The lessons of Oslo

Yossi Beilin was born on June 12, 1948. He obtained a doctorate in political science from Tel Aviv University in 1970. He was elected to the Knesset on the Labor Party (Avoda) list in 1988, and served in several governments in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As Deputy Foreign Minister, he worked behind the scenes to prepare the Oslo Accords, which were signed in 1993. He is one of the last living architects of these Accords, along with Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen), the 90-year-old President of the Palestinian Authority. Yossi Beilin has now retired from politics, but his unique testimony enables us to draw lessons from the past in attempting to chart a new course.

G. B.

Gérard Benhamou — How did you become the “shadow architect” of the Oslo Accords?

Yossi Beilin —After the victory of the left-wing coalition in June 1992, I was Shimon Peres’s Deputy Foreign Minister in the new government headed by Yitzhak Rabin. I initially drew up the broad outlines of a peace process with the Palestinians without the knowledge of my superiors. Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin were firmly opposed to any direct discussions with the PLO. Nobody knew what I was doing. In the second half of 1992, when contacts with the Palestinians began to move beyond the academic stage, Shimon Peres was informed. Rabin was the last to be informed, at the end of 1992, or the beginning of 1993, when the back-channel discussions became serious enough to require political validation. Everything took place in Norway, in Oslo. My two negotiators were Yair Hirschfeld, a professor of Middle Eastern history, and Ron Pundak, a journalist specializing in Israeli-Palestinian relations. I saw it as crucial that we were ready to talk directly to the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization. I directed the Oslo meetings myself from Jerusalem, but was not present at any of them. The secret discussions led to Accords between Israel and the PLO that were signed in 1993, not in Oslo but in Washington, under the sponsorship of US President Bill Clinton. The Accords marked two essential milestones:

1) Mutual recognition: the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist, and Israel recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people.

2) A two-stage peace process: Oslo I (1993), to be followed by Oslo II (1995) to extend Palestinian autonomy.

Peace with the Palestinians has always been my absolute priority. I was always prepared to take risks for this objective, to the extent that, if any of my proposals had failed to meet with the approval of my superiors, I would have stepped down from my political career. Despite the failure of the Oslo peace process, I remain committed to the two-state solution, even if conditions have changed. Back then, there were around 90,000 settlers in the West Bank. Today, there are half a million. Evacuating such a large number is unrealistic.

G. B. — Let’s return to the present. Could President Trump resume the peace process that was interrupted in the late 1990s?

Y. B. — The situation is completely different. The Israeli right wing is stronger and much more extremist. We have fanatics in the government who are hostile to any idea of peace. As for the Palestinian Authority, which is both a legislative and an executive body (I call it a soviet), its weakness has caused it to lose almost all the respect of its population, financially, politically and morally.

G. B. — Paradoxically, Abu Mazen has for years been dismissed by Israeli right-wing leaders as a terrorist, but now, as the President of the Palestinian Authority, he has unexpectedly resumed a role in the diplomatic process, thanks to the Sharm el-Sheikh summit last October. What are we to make of this?

Y. B. — Abu Mazen still supports peace, and I think he’s a good person, but it doesn’t help that he’s now 90 years old. His unpopularity also makes him very fragile. But if an Israeli leader committed to peace should emerge, and if the world really wants peace, then nothing is impossible. Personally, I would never have voted for Donald Trump, but if he’s determined to win the Nobel Peace Prize, so much the better. I would therefore encourage him to take action on our behalf if he is ready to help us. I must admit that I’ve been pleasantly surprised since the start of his second term. As for Netanyahu, he supported the two-state solution for as long as he had to, but he never believed in it. He’s an ideologue and an opportunist. If his political survival depends on Israel’s return to the negotiating table, he’ll go along with it just to stay in the game. So I don’t rule out the idea that Netanyahu himself could conclude the peace – though it does seem unlikely.

G. B. — Like the Trump Plan, the Oslo Accords were conceived as gradual processes with no predetermined end goal. You belonged to a minority that wanted to move very quickly to a final and permanent agreement. Why did Yitzhak Rabin prefer an interim agreement?

Y. B. — The Prime Minister was opposed to the idea of working towards a permanent agreement from the outset. He felt that the Oslo process should follow on from the 1991 Madrid Conference (1), at which the Americans, notably Secretary of State James Baker, invited the protagonists to participate in a detailed five-year interim agreement (2).

G. B. — Do you think that was the only reason?

Y. B. — No, it wasn’t. Rabin put forward a second argument: “If we work towards a permanent agreement and fail, the Palestinians might later refuse to engage in discussions aimed at reaching a limited interim agreement.”

