Assignment Submission Form - Individual Assignment

Student Name: Canovai Ludovico

Student ID Number:

HS15F001

Course: HS3022: Conflict, Reconstruction and Human Security

Lecturer: Tabraz S S

Title: Why did the Oslo peace process fail?

Date Submitted: 06/04/2015

Signed Date:

06/04/2015

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Why did the Oslo peace process fail?

Introduction The hope for a durable solution of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict collapsed after

ten years of diplomatic efforts and negotiations made by the counterparts.

The Oslo Process, officially started on September 1993 with the signature of “The Declaration of

Principles on Interim self-government arrangements”. It stretched out over an unstable regional

environment and had to close the gap between the different interests and necessities of the

parties. Furthermore, misunderstandings and mutual suspicions, limited the full

implementation of the peace obligations contained in the accords. After Palestinian leader

Yasser Arafat refused the Israeli proposal at Camp David in July 2000, the academic world

started a fierce debate on the causes of the failure.

In this paper I will identify the obstacles that hindered the pursuit of a final status and how

political divergences and the weak social economic background influenced the collapse of the

peace. To expose and understand the problem. I will argue the shift in the Israeli and Palestinian

approaches towards peace, using the realistic theory of International Relations.

Peace Process and Realism

The Oslo Accords created the Palestinian Authority, whose functions are the limited self-

governance over parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The most important issues are the

borders of Israel and Palestine, the Israeli settlements, the status of Jerusalem, the question of

Israel's military presence in and control over the remaining territories after the recognition of

the Palestinian autonomy by Israel, and the Palestinian right of return. The Oslo Accords,

however, did not create a Palestinian state.

When the peace process began, the mutual recognition of existence was seen as a triumph of

the liberal approach to peace. Notwithstanding this early proclamation, the development of

negotiations embodies many realistic elements, which could be traced back to the base of the

parties divergences on fundamental questions as the right of return for Palestinian refugees,

Israeli settlements on Palestinian land and the East Jerusalem question.

Realism stresses the importance of power politics in order to ensure the most important pivots

of a State: internal security and national interests1. Since states hold the core values- survival of

the state and the absence of external influences- in high regard, its actions are based on realistic

calculations, free of moral or ethic considerations.

1 Robert, Jackson and Georg, Sørensen (2013), International Relations, Theories and approaches, Oxford University Press, pp. 59-92.

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According to one of the eminent thinkers of realism theory, Kenneth Waltz, it is the structure of

the international system that influences political actions, because the international system is

anarchic and “life of the state among states”2 must be protected to safeguard national interests.

In a multipolar system the uncertainty increase: the decision maker can misunderstand the

actions of the other actor. This Security Dilemma, which finds his roots in a perpetual

international state of nature, determines political actions as completely empty of moral

justification. According to realism the necessity to build peace talks comes out in a particular

moment of the change of the World's and Middle Eastern political assets. The change to the

regional balance of power, concerning particular facts that occurred by the end of the 1980s,

push Israel and the PLO to open dialogue in order to preserve political and social primary

factors3.

Furthermore, the end of the Cold War changes the attitude on international relations of several

Middle East States towards the United States who, at the beginning of the 90s, in order to

reaffirm their power in the region face to the collapse of the URSS system and to maintain the

control on the oil Gulf, decided to intervene against the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, in the first

Gulf War in 1991.

The precarious situation in the region caused by a shift of the balance of power, was also due to

the birth of terrorism and to the rise of the First Intifada on December 1987. The increase of

terrorist attacks with a civilian target, exacerbated diplomatic relations between the parties and

enhanced mutual suspicions.

The Expectations

There were to important Palestinian expectations: The first expectation was that the Oslo

process would bring to a halt or the construction and expansion of Israeli settlements in the

West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Israeli withdrawals were to proceed by a fixed schedule

leading to Palestinian Authority control over more than 90 percent of the Gaza Strip and West

Bank, setting the stage for final Israeli withdrawal all the way to the 1967 borders. The second

expectation centred around increased economic development in Palestinian society, bring the

Palestinians out of extremely poverty and reduce the gap in living standards between them and

the Israelis that many Palestinians thought humiliating and enraging.

2 Kenneth, N. Waltz (2010), Theory of International Politics, Walevand Press, p. 102.3 Jonathan Rynhold, “The failure of the Oslo Process: Inherently Flawed Implementation?”, The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, p. 7

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In a few word the Israeli expectations were centered on security. Decades of Palestinian

terrorism had led many Israelis to have fear to lose the control in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In this way would leave Israel exposed to hostile Palestinian movements who would use the

territories as springboards from which to launch terrorist acts well within Israel. The Oslo

agreements were to decrease these fears by establishing a Palestinian Authority that would

consider organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad as a threat to its own existence, thus

aligning Israeli interests in fighting terrorism with the interests of the Palestinian leadership. he

Oslo agreement set up an expected quid pro quo that could be stated as “land and economics in

exchange for security.” The unraveling of the Oslo process began with the sense that the quid

pro quo was not being implemented as planned.

We will analyse better the shift of the two parts towards peace talks.

The shift of Palestinian attitude towards peace talks

Palestinians change their attitude towards Israel since the Algeri Declaration in the fall of 1988,

when Yasser Arafat, the leader of the PLO, faced to political problems related to the waining

legitimacy of his organization both in Gaza and the West Bank, decided to proceed on the legal

recognition of the Israel State and the Security Council resolutions 242 and 3384.

The loss of much of the political legitimacy of the PLO and the Palestinian resentment towards

Israeli government by Palestinians caused the First Intifada on December 1987 and the issue of

the Hamas as a political alternative in Gaza5, in the early nineties.

The Israeli government in turn officially recognized the PLO as a legitimate mediator on

September 1993 with the Declaration of Principles. Where liberal interpretation underlines the

historical importance of the mutual recognition of the parties as a step to achieve peace, realism

points out the historical, political and status gaps between the parties as a cause of the failure of

the peace process.

The realistic approach is useful to show how the counterparts' different perceptions of interests

and fundamental questions were the main cause of the weakness of diplomatic contacts.

Another element was the lack of the equal relations: all the steps towards peace were carried

out between an occupation force and an occupied entity6.

The shift of Israeli attitude towards peace talks

4 Jimmy, Carter (2006), Palestine. Peace not Apartheid, New York, Simon & Schsuter, pag. 173.5 William, L. Cleveland and Martin, Bunton (2009), A History of Modern Middle East, Westview Pr, pag 4766 Mark, Le Vine (2009), Impossible Peace: Israel/ Palestine since 1989, Zed Books, pag 49

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Realism articulates that the shift of Israeli interest towards peace was due to a precarious

regional equilibrium of power. The support of the Israeli people for the peace process and the

diplomatic efforts with PLO could be interpreted in terms of securing borders and the political

life of the Jewish State and not for ethic or moral duties towards the Palestinian right to build a

State7.

Peace and Security are the key issues of all Israeli governments. According to realism, open

borders threatens the preservation of the State integrity. As a former foreign minister Yitzhac

Shamir underlined on 1982 that “peace is fundamental to Israel's way of life and Israel's

determination to achieve it is permanent8”.

The government of prime minister Rabin formalized the beginning of the peace process on

September with the “Declaration of Principles on Interim self-government arrangements”. With

this they aimed to sooth internal political instability caused by the exacerbation of terrorism,

the rise of Israeli society disappointment towards internal policies and face to the increasing

power of different regional actors like Iran and Iraq which contributed to destabilization of the

regional equilibrium.

The Peace Process has to be analysed taking to account the unstable character of the Middle

East region. Israeli efforts to ensure borders and security is based on the will to sign accords

with neighbouring states as Egypt, with whom they signed a peace treaty in 1978. The pursuit of

a regional equilibrium based on more secured borders in order to ensure the regional balance of

power, was made with the opening of dialogue with other regional actors like Syria and Jordan.

Only Jordan decided to sign a peace treaty in 1994.

In order to slowly resolve the conflict, the Rabin government promised the withdrawal to

Palestinian land and accepted free Palestinian elections both in Gaza and the West Bank.

