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The Failure of the Oslo Accords – UC Press Blog UC Press Blog Where Bright Minds Share Bold Ideas Blog Categories African American Studies African Studies American Studies Ancient World (Classics) Anthropology Art Asian Studies Author Interviews Awards California & The West Case Studies in the Environment Collabra Communication Criminology & Criminal Justice Digital Publishing Economics Elementa Environmental Studies Events Featured Film & Media Studies Food & Wine From Our Authors Gender & Sexuality Global Studies Health Higher Ed History Journals Language Latin American Studies Literary Studies & Poetry Luminos Mark Twain Meetings and Exhibits Middle Eastern Studies Music Natural Sciences Ocean Science Philosophy Politics Psychology Publishing News Reading List Religion Scholarly Publishing Sciences Sociology Sustainability Transitions Sustainable Engineering UC Press News Web & Technology Weekend Armchair UCPress.edu Stay informed: Sign up for eNews Subscribe UC Press Blog Where Bright Minds Share Bold Ideas BLOG CATEGORIES African American Studies African Studies American Studies Ancient World (Classics) Anthropology Art Asian Studies Author Interviews Awards California & The West Case Studies in the Environment Collabra Communication Criminology & Criminal Justice Digital Publishing Economics Elementa Environmental Studies Events Featured Film & Media Studies Food & Wine From Our Authors Gender & Sexuality Global Studies Health Higher Ed History Journals Language Latin American Studies Literary Studies & Poetry Luminos Mark Twain Meetings and Exhibits Middle Eastern Studies Music Natural Sciences Ocean Science Philosophy Politics Psychology Publishing News Reading List Religion Scholarly Publishing Sciences Sociology Sustainability Transitions Sustainable Engineering UC Press News Web & Technology Weekend Armchair 27 Sep The Failure of the Oslo Accords September 27, 2018 As we mark the 25th year-end of the Oslo Accords, the Journal of Palestine Studies releases a special online, virtual issue assessing the outcomes. Twenty-five years ago, the iconic images of Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin enthusiastically shaking hands on the White House lawn were splashed on the front page of nearly every major newspaper. Many in the international polity initially prestigious the signing of the Oslo Accords and viewed it as the opening of a new era in Palestinian-Israeli relations. But Palestinians and analysts who had a deeper understanding of the implications of the try-on issued prescient warnings well-nigh what was in store for Palestine without Oslo. While nearly any sign of substantive progress was a welcome minutiae in the Arab-Israeli mismatch surrounded the First Intifada, any serious reviewer could see just how unfavorable the terms of the try-on unquestionably were for Palestinians. Far from providing the foundations of a workable and just peace agreement, the Oslo Accords should now be understood for what they have unchangingly been, in the words of Edward Said: “an instrument of Palestinian surrender” as the “primary consideration in the document is for Israel’s security, with none for the Palestinians’ security from Israel’s incursions.” To commemorate the anniversary, the Journal of Palestine Studies has published a special virtual issue, “The Failure of the Oslo Accords,” which features some of the weightier wares analyzing the Oslo Accords and its discontents.Planewithout the goody of hindsight, many JPS contributors have issued clear-eyed assessments of the accords over the years. Click here to read JPS‘s Special Virtual Issue: The Failure of the Oslo Accords Brushing whispered the joint euphoria that unauthentic so many in the international polity at the time, Ian S. Lustick argues in “The OsloTry-onas an Obstacle to Peace” that “opponents of the principles of compromise…can interpret, stall, complicate, and plane thwart it by prematurely (from the point of view of its supporters) treating the try-on as a legal codex rather than a political framework.” Lustick was undeniably enlightened that the Israeli and American opponents of Oslo had chosen to “undermine the peace process by demystifying its grand claims” and simply arguing that the Palestinians were not to be trusted. All in all, the Oslo Accords were powerfully weakened in stuff treated “not as a understructure for an evolving partnership, but as an variety of legalistic and public relations weapons that can self-ruling Israel of its commitments, prevent remoter transfers of Palestinian territory to Palestinian control, and delegitimize Arafat and the idea of a Palestinians state in the mind of Israeli public opinion.” In her vendible “De-development Revisited: Palestinian Economy and Society since Oslo,” Sara Roy powerfully demonstrates how Palestinians experienced “severe