Israeli Peacemaking Since 1967: Factors Behind the Breakthroughs and Failures by Galia Golan

Author:Galia Golan [Golan, Galia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Social Science, Political Science, Regional Studies, General
ISBN: 9781317659792
Google: Jz2DBAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 28025020
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

6 Oslo I

Breakthrough and Failure

The breakthrough

The Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization constituted the most significant breakthrough since the 1979 Israeli–Egyptian peace agreement. Moreover, they were perhaps the most important breakthrough altogether for Israel inasmuch as these Accords opened the way to resolution of the issue at the heart of the Arab–Israeli conflict, the conflict with the Palestinians over Palestine/Eretz Israel. The Oslo Accords became possible, first of all, because of the November 1988 PLO decision to declare a state (with East Jerusalem as its capital) based on United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 181 that had called for the creation of “a Jewish state and an Arab state” in Palestine, to accept United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 242 that carries with it the right of all states in the region “to live in peace within recognized and secure borders,” and to reject the use of violence or terror. This decision was followed by more explicit renunciations of terror, virtually dictated by the Americans, in a speech by Arafat to a 13 December 1988 UN meeting in Geneva, as well as in a press conference three days later, which included the explicit recognition of Israel’s right to exist.1

These moves by the PLO were the culmination of nearly 15 years of often bloody internal debates over the ultimate objective: a Palestinian state in all of Palestine with the destruction of Israel (as stated in the PLO charter of 1965), or a two-state solution with the creation of a Palestinian state in 22 percent of mandated Palestine, next to the state of Israel.2 The Intifada in the occupied territories, initiated by local Palestinians in December 1987, was probably the most important factor leading to the 1988 decision, not only attesting to the insufferable situation of the Palestinians under occupation but also challenging the PLO leadership in Tunis to break the impasse that maintained the occupation. A number of other factors contributed as well, such as the expulsion of the PLO leadership from Lebanon to relatively distant Tunisia as a result of the Lebanon War of 1982; the repeated failure of the Arab states to defeat Israel or intervene to save the PLO (as evidenced in the Lebanon War); and a longstanding interest in reaching the Americans, intensified by the weakening of Soviet support as Gorbachev changed Moscow’s attitude toward the PLO, calling for a “balance of interests” between Israel and the Palestinians in his meeting with Arafat in Moscow in 1986.3

In one sense, the 1988 PLO decisions were analogous to Sadat’s 1977 decision to go to Jerusalem. They represented the change on the adversary’s side that was essential for a breakthrough. However, there were a number of other factors, for Israel, that would, in fact, turn these decisions into the breakthrough they enabled, transforming the conflict.

The Shamir government had already rejected not only the Peres–Hussein London Plan in 1987, but also proposals by US Secretary of State Schultz in 1988. The PLO statement and Arafat’s speech did nothing

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