However, the failure of labour security policies despite the Rabin declaration -“we will continue

with the negotiations as though there were no terror9”- , shifted the attitude of Israeli society

towards a peace process and also caused the progressive acceptance of the right security

campaign for Israel. It was the assassination of the Prime Minister Rabin in 1995, committed by

an Israeli Zionist terrorist, that interrupted the course of the peace process. This also permitted

the victory of the so called “soft-right10” at the political elections in 1996.

The victory of the new coalition headed by the Likud leader, Benjamin Nethanyahu, changed the

attitude of the Israel government towards more secured borders and less concessions for the

7 Jonathan, Rynhold, “The failure of the Oslo Process: Inherently Flawed Implementation?”, The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, pag. 7. 8 Kjell-Åke, Nordquist, “Contradicting8 Kjell-Ake, Nordquist, “Contraddicting Peace Proposals in the Palestine Conflcit”, Journal of Peace Reasearch, vol.22, N 2, pag. 1619 Israel, Harel, “How Israel caused the Oslo Accords to fail”, Hareetz, September 18, 2008. 10 Ehud Sprinzak, “Netanyahu's Safety Belt”, Foreign Affeirs, vol. 74, n. 4, July 1998, pag. 20.

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Palestinians. It was the beginning of a new hard line politics towards Palestinian counterpart

and new internal politics which sabotaged the peace process and the implementation of Israeli

obligations11. If the Labor Party had started an appeasement policy incorporating elements of

separation and disintegration until the end of the interim process, Netanyahu's government

began a new hard line politics focusing on the prevention of terrorist attacks at the borders by

the construction12 of new settlements and by opening up to the immigration of the Jewish

population from the East of Europe. Focusing on the freeze of the implementation of the

obligations provided by the Oslo agreements, the merit of a reprise of negotiations could be

attributed to United States.

It was United States to impose Wye Memorandum at 1998 in order to implement the third

phase (foreseen by Oslo II) of the Israeli withdrawal from the zone C under direct control to the

Palestinian Authority13. The Israeli intention to maintain the status quo could also explain why

the Labor Government preferred an Interim Process that expires in five years, which could slow

down the creation of a solid Palestinian State with solid borders.

During all the Interim Period, all agreements were void of important commitments relating to

refugees, the question of East Jerusalem or the Israeli settlements: the decision of a final

agreement of the restructuring of the status of those issues was postponed. It appeared clear

both for Israel, the PLO and for the United States, who became more involved in conflict

resolution after the re-election for a second term of President Clinton, that more steps would be

necessary, considering the nearing expiration of the five years of the Interim Period. Before the

collapse of the peace process, United States became more involved on push the parties to

achieve a new final solution.

However, Prime Minister Ehud Barak failed on its intentions when he decided to give more

concessions and to make a historic compromise in July 2000. For the PLO time was not ripe.

Notwithstanding the political impasse to achieve common objectives, at Camp David II were

affected important fields, but mutual suspicion and the lack of an explicit commitment to a two-

states solution reflects perfectly the realist assumptions about mutual and uneven recognition.

During Camp David negotiations no written documents were place on the table. For the first

time in seven years of negotiations, the final status issues-refugees, East Jerusalem and the

question of future Jewish settlements- were included in the debate. But each side expected to

Camp David different approach to the final solution, for that they came to Camp David with

divergent approach for a new agreement.

11 Guidelines of the Government of Israel, Jerusalem, 16 June 1996.12 12William, L. Cleveland and Martin, Bunton (2009), A History of the Modern Middle East, Westview Pr, pag.511.13 13Giovanni, Codovini (2000), Storia del Conflitto arabo israeliano palestinese, Mondadori Bruno, pag.140.

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In sum the expectations were unfulfilled. The implementation of the Oslo agreements started

well. The first Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories in the Gaza Strip and in Jericho on

the West Bank was conducted smoothly. The establishment of the Palestinian Authority and

Yasser Arafat’s installation as its President followed. Then, after a good deal of hard negotiating,

a second Israeli redeployment occurred outside of the larger Palestinian cities and towns in the

West Bank. Unfortunately, the upbeat mood of confidence-building, in both the Israeli and

Palestinian publics, was short-lived, as each side began to perceive the other as violating its

agreements.

United States role

During the years of the peace process and after its collapse, United States was always the first to

push the parties to reach a final compromise; in particular the second Clinton Presidency was

more active towards the peace process. Notwithstanding the American interest to be involved

on the peace process, United States can not impose the peace at cause of the political inclination

towards Israel. Clinton administration became more involved on the process and more open

towards PLO when Netanyahu became Prime Minister of Israel, because they understand that

he could probably jeopardize the efforts made up to that moment. Being an ethnic regional

conflict, the United States had and still have a third role on negotiation and they could not

impose solutions before the parties eradicated mutual suspects.

For the reasons explained in this chapter, the PLO and Israel were able to negotiate the Oslo

accord without the help of a third party. But the imbalance in power between them made it

exceedingly difficult to carry this agreement to a successful conclusion. America’s role as the

manager of the peace process was therefore essential to the success of the whole enterprise. In

the final analysis, only America could push Israel into a settlement. And in the event, America’s

failure to exert sufficient pressure on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories was one

of the factors that contributed to the breakdown of the Oslo peace process.14

Conclusion

The success of the Oslo process was predicated on a beneficial spiral of confidence-building

measures that would bring Israelis and Palestinians ever closer to trusting in the possibility of

peaceful co-existence. In actual fact, Oslo led to a series of claims and counter-claims of breaches

of the accords that formed a negative spiral of mistrust and feelings of enmity. They did not

establish mechanisms for monitoring violations or ensuring that claims of violations could be

arbitrated and corrections could be guaranteed. Without such safeguards, the dynamic of the

14 Jeremy Pressman, ‘Visions in Collision: What Happened at Camp David and Taba?’ International Security, vol. 28, no. 2, Fall 2003.

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Oslo process fell prey to longstanding sentiments of mistrust and anger between Palestinians

and Israelis15.

If there was an opportunity to achieve peace, it was wasted by miscalculation and

mismanagement. From a realistic perspective the Oslo Process failed because both Israel and

PLO diverged on central issues. One of the weaknesses of the negotiations was the imbalance of

power between the parties which generated the zero-sum ending of the conflict and also the

lack for achieving the final separation.

The basic reason for the failure of Oslo to resolve the conflict is that Israel, under the leadership

of the Likud, reneged on its side of the deal. By resorting to violence, the Palestinians

contributed to the breakdown of trust without which no political progress is possible. But the

more fundamental cause behind the loss of trust and the loss of momentum was the Israeli

policy of expanding settlements on the West Bank which carried on under Labour as well as

Likud. In fact While Peres had limited settlement construction at the request of US Secretary of

State, Madeleine Albright16, Netanyahu continued construction within existing Israeli

settlements, and put forward plans for the construction of a new neighbourhood, Har Homa, in

East Jerusalem.

This policy precluded the emergence of a viable Palestinian state without which there can be no

end to the conflict. The collapse of the Oslo Process that caused a new and more violent Intifada,

vanished any hope of the conflict solution and confirmed that the resolution of the conflict was

not ripe.

One alternative is to move a peace process towards the creation of a bi-national state, a "one-

state solution". In this way promotes the co-existence rather than to continuing to divide. In the

other way if we want a peaceful and sustainable two "state solution, the circumstances have to

change17"

Bibliography

15 Ziv Hellman, Why the Oslo Accords Failed, What went wrong? available http://www.myjewishlearning.com/israel/History/1980-2000/Oslo_Negotiations/Failure.shtml?p=116 Serge Schmemann , "In West Bank, 'Time' for Settlements Is Clearly Not 'Out'", The New York Times, Retrieved December 18, 2007.17 Benjamin Netanyahu, “I don’t want a one-state solution.”, post-election interview, March 19, 2015

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Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

• Kjell-Åke, Nordquist, “Contradicting Peace Proposals in the Palestine Conflict”, Journal of Peace

Research, vol.22, No. 2.

• Israel, Harel, “How Israel caused the Oslo Accords to fail”, Hareetz, September 18, 2008.

• Ehud, Sprinzak,“Netanyahu's Safety Belt”, Foreign Affairs, vol. 74, n. 4, July 1998.

• Guidelines of the Government of Israel, Jerusalem, 16 June 1996.

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