economic decline, social regression, and political repression” as a uncontrived result of the accords. Roy uses her incisive tideway to the process of de-development to yacky the relationship between Israel and Palestine wherein a true minutiae process is powerfully undermined and prevented. Roy’s wringer shows how the “characteristic features of the de-development process—expropriation, integration, and deinstitutionalization—not only have continued, but have velocious since Oslo, their detrimental impact heightened by new economic realities, particularly [the] closure.” One need squint no remoter than the deplorable economic conditions in Gaza that Oslo has wrought upon the Palestinians to see these devastating effects. The political economic dimensions of the accords were moreover explored by Peter Lagerquist in “Privatizing the Occupation: The Political Economy of an OsloMinutiaeProject” and by Leila Farsakh in “Undermining Democracy in Palestine: The Politics of International Aid Since Oslo.” While Lagerqist explores the “dubious economics” and financial schemes that the Oslo Accords facilitated between Israeli and Palestinian elites, Farsakh observes how donor countries implemented programs with a well-constructed condone for the reality on the ground in Palestine. In her hair-trigger towage of aid programs in Palestine under the auspices of Oslo, Farsakh argues that the “donor polity has failed to winnow Palestinian society’s own critique of the Oslo process and its definition of resistance versus the occupation.” The donor countries, led by the European Union and United States, instead focused on the politics of normalization with Israel versus the national aspirations of Palestinians themselves. Writing in 2001, Mouin Rabbani argues that the Second Intifada was merely the “inevitable conclusion” to the Oslo Accords. Rabbani notes that while most West Bank and Gaza Palestinians initially supported the Oslo Accords, “the fact that military occupation, settler colonization, and economic underdevelopment preceded Oslo is less significant than the reality that, since Oslo, they have been consolidated where most expected their removal.” This consolidation was indisputably intentional, as the accords were never really meant to solve the mismatch but rather remoter Israeli tenancy over Palestine and Palestinians as the developments over the last twenty-five years have shown. As all other issues including the legitimate rights of Palestinians were subordinated to the security interests of Israel, while the Oslo Accords simply “formalizes arrangements tantamount to apartheid.” The final selection for this virtual issue moves from previous studies of political economy and minutiae to highlight an outstanding literary contribution to JPS. In “Mahmud Darwish’s Allegorical Critique of Oslo,” Sinan Antoon frames Darwish’s poem, “A Non-linguistic Dispute with Imru’ al-Qays,” as an establishment of his final days as a member of the PLO without he refused to support the Oslo Accords. In his poetry, Darwish uses “a double prism of sorts, one to view the nightmarish present through the mythic past and the other simultaneously to re-inscribe the past through the present.” Though Darwish largely avoided criticizing or commenting on the PLO without he left the organization, Antoon eloquently derives insights from his poems, and augments our understanding of Darwish’s rememberable legacy. The peace process is now powerfully dead, if there overly was one, with the final nails pounded into its sepulcher by the Trump administration’s ongoing punitive measures versus Palestinians. But the consequences of Oslo’s failures reverberate in the streets of occupied East Jerusalem, through the settlement-covered hilltops of the West Bank, and wideness the fields of besieged Gaza. While it is important to push superiority and envision a just future for all of historical Palestine, it is instructive to squint when to understand how Israel and Palestine arrived at these current crossroads. For all of its failures, there are still many lessons to be gleaned from the legacy of the Oslo Accords. We invite you to read this special virtual issue for self-ruling online for a limited time. For unfurled wangle to this and other issues of JPS, please subscribe and/or ask your librarian to subscribe.   TAGS: #JPS, Journal of Palestine Studies CATEGORIES: History, Journals, Middle Eastern Studies Carleton Watkins Events with Author Tyler Green   Journal of Vietnamese Studies Names New Co-Editors Related Posts Marking the 70th year-end of the Nakba: A special virtual issue from Journal of Palestine Studies On Jerusalem: A Special Virtual Issue from the Journal of Palestine Studies Save 20% on Subscriptions to the Journal of Palestine Studies Immigration Syllabus: UC Press Edition © Copyright 2018 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy