The Oslo Accords

Twenty years have passed since Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization concluded the Oslo Accords, or Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements for Palestine. It was declared “a political breakthrough of immense importance.” Israel officially accepted the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and the PLO recognized the right of Israel to exist. Critical views were voiced at the time about how the self-government established under the leadership of Yasser Arafat created a Palestinian-administered Israeli occupation, rather than paving the way towards an independent Palestinian state with substantial economic funding from the international community. Through a number of essays written by renowned scholars and practitioners, the two decades since the Oslo Accords are scrutinized from a wide range of perspectives. Did the agreement have a reasonable chance of success? What went wrong, causing the treaty to derail and delay a real, workable solution? What are the recommendations today to show a way forward for the Israelis and the Palestinians?

The initiator of the Oslo peace process reveals the events that led to the agreement, and presents his vision for the future peace of the Middle East.

This analysis of the Oslo Accords examines them from the standpoint of international law, argueing that they are legally binding agreements not political undertakings, and suggesting how this might help shape resolution of final status issues.

This work gives an internal perspective on Palestinian politics viewing political patterns from the Palestinian point of view rather than through the Arab-Israeli conflict. It presents the meaning of state-building and self-reliance as Palestinians have understood them between 1993 and 2002.

This book explores the personal, domestic, regional, and international factors that led Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and other top aides to negotiate the peace accords. It describes in fascinating detail the intricacies of the Israel-Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) bargaining.

For seventy years Israel has existed as a state, and for forty years it has honored a peace treaty with Egypt that is widely viewed as a triumph of U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East. Yet the Palestinians - the would-be beneficiaries of a vision for a comprehensive regional settlement that led to the Camp David Accords in 1978 - remain stateless to this day. How and why Palestinian statelessness persists are the central questions of Seth Anziska's groundbreaking book, which explores the complex legacy of the agreement brokered by President Jimmy Carter. Based on newly declassified international sources, Preventing Palestine charts the emergence of the Middle East peace process, including the establishment of a separate track to deal with the issue of Palestine. At the very start of this process, Anziska argues, Egyptian-Israeli peace came at the expense of the sovereignty of the Palestinians, whose aspirations for a homeland alongside Israel faced crippling challenges. With the introduction of the idea of restrictive autonomy, Israeli settlement expansion, and Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the chances for Palestinian statehood narrowed even further. The first Intifada in 1987 and the end of the Cold War brought new opportunities for a Palestinian state, but many players, refusing to see Palestinians as a nation or a people, continued to steer international diplomacy away from their cause.

Soon after the Oslo accords were signed in September 1993 by Israel and Palestinian Liberation Organization, Edward Said predicted that they could not lead to real peace. In these essays, most written for Arab and European newspapers, Said uncovers the political mechanism that advertises reconciliation in the Middle East while keeping peace out of the picture. Said argues that the imbalance in power that forces Palestinians and Arab states to accept the concessions of the United States and Israel prohibits real negotiations and promotes the second-class treatment of Palestinians. He documents what has really gone on in the occupied territories since the signing. He reports worsening conditions for the Palestinians critiques Yasir Arafat's self-interested and oppressive leadership, denounces Israel's refusal to recognize Palestine's past, and—in essays new to this edition—addresses the resulting unrest. In this unflinching cry for civic justice and self-determination, Said promotes not a political agenda but a transcendent alternative: the peaceful coexistence of Arabs and Jews enjoying equal rights and shared citizenship.

Winner of the 2017 Tony Award for Best Play. Everyone remembers the stunning and iconic moment in 1993 when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat shook hands on the South Lawn of the White House. But among the many questions that laced the hope of the moment was that of Norway’s role. How did such high-profile negotiations come to be held secretly in a castle in the middle of a forest outside Oslo? A darkly funny and sweeping play, OSLO tells the surprising true story of the back-channel talks, unlikely friendships, and quiet heroics that led to the Oslo Peace Accords between the Israelis and Palestinians. J.T. Rogers presents a deeply personal story set against a complex historical canvas: a story about the individuals behind world history and their all too human ambitions. www.jtrogerswriter.com