The Oslo Accords: Failure, Fulfillment, or Both?

By Richard H. Curtiss

Most Palestinians who read the Oslo accord carefully concluded that it was designed to ensnare a desperate Yasser Arafat into acquiescing to permanent Israeli control of all of Jerusalem and most of the West Bank. Most supporters of the Palestinians who watched the White House pageantry that accompanied the Sept. 13, 1993 signing of the Declaration of Principles based upon that accord concluded that, inevitably, it would set in motion forces of normalization and reconciliation that would end the half-century-old Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

Almost two years later there is evidence that both conclusions were right. Failure of the Israelis to agree by July 1 to the promised withdrawal of their forces from all of the West Bank, already a full year behind schedule, only continued the bad faith exhibited by Israeli leaders from the time the accords were signed.

The Israeli government insists that the initial withdrawal, when it comes, will be only from the towns of Jenin, Tulkarm, Kalkilya and Nablus. That will be the state of affairs when Palestinian elections are held, hopefully in November. Withdrawal from Ramallah and Bethlehem will follow, but only when bypass roads are completed to provide Jewish settlers and their military protectors in those areas direct access to Jerusalem and Israel proper. Withdrawal from Hebron, which has a Jewish population of fewer than 400 and a Palestinian population of nearly 100,000, will be discussed still later.

For their part, Yasser Arafat's negotiators insist on a firm timetable for all of the withdrawals, participation of the Palestinians of East Jerusalem in Palestinian elections, and agreement by the Israelis that the nature of their legislature be decided by Palestinians.

The unwillingness of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's negotiators to agree to those minimal terms, and to halt the ongoing creation and expansion of new Jewish settlements in the occupied lands lends credence to the suspicion that his negotiations with the Palestinians are a deception to lull the Jordanians and Syrians into signing permanent agreements that will leave Israel free to betray the Palestinians.

At the same time, however, Israeli-Palestinian normalization has begun. Yasser Arafat, the fiery orator who was expected to demonstrate that Palestinians were not ready to govern themselves, has settled down to the mundane duties of pulling refugee-clogged Gaza up from the economic abyss created by 19 years of benign neglect by Egypt followed by 27 years of malign neglect by Israel.

Despite deliberate humiliation and sabotage by Israelis and flagrant disregard of U.S. and European financial aid schedules and commitments, Gaza slowly is being transformed from an overcrowded hellhole into the nucleus of a small Palestinian state.

If the Palestinian ability to convert from revolution to a society providing schooling, health services, physical security and some measure of economic stability in only a year has thwarted plans of some Israeli leaders to halt the peace process and blame the Palestinians for its failure, discernible changes within Israel may be even more disconcerting to the hawks.

Despite their negative public demeanor, most Israelis privately are enjoying the fruits of peace. Just as they flocked to Cairo and the Red Sea resorts during the first years after the peace agreement with Egypt, now they fill the daily quota of 900 Israeli visitors to Jordan. Soon, they anticipate, instead of taking expensive charter flights to Turkey and European points beyond, they will pile into family automobiles for long weekends and inexpensive vacations in the high mountains and on the unspoiled beaches that surround their own crowded and still walled-off country.

Nor do most Israelis have to look forward to long weeks of monotonous and sometimes dangerous military reserve duty until they are well into middle age. The Israeli military no longer needs their services and many who wish early discharges can obtain them.

As Israelis start the long road to "normalization," inevitably they will begin to consider scrapping the three-tiered religion-based apartheid system whereby Jews are first-class citizens, Christians and Muslims inside the Green Line are second-class citizens, and Christians and Muslims in the occupied territories have no rights at all. With the best public relations in the world, no state that calls itself modern can maintain such an unfair segregationist structure forever.

To date the social, psychological and environmental costs of Palestinian Bantustans are borne by the people of Israel and Palestine. However, the enormous economic costs are borne by the United States. This is Israel's weakness. Sooner or later an American president or Congress will draw the line, and then the entire military-based apartheid structure will come tumbling down, to the ultimate benefit of all Israelis and Palestinians. Then the rows and rows of houses and apartments built for Jewish settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem will, finally, become homes for the displaced Muslim and Christian Palestinians who may still wish to return.

If the present absence of goodwill and realism prevents a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem during the alloted five-year negotiating period of the Oslo accord, the absence of unlimited resources and sensible alternatives will force a solution in the years that follow.

When that happens, the credit will belong not to duplicitous Israeli leaders who signed the accord, but to all of the long-suffering inhabitants of the Holy Land who, eventually, will tire of bearing the costs of the longest religious and cultural war in modern history.

Richard H. Curtiss is the executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.