4 Times Palestinian Leaders Rejected Peace

Israel is often blamed for the repeated failure of the peace process. The history of negotiations tells a different story.

Now the efforts of all who have labored before us bring us to this moment, a moment when we dare to pledge what for so long seemed difficult even to imagine: that the security of the Israeli people will be reconciled with the hopes of the Palestinian people and there will be more security and more hope for all. — US President Bill Clinton at the signing of the Oslo 1 Peace Accords, September 13, 1993

The Oslo Agreement is dead. — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to MK Zehava Gal-On, January 26, 2018

In 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo 1 Accord at the White House amid great hopes that the bitter conflict between Israelis and Palestinians would soon be at an end.

The 1993 agreement wasn’t so much a peace treaty as a process. It took the first steps toward a “Two-State Solution” by establishing an “interim self-government authority” for the Palestinians and calling for Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. However, the most contentious issues were deferred to “permanent status negotiations.”¹ These included:

• borders of an eventual Palestinian state

• status of East Jerusalem

• “right of return” of Palestinian refugees to Israel

• fate of Israeli settlements in the West Bank

• arrangements for Israel’s long-term security

Today, thirty years later, these permanent status negotiations have not been completed, despite an Oslo 2 in 1995 and numerous other attempts. As violence between Israelis and Palestinians escalate, there is general agreement that Oslo is dead, and few people in Israel and the occupied territories still believe in the two-state solution.

If you search online for the reasons for the failure, you’ll find no shortage of theories. More often than not, they blame Israel. The Jewish State’s construction of settlements in the West Bank is a particular sticking point. Some typical quotes:

The Oslo peace accords were wrecked by Netanyahu's bad faith (The Guardian).²

Judged from the perspective of Palestinians' and Israelis' respective rights under international law, all the concessions at Camp David came from the Palestinian side, none from the Israeli side. (Norman Finkelstein, DePaul University)³

Israel’s culture of impunity killed the Oslo concept by tripling the number of settlers, stripping the Palestinian government of its attributes, and implementing various other contravening policies in breach of the agreement (Saeb Erekat, Palestinian negotiator).⁴

Israel clearly has no intention of ending the occupation. In fact, it has established clear policies to ensure complete permanent control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This includes altering the demography of these territories through the maintenance of a repressive environment for Palestinians and a favourable environment for Israeli settlers. (United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel)⁵

Settlement expansion clearly presents an obstacle to the horizon of hope that we seek (US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken).⁶

When reading all these learned commentators, I can’t help wondering, “What peace process are they watching?” Because when I looks beyond the op-ed page, and explore the history of negotiations subsequent to Oslo, a very different picture emerges: a picture in which Israel repeatedly put reasonable proposals on the table for permanent status, and the Palestinian leadership repeatedly rejected them. I place before the court exhibits A through D:

4 Times Palestinian Leaders Rejected Peace

1. Camp David (2000)

With the clock running out on Bill Clinton’s presidency, and his impeachment over the Monica Lewinsky scandal still fresh in the public imagination, the chief executive’s legacy was very much on his mind. He was determined to see the Oslo process through to a successful conclusion.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, US President Bill Clinton, and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat at 2000 Camp David Summit