The IsraelPalestine Reader by Alan Dowty

Author:Alan Dowty
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2019-01-22T16:00:00+00:00

28.

“The Oslo Accord”

Mahmoud Abbas*

  EDITOR’S NOTE Mahmoud Abbas (see Reading 25) was chief negotiator for the PLO under Yasir Arafat, during the period of the Oslo peace process. His account of the signing of the 1993 Declaration of Principles thus reflects an official Palestinian perspective on this process, just as Yossi Beilin (Reading 27) represents that of the Israeli government at the time. Abbas's account, published while the peace process was still ascendant, conveys a sense of both achievement in restoring the Palestinian role at the center of the conflict and uneasiness about the risks taken and the issues left unresolved.

On Sunday, 12 September 1993, our delegation left Tunis on board the private jet of His Majesty King Hassan II of Morocco, which he had put at the disposal of the Palestinian leadership. I kept to myself for most of the ten-and-a-half-hour flight, reviewing what we had accomplished over thirty years of struggle and nearly half a century of estrangement and refuge in exile. Was this the trip back home? Or was it the journey signing the surrender of a major part of our homeland? Why was I heading for a place where I would be signing an agreement which might not offer me a home or a place of residence? Would what we were about to do open the gates of a future for us or shut them? Had we forfeited the people's rights or preserved them?

It was a heavy burden and a great responsibility. The risks could well outweigh the benefits. How would our people react at home and in the diaspora? Who would be in favour and who would oppose? And what would history say about us? Can the ten hours of flying time from Tunis to Washington summarize the journey of homelessness that has lasted decades? Can we forget those whose blood has nourished the soil of the homeland? Can we, at the gates of an historic accomplishment, forget the generations of martyrs who have made this achievement possible? The recent history of Palestine was like a train that has travelled through all weather and across all terrains, its passengers boarding and alighting, but pressing ahead to its destination. It was like a ship tossing on a dark raging sea, hoping to come at last to a safe harbour. […]

There were many questions on my mind during the flight to Washington. I examined the faces around me, and saw others in my mind's eye, but I always came back to myself; for, while everyone else, present or absent, could declare themselves innocent, it was I who would stand before the world to sign an agreement with the Israelis and take the responsibility.

In the end I concluded two things: first, that I was engaged in an historic undertaking and was presenting our people with a great achievement, and, second, that reckless actions and a backward-looking mentality on either side would wreck this achievement. Thus I was prey to two contradictory feelings: on the one hand there was a sense of achievement, on the other there was fear about its realization in the future.

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