Tony Okerafor
14 November 2009
It's already well over a decade-and-a-half since two great men on opposite sides of the conflict in the troubled Middle East region signed an historic agreement in the Norwegian capital Oslo, with one side, namely the Israelis, offering up chunks of occupied land in exchange for peace from the other side, namely the Palestinians and Arabs.
The then government of Norway, Scandinavia, may have hosted the then Palestinian president, Yaser Arafat, now late, and the prime minister of Israel, Yitzak Rabin, also of blessed memory, and given to them all the diplomatic support they could provide; but, ultimately, the willingness of the two sides to do a deal, with the Americans and Arabs so actively involved in brokering the talks, did the most in bringing about the signing of the ground-breaking Oslo Accords of 1993.
Under the accords, the Palestinians were allowed to set up a self-governing homeland, called the Palestinian Authority (P.A.), which, among other things, required Israel, which has been in control of the areas since 1967, to pull out from the Palestinian Gaza Strip and the Palestinian West Bank. In return, the Palestinians would no longer, i.e. the governing P.L.O., Palestinian Liberation Organisation, pursue that part of its charter that called for the destruction of Israel, as well as the use of force as the only legitimate means of ending Israeli occupation of their land.
Oslo, it was hailed at the time, would form the basis for negotiating and reaching of a comprehensive peace agreement between Arab and Israelis, which, from the Palestinian perspective, would lead to Israel's withdrawal from many parts of the West Bank not covered by the Oslo Accords, as well as the relinquishment of Israeli control over Arab East Jerusalem.
From Israel's viewpoint, the success of Oslo, i.e. how the Palestinians were going to follow their commitment to non-violent resistance, would have a bearing on how fast or slow the Jewish state would pursue future negotiations with the Palestinians. Also, it afforded Israelis some more time to assess, examine and reflect on what a comprehensive deal with the Palestinians would mean for them.
One, whether it could ever mean Israel reverting to its pre-June, 1967 borders, as the Arabs want, or some other arrangement under which the other side would accept a new frontier that fell short of pre-1967, but, gave up more land for peace to the Palestinians, excluding the holy city of Jerusalem, a place revered by three religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
In more than sixteen years of back-and-forth negotiations, many years of on-and-off violence, a great deal of mistrust on both sides, plus too much of unfortunate, bloody history to worry about, many of the issues that threatened Oslo are still with us.
At Camp David, the U.S. in 2000, Israel and the Palestinians were said to have come the closest to signing a comprehensive peace settlement, when all the four final status issues appeared set for resolution - the right of return for Palestinians driven out in 1948 and 1967, the fate of Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, border demarcation and the status of Jerusalem.
Had the Camp David summit been followed through, a giant step towards full Palestinian statehood would have been taken. Many factors militated against a deal being reached at the American presidential retreat, despite the heavy intervention of the U.S. government. On the Israeli side were the right-wingers, who could not just fail to understand why the left-leaning Labour prime minister, Ehud Barak, wanted to give up as much as 90s per cent of occupied Palestinian land for an offer of peace which they perceived the Palestinian side could never really guarantee, but critically was the suspicion, the "secret" breakthrough of the talks, that Mr. Barak was also prepared to have a joint control of Jerusalem to serve both as Israel's and Palestine's capital.
Five years before Camp David, November, 1995, to be precise, the far-right in Israel managed to use one of their own to silence for good the man who's seemed destined to be the one to bring the so-called two-state solution to fruition: namely Mr. Rabin.
On the Palestinian side, opposition by hardliners was also fierce. Other factions within the Palestinian community, such as, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, wanted nothing less than full and immediate relinquishment of Israel's tight grip on their territories. So, they never felt bound by the posture that Fattah, Arafat's faction of the P.L.O., had taken at Oslo. As such, tit-for-tat attacks between those factions and the Israeli military always intervened to make the P.A. look untenable.
