A Critical Analysis Of The Oslo Peace Accord Politics Essay

A Critical Analysis Of The Oslo Peace Accord Politics Essay Account for the success and the failure of the Oslo peace accord. This essay will discuss the ongoing attempts of getting a peace agreement between the Palestinians and Israel. The essay will also examine the 1993 Oslo Accords that started the peace process. It will also highlight a brief history of the two nations involved, that brought about the signing the historic Oslo Accords. Also, get some finding after the signing, whether it has encountered any obstacles on its way, and finally made an account of it success and failure. The Palestinians did not feel comfortable, after the Six Day War in 1967, they had planned to crush Israel with the help other armies from Jordan, Egypt, etc. The plan did not work and only did the Palestinians loss the war but it was more than a war. The West Bank and Gaza Strip was now under control of Israel. The creation of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) came in earlier years, under the leadership of Yasir Arafat their motive was political and a paramilitary organisation of Palestinian Arabs. It dedicated to establishing independent for the Palestinians state, around the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and by so doing, their intention was to replace Israel. Some groups within the organisation have not been in agreement with the redefinition of it mandate not to conquer only the Gaza Strip and West Bank but also Israel. Nevertheless, despite the numerous changes in government that has taken place in the 1980s and the 1990s in Israel, all with different political agenda and ideologies, they all seen to be sinking for peace for national development. However, The Labor government elected in July 1992 froze new construction in the West Bank including many of the units that Sharons office had in the pipeline. The Likud government that returned to power in 1996 thawed freeze, but with the comeback to power of Labor in June 1999 and the resumption of the peace talk with the Palestinians, construction for Israelis in the West Bank was no longer a government priority. (Alterman, 2002). In 1992 when the Israels election campaign was at its pick, Terje Larsen, a Norwegian sociologist and the head of an Oslo-based institute of Applied Social Sciences, known as FAFO in Norwegian acronym, Terje was also the main architects of the Oslo agreement. Larsen met with Yossi Beilin who was a member of the opposition Labor in the Israeli Knesset. Both men met and voiced out their doubt if whether the progress could be made in Washington talks on peace between the Israel and Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza. (BEILIN, 1999). Beilin was to belief Larsen about the having direct talks between the PLO and Israel will be necessary for any peace, therefore suggested that he talk to Yair Hirschfeld, a senior lecturer on Middle East affairs at university of Haifa. Hirschfeld had express interest in the economic and social-political aspect of the conflict that Larsen was exploring. Larsen on the other was of the believed that, there was the need for the Israeli has to talk to the PLO. However, Israel law banned contact with the PLO officials. Nevertheless, due to the ban, there was the need to fine another means and therefore Larsen suggested a creation of backchannel all the parties involve, including Faisal Husseini of East Jerusalem a prominent member of the PLO. However Husseini was involve in the Washington negotiations because the Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir due to him been a resident of East Jerusalem and his participation will amount to any Israeli concession in the near future of the status of Israels capital. After all the negotiations, limitation and the discussion the 13 September 1993-the day the Declaration of Palestinians (DOP), was sign at the South Lawn of the White House with the US President Bill Clinton as the master of the ceremony, hosting the representatives of the states of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation(PLO). The signing sealed with a historic handshake between the Israeli and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) chairman Yasir Arafat, it became one of the momentous events of the twentieth-century history of the Middle East. The two leaders redrew a geopolitical map of the whole region. Although the DOP was signed in Washington under the direction of the UN president, all the background woks, negotiation has been in Oslo and initialled the Oslo Accord in late August. Therefore, a more propitiate name than naming it the Washington Accord. The accord itself was in two parts, the first was a mutual recognition betwe en the Israel and the PLO, and it took a form of simple letters, on plain paper with no letterheads, dated on the 9 and 10 September sign by the two leaders. The second part was the Declaration of Principles on the Interim Self-Government Arrangements, in the occupied territories. The Oslo Accord was not a peace deal but a peace process. Under the DOP arrangement there were set of agreement that both parties needed to for fill in the order to come to a peace accord, (Shlaim, 1994). The demands (Palestinians) Independent Palestinians states, states the Palestinians can call their own, Palestinians also wanted lands Israel took in the 6 days war. The Palestinians also wanted Jerusalem as the capital. Return of Palestinians Refugees and the removal of all Jewish Settlements. The Palestinians demands were threat to Israel but there was need for Israel to accept them. However, before all this demand to meet there needed to be true scenes of trust between the two leaders and the Oslo Accord was design for that. Israel commitments: Israeli agreed to accept the PLO not as a terrorist organisation but as legal body under the new name of Palestinian Authority (P.A), it also was ready to transfer lands to the PA. Israelis were committed to educating its people for peace and prepares them for the Palestinians next door. The creation of a P.A. police force of up 10,000, with no provision for terrorist and the Israelis were to supply arms to the P.A. to police their own people and to destroy terror. (Makovssky, 1996). For peace to become successful, the P.L.O was to give some commitment too, and some of the commitments made were: To end all kind of terror activities, they also agreed to recognise Israels right to exist by amending the P.L.O national charter, which call for the destruction of all of Israel. The P.A. made a commitment to destroy all terror groups and size all weapons and to protect all Jewish Holy sites that falls under the PA control, all feature negotiation will be by diplomacy and never again, to go back to terror and it final commitment was to educate for peace. However, Israels commitment to Oslo was so great that it began to talk peace all over, in all levels in schools and it was ready to deal with anyone who will disagree to perching peace. Despite all the effort for peace not all Israelis were convinced, and there were shock when terror came in 1995 when Jewish militant assassinated Yitzhak Rabin. Nevertheless, the success of the Israeli support for peace education was seen as 28% were in support of creating a Palestinians states before Oslo because of security threat, and in the years following Oslo, it went up 51%. Israel had met part of its commitment in Oslo agreement. However, there were still acts of terror from the side of the Palestinians and more than the years before Oslo. The P.A. did not violate it main commitment of ending terror, but all of the commitment made at the signing since the terror groups like Hamas were still operate under the watchful eyes of the P.A. The Holy Site was not protected by the Palestinians received land but Israel did not receive peace. There are no clear words of success to the Oslo Accord, only that Israel was committed to the accord by complying with its parts of the commitment made, moreover, on the other hand of the accord the Palestinians were probably not ready for peace and so did not comply with the commitment it made. However, there are more to say on its failure than one can image, according to Pundak in a 2001 publication by the Institute of Strategic Studies. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Netanyahu sabotaged the peace process relentlessly, and made every effort to de-legitimise his Palestinian partners. His main weapon in his campaign against the Palestinians was the mantra that the Palestinians were not fulfilling its part of the agreements; and therefore Israel would not implement its part. In truth, during Netanyahus government, both sides committed breaches with regard to the agreement à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ But the Israeli breaches were more numerous and more substantive in nature. The goals between the two states involve were incompatible with each other existence as few people to lived in peace. A peace agreement out of the balance meant failure was investable.