[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: It is simpler than Harel describes: the moment
that Arafat got away with refusing to don the business suit and remained in
a military uniform at the White House lawn ceremony - in violation of
explicit understandings - he knew he could get away with anything and
everything.]

How Israel caused the Oslo Accords to fail
By Israel Harel (op ed) Haaretz 18 September 2008
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1022178.html

Politicians like to glorify events in which they starred. And even more so
the extroverted people who cooked up the Oslo Accords exactly 15 years ago.
But Shimon Peres, Yossi Beilin and their partners from the academic world
and media have chosen to remain silent in recent days, or to make vague
statements that even they themselves don't seem to believe about the Oslo
Accords remaining the only outline for peace.

Even they, the wizards of propaganda, cannot explain, beyond the spin of the
"only outline," how an initiative that ignited a war of terror that killed
thousands of Jews and Arabs, turned Hamas into the main force in the
Palestinian community and brought nationalistic fervor in the Israeli
Palestinian community to new heights, is the "only outline for peace." After
all, the truth is just the opposite: The "outline" gave rise to despair
among both Jews and Arabs of the possibility of ever living in peace in this
country, even within the Green Line.

The Oslo Accords were doomed from the start, for one because the
enthusiastic Israeli negotiators accepted the refusal of the Palestinians to
recognize - and today, as it says in their "vision papers," even Israeli
Arabs refuse to recognize - the State of Israel as a Jewish state and the
national homeland of the Jewish people. But the impatient improvisers, who
made light of the national ambitions of the Arabs and deluded themselves and
us that this recognition, as Peres said, is not important, ignored the depth
of the Arabs' nationalistic feelings while allowing them to waive their
commitment to end the violence.

These concessions, in effect, caused the failure of the process already at
the start. The Palestinians concluded that if Israel did not insist on the
main principle - recognition of the state and an end to the violence - there
was almost no limit to the concessions they could achieve. And when Rabin
and Peres declared that "we will continue with the negotiations as though
there were no terror," Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat was
convinced once and for all that permission was granted because the Jews had
no red lines.

Rabin and Peres were not the initiators, but when they adopted the outline -
and the Nobel Peace Prize - they should have behaved like statesmen: They
should have examined the incidents of Palestinian erosion of the agreement
with a magnifying glass and refused to concede an inch to them. But they
were both blinded by the wealth of compliments, honors, publications and
prizes and gave in to Arafat on the "petty issues," including his personal
responsibility for the terror. (When the intelligence people brought
incontrovertible proof of his direct involvement in terror, they were
reprimanded by the decision makers, especially Peres.)

By making this concession, in other words by agreeing to negotiate while
suicide bombers were blowing themselves up in buses and wedding halls, the
decision makers caused the failure of the outline that they themselves had
led.

But it was not only the minuscule chance for peace that they sabotaged. At
the same time they brought about processes of division and atomization in
Israeli society whose results are hard to exaggerate. A statesman, as
opposed to a politician who is eager for immediate achievements, understands
that decisions that are far-reaching in their historic consequences must be
made with broad national consensus.

The Oslo outline included giving up parts of the homeland for which the
Jewish people have longed for generations, as well as settlement sites that
were established with blood. The majority of public opinion rejected these
concessions, and the architects of Oslo did not have a majority in the
Knesset. And then a bribe was offered to Shas and to two deserters from the
Tzomet party, Gonen Segev and Alex Goldfarb. And the decision regarding the
historic concessions passed with a majority of a single vote - a bought
vote.

There is no question about it: It was a tragic mistake that caused tragic
results. The communities that felt deceived and betrayed have yet to recover
from it. Moreover, the decision to implement an additional withdrawal, from
Gush Katif, was also made deceptively. Then-prime minister Ariel Sharon
promised to honor the referendum of the registered Likud voters, and when he
lost he denied his promise and led the uprooting from Gush Katif that,
exactly like the Oslo Accords concessions, strengthened the Palestinians'
motivation to continue the terror even more forcefully, and at the same time
reinforced the internal split in Israel.

As long as the architects of the Oslo Accords and their successors are in
power, or in positions of influence in the media and other centers of
influence, there is no chance that a genuine peace process will take place.
Following are the conclusions of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) from
the many discussions that he conducts with these officials: "Both Jerusalem
and the right of return," said the moderate partner to the president of the
State of Israel, "are Palestinian rights."

Here, after 15 years of concessions, withdrawals and restraint, this is the
outcome.