Much more important to Mr. Arafat, who was leading the Palestinian negotiators at Camp David in 2000, was the way the rest of the Arab fraternity were reacting to goings-on at the U.S. resort.
The Arabs, the likes of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and others were thought to have prevailed on Mr. Arafat not to agree to the revised offers the Israeli side were making, because, according to them, the deal would surely run the risk of side-lining many other disputed territories that the likes of Syria felt should form part of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli land-for-peace agreement, including the highly strategic Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Damascus, during the six-day Arab-Israeli war.
Well, even as 2009 slowly grinds to a close, many Arabs and Israelis are still sharing a feeling of hopelessness about the Middle East peace process. The future, they maintain, remains bleak, despite signs of the emergence of a different thinking and a different approach by the new U.S. administration, led by President Barack Obama. Prospects for peace now hinge largely on the key issue of whether the two sides will agree on the status of Jerusalem - by no means a fresh stumbling block to peace, because both sides have always claimed the ancient city as their eternal capital.
The government that was elected to power in Israel early in the year is a right-wing one, led by an opponent of the two-state solution back in the mid-1990s, when the right won the election that followed Rabin's assassination by a lone gun-man in 1995. That man is Benjamin Netanyahu, who had first made a name for himself in global diplomatic circles back in the 1970's and eighties, when he was Israel's representative at the United Nations. Since Mr. Netanyahu started governing the country, analysts have wondered whether that peace process can continue.
As for the statements which Israel's new leaders initially made on assumption of office, few people saw such comments as indicating any willingness to negotiate or make concessions. Mr. Netanyahu, for instance, called for reconciliation with Arabs. But, he stopped short of declaring support for a two-state solution. Furthermore, he spoke strongly in favour of continuing the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, where some 125 Jewish settlements still remain, despite the fact that it's home to no less than 1.3 million Palestinians. This issue, settlement expansion, is a source of the enormous tension between Israelis and Palestinians.
The ultra-nationalist candidate in this year's Israeli general elections happens to be no new man to either Israelis and many other followers of the twists and turns of Middle East politics. Despised by many Arabs, but, also disliked by some pro-peace Israelis because of some of his hardline views, Foreign Minister Avigdo Leberman, recently, said the peace process was in his words "at a dead end". The last round of talks brokered by the U.S. in Anapolus, well over one-and-a-years ago, ended inconclusively last year.
According to Mr. Leberman, Israel is not bound to abide by the terms of the 2007 Anapolus Declaration, in which Israel and the Palestinians agreed to pursue the goal of two states. For months, such statements have been triggering so much concern in Washington. For the umpteenth time since he came to office in January, President Barack Obama has re-affirmed his country's support for a two- state solution, consciously going against the Netanyahu government position. In the estimated 10 to 11 months that he's been in government, Mr. Obama himself has been to the Middle East in June.
On several occasions this year alone, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has also made shuttle diplomacy trips of her own to the Middle East. The relatively new appointee to the new job of Middle East special envoy, retired Senator George Mitchell of the Good Friday Agreement fame in Northern Ireland has, more or less become stuck there in the region.
The U.S. president's affirmation of the need for two states was welcomed by the Palestinians. But, as one righthand man of the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abass, put it, "the leaders of our country want Mr. Obama to step up this pressure on the Israelis. "First," he said Mr. Obama should persuade the Israelis to stop their settlement activities."
Taking issue with that, it would be difficult for any Palestinian negotiators to go back to the table."
Some analysts are warning of "dire consequences" for both Israelis and Palestinians, if Mr. Netanyahu's government does not relent and start working toward a two-state solution. Supporters of the two-state solution say delaying or not giving the Palestinians a sovereign state of their own will only lead to more violence.
Prime Minister Netanyahu's base of support is among Israelis who fear that an independent Palestinian state might fall to radical Islamist rule and threaten the Jewish state, much like has happened in the Gaza Strip, where the radical Islamist group, Hamas, has been in control since March, 2006, after ousting Fattah.
The prevailing belief is that deterrent measures will lead to security for Israelis.
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