefits equally the portion of the population that shirks service. The unending violence by the Palestinians also fuels support for extremist parties who advocate harsh measures against all Arabs, regardless of their involvement in violence. Currently these parties are part of the governing coalition, which stokes anxiety among the parts of the Israeli population targeted by them. Thus the intractability of the conflict feeds back into the dangerous divisions that have been exposed by the clash between the protest movement and the current Israeli government.
Personally I remain convinced that the emergence of more pragmatic leadership among the Palestinians would bring a response among Israeli voters to once again vote for parties that favour territorial compromise. Unfortunately there is no sign of any such development at the moment.
If you are enjoying the articles I’m writing at Canadian Zionist Forum, please share this post to help me reach more people.
I’d like to thank everyone who has signed up in the past few days as a subscriber. I am grateful for your interest and support. If you are not yet a subscriber, please consider becoming one, whether free or paid. That way each new article will come directly to your inbox as soon as it’s published.
Comments are open to all subscribers. So if you have something to say in response I’d love to hear from you.
Thank you for reading Canadian Zionist Forum.