The Roots of the Conflict in the Middle East
Part 5: 1993 - 2000
The Declaration of Principles - the so-called Oslo Accords - signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in September 1993 set out a process for transforming the nature of the Israeli occupation, but left numerous key issues unresolved. These included the status of Jerusalem, the right of return for Palestinian refugees, the status of the Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian land since 1967 in violation of international law , the extent of territories to be returned by Israel and the final borders between Israel and a Palestinian state.
While the Oslo Accords had set up a negotiating process, they did not specify an outcome. Under their terms Israel relinquished day-to-day authority over parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority. However, ultimate power still remained with Israel which frequently exercised its control by sealing off the Palestinian-governed areas from the rest of the occupied territories and from Israel.
According to the Oslo Accords final status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians were to begin in 1996 and be completed by May 1999. However, there were numerous delays because of Israel's reluctance to relinquish control over the occupied territories and its unwillingness to make the kinds of concessions necessary to reach a final agreement. Between 1996 and 1999 the Likud government avoided engaging seriously in the Oslo process which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly distrusted and fundamentally opposed.
In 1999, the Labour-led coalition government of Prime Minister Ehud Barak came to power. At first, Barak concentrated on trying to reach a peace agreement with Syria. When his offer of restoring only part of the Golan Heights seized from Syria in 1967 was rejected, he turned his attention to the Palestinians and the long-delayed Oslo negotiating process.
Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 successive Israeli governments - Likud and Labour alike - had overseen the construction of numerous new settlements and the expansion of existing ones in the occupied territories, almost doubling the number of Israeli settlers, as well as the construction of a system of bypass roads which enabled settlers to travel from their settlements to Israel proper without having to pass through Palestinian-inhabited areas. Most Palestinians viewed these projects as marking out territory that Israel sought to annex in the final settlement. The Oslo Accords contained no mechanism to block these unilateral actions or Israel's continued violations of Palestinians' rights in the areas under Israeli control.
Final status negotiations finally got underway in mid-2000. By this time a series of painfully negotiated Israeli interim withdrawals had left the Palestinian Authority with direct or partial control of about 40% of the West Bank and 65% of the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian areas were surrounded by Israeli-controlled territory with entry and exit controlled by Israel and were effectively split up by the by-pass roads to and from the settlements. In July 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton invited Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat to Camp David to conclude negotiations on the long overdue final status agreement.
Barak's position at the Camp David talks was clear: Israel would not return to its pre-1967 borders; East Jerusalem, with its 175,000 Jewish settlers, would remain under Israeli sovereignty; Israel would annex settlement blocs in the West Bank containing some 80% of the 180,000 Jewish settlers; and Israel would accept no legal or moral responsibility for the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem.
The Palestinians, in accord with UN Security Council resolution 242 and their understanding of what was agreed to at Oslo, sought Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, including East Jerusalem, and recognition of an independent Palestinian state in those territories. The distance between the two positions made it impossible to reach agreement and the talks collapsed.
Although Barak offered a far more extensive Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank than any previous Israeli leader, his insistence on maintaining Israel's sovereignty over East Jerusalem, as well as over pockets of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, was untenable for the Palestinians, as well as for most of the Muslim world. Arafat walked away from Camp David with enhanced stature because he had not yielded to American and Israeli pressure. Barak returned home to political crisis and the collapse of his coalition government, because he was seen to have offered the Palestinians too much.