The Oslo Idea: The Euphoria of Failure by Raphael Israeli

Author:Raphael Israeli [Israeli, Raphael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Political Science, General, Diplomacy
ISBN: 9781351477826
Google: Xj4rDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 35634863
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

While the PLO has envisaged institutions and civil processes to implement its platform, Hamas, leaning entirely on the Shari’a Law, states its purpose to establish an Islamic state in the entire expanse of Palestine, with presumably state institutions as designed by the Holy Law of Islam. Palestinian nationalism, from this point of view, is also incorporated into the Shari’a as part of the universal Islamic Umma.

The Post Oslo Political Praxis

As long as Israel did not commit the foolishness of recognizing the PLO as the “sole representative of the Palestinians,” and handing to it the rule of the West Bank and Gaza before any elections were held, the question of the legitimacy of the Palestinian government she dealt with was left open to whatever confirmation the Palestinian people wished to lend to it. But at the same time, the Oslo Accords, signed between Israel and the leadership of the PLO, pushed the rivalry between nationalists and Islamists from the doctrinal to the real sphere of political controversy between the parties. If during the first months of negotiations leading to the Accords, there was a similitude of commonality of fate between the two factions, which sought primarily to end Israeli “occupation”—the signature of those agreements signaled the break which has kept them apart ever since, inasmuch as they held different views as to the interpretation and implementation of those accords. Indeed, it became clear to all that the Hamas program posed no less a threat to the PLO than the latter to the Islamists or to Israel. And the rift between them has grown so wide that the factions have failed so far (2011) to overbridge it.

For example, the main commitment of the PLO at Oslo has been to refrain from violence, while Muslim militants continued to hold the unbending view that only jihad to liberate Palestine could see the victory of Allah prevail. At times, Arafat at the head of the PLO also crossed back that border and indulged in violence, when his Aqsa Brigades engaged in terrorism; conversely, for years on end, the Hamas implemented a cease-fire with Israel (hudna) when it could not sustain a long violent dual with Israel after it took over the rule in Gaza in 2007, but in principle, they remained each obligated one to peaceful negotiations and the other to continuous jihad. Conforming to their platform, Hamas continued to vow that the Land, the entire Land of Palestine, must be cleansed from the viciousness and impurity of the “occupiers,” and that only under Islamic rule is there any other possibility that other faiths can coexist. When Islam does not prevail, they claimed in their platform, that meant that bigotry, hatred, controversy, corruption, oppression, war, and bloodshed prevailed, as is evidenced by the existence of Israel. How, then, could they accept reconciliation with the Zionist entity? They despise Israel not only as an “occupier” but also due to its Jewish constitution, the scum of the earth that concocts plots to take over the world and to corrupt societies from within.

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