G. B. — You were nevertheless involved in drawing up the interim agreement. Why was that?

Y. B. — Despite the somewhat vague definition of the term “interim agreement,” a peace process had been set in motion. I understood from their reports that my Oslo negotiators, Hirschfeld and Pundak, had encountered some very positive reactions from the Palestinians. It was because of this that, in 1993, I suggested to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that we move directly to a permanent agreement. I was aware that each stage of an interim agreement could be an opportunity for fanatics on both sides to torpedo the whole process. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened.

G. B. — In your confrontation with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, what strategy enabled you to break through the roadblocks?

Y. B. — It’s true that they were reluctant to accept this agreement, but it was hard for them to back out, because I met with them after two rounds of negotiations, during which we had prepared a joint document. It all happened very quickly. It would have been difficult for Rabin to reject the proposal, especially after a long year of election campaigning during which he had promised to reach an agreement with the Palestinians within six to nine months. Now the agreement existed. He couldn’t refuse it.

G. B. — You had no guarantee of success?

Y. B. — I knew that if I arrived with a document already prepared it would be harder to get things moving than if I had asked Rabin’s permission to talk to the PLO beforehand. But he would never have granted permission.

G. B. — How did you get your idea of a permanent agreement accepted?

Y. B. — A month after the signing of the first Oslo Accords, I went to meet Yasser Arafat in Tunisia, and made a slightly unorthodox suggestion. I proposed setting up an informal secret channel to officially negotiate a permanent agreement. I suggested holding discussions first in the United States and then in the Middle East, adding that, “If we can rapidly reach a permanent agreement, the detailed interim agreement might no longer be necessary.” His immediate response was, “I wholeheartedly support this idea, let’s work on it.” I asked him who would deal with it on his side. He replied, “Abu Mazen.” I replied that for me it would be the same people who had worked in Oslo, Hirschfeld and Pundak.

So we began work right away on the permanent agreement. It took us two years (longer than expected). Afterwards, Abu Mazen came to my office in Tel Aviv. It was an unforgettable moment.

G. B. — Why was that?

Y. B. — He came to celebrate the end of our work! An informal peace agreement that prefigured the creation of a Palestinian state. It was a very moving occasion. He was accompanied by the two people who had worked on the content for him, Rashid Khalidi and Hiba Husseini (3).

But I was not authorized to sign an agreement on behalf of Israel, since I was only Deputy Foreign Minister. It was October 1995. Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated a few days later. The Yossi Beilin-Abu Mazen Agreement was never ratified by either Israel or the PLO.

G. B. — How did trust develop between you and the Palestinian representatives?

Y. B. — We didn’t have any trust issues. You know, when problems arise during negotiations, it’s because the two parties don’t really want to reach an agreement, or one of them doesn’t. We absolutely wanted to succeed, and we understood right away that the Palestinians wanted to succeed too. We were a very small group, which made for excellent relations. We spent weekends together, discussing everything with the Palestinians.

G. B. — How did you deal with the possibility of Jerusalem becoming the Palestinian capital?

Y. B. — Jerusalem was kind of a weak point in the Yossi Beilin- Abu Mazen Agreement. It was the most sensitive issue. So we tackled it... sensitively! To begin with, we considered setting up future Palestinian institutions partly in the West Bank and partly in Jerusalem itself. This meant the city would have to be to some extent divided. While we agreed on the principle of partition, we took the precaution of referring the exact delineation of the border to a joint committee. In 2003, we took things much further with the Geneva Initiative, an unofficial agreement of which I was one of the main architects, along with certain Palestinian leaders, mainly Yasser Abed Rabbo, a PLO leader and a close associate of Yasser Arafat (4). We talked about three different locations in Jerusalem where the Palestinians could decide on their temporary capital. I could do this in Geneva, as I no longer held any official function.

G. B. — In 1995, the question of the division of Jerusalem set off considerable political turbulence.

Y. B. — Yes, when it was leaked! The Israeli right wing latched on to this as a sign of betrayal even before the document was published, while it was still secret. It became a major issue during the electoral campaign that followed the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1996.

The rightists repeated over and over that Shimon Peres was going to divide Jerusalem. Shimon Peres didn’t even know about it – he hadn’t seen the text! We told him there was an agreement in principle, but that it couldn’t be published. I had made that promise to Abu Mazen, and I kept my word. He himself was under pressure from his own extremists. Hamas hated any kind of compromise. In order to help Netanyahu win the elections in 1996, Hamas organized a series of attacks during the campaign that led to the defeat of Shimon Peres. And in 2003, even though the Geneva Initiative were not official, Hamas organized a mock funeral every Friday, the day of Muslim prayers. The procession went from Gaza’s main mosque to a large public square not far away, and the coffins bore the names of Yasser Abed Rabbo and myself.

G. B. — Another key point was the return of Palestinian refugees.

Y. B. — We planned to authorize a certain number of refugees to return to the State of Israel if they so wished, taking account of special cases, humanitarian needs, and family reunification. But we did not agree on a figure (5).

G. B. — What security guarantees were envisaged?

Y. B. — Setting up an international force was a very important part of the agreement. We worked on it in detail with Amnon Shahak, the then Chief of Staff, and other Israeli generals, as well as with the heads of the Mossad and Shabak security services and their Palestinian counterparts. The idea was to create a Palestinian and international force, both in Jerusalem and on the West Bank. This was to be the main force protecting the Palestinians after demilitarization.

G. B. — What status was envisaged for the settlements and exchanged territories?

Y. B. — In our vision, which was close to the Clinton parameters (6), the Palestinian state overall was to correspond to the territories occupied in 1967, i.e. around 6,000 square kilometers in the West Bank. To this, of course, would be added the Gaza Strip, comprising 360 square kilometers. There was to be an exchange of land of equivalent size and quality: 2.25% of the West Bank would be ceded to Israel, and an equivalent area of Israel allocated to the Palestinians.

G. B. — What about the future of the settlements?

Y. B. — We agreed that all the settlements in the Gaza Strip would be evacuated, but that settlers inhabiting the West Bank would be allowed to stay if they wished, subject to the restrictions of future Palestinian law. Since then, with the help of the jurist Hiba Husseini, we have drawn up a project for an Israeli-Palestinian confederation, the Holy Land Confederation, stating that Israelis wishing to live in a Palestinian state would be obligated to respect the laws and regulations of that state, while still retaining Israeli nationality (7).

G. B. — What advice would you give to future negotiators?

Y. B. — Before negotiating, Abu Mazen said to me: “Let’s go to Australia!” What he meant was, “Let’s get away from here and go somewhere else to quietly work out an agreement.” I don’t know if Australia was the best place, but I think the principle of escape was a good way to handle things. What you need is to keep the media at bay, avoid press conferences, and dispense yourself from constantly having to repeat, “We had a very good meeting.” This is all useless nonsense. You just have to get down to work.

G. B. — What has your experience taught you about what can be used again in the current context or, inversely, what is inapplicable?

Y. B. — Our past experience is visibly different from the Trump Plan in major and incompatible ways. As regards the question of sovereignty, Oslo aimed for two truly sovereign states, a State of Israel and a State of Palestine, linked by a form of confederation in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital. Trump, on the other hand, is proposing only a highly limited Palestinian entity. Oslo aimed to achieve bilateral coexistence. Trump is endorsing lasting asymmetry. This is a clear departure from the institutional partnership proposed by the Oslo model. Overall, it will take a great deal of perseverance and hard work to achieve a result.

G. B. — In Israel today, political reality is characterized by deeply entrenched positions and a number of taboos. Can these taboos be broken?

Y. B. — I’ve attempted to deal with this problem, and the contribution I made stems from the history of Oslo, which was the first ever meeting between the two national movements. It’s certainly no coincidence that Netanyahu has been insisting “neither Hamas nor Abbas” in recent years. For him Abbas represents the same problem as Hamas: the need to recognize the Palestinian national movement.

G. B. — What is your reaction to France’s unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state?

Y. B. — In the past, I didn’t think this was the right way to proceed, because I naturally preferred to achieve peace through direct negotiations. Today, I’ve come to think that outside pressure is enormously important for those on both sides who believe in peace. For several years, people have been saying to me: “Fine, the two- state solution is a good one, but it’s not going to happen. You can see for yourself that no one is talking about it, and everyone has dismissed it.” But now, outside pressure has put back on the agenda an issue that for years has simply been missing from the Israeli, and even the Arab, political landscape.

G. B. — Do you have confidence in President Macron?

Y. B. — If President Macron, and others like him, think that, by granting unilateral recognition, they have achieved what matters most to the Palestinians, and can now move on to other matters, they are sadly mistaken. Their recognition of Palestine will have been no more than a rhetorical exercise. What I ask of President Macron and the other heads of state is that they go beyond mere words, and get personally and persistently involved in the management of this essential issue for the Middle East and the world.