A Jordanian’s perspective on the failures of the “peace process.”
“Israel’s withdrawal from Sinai was meant to enable Israel to stay in the West Bank and Gaza forever. That strategy failed, but Israel is trying it again now, hoping that its plan to “disengage” (Israel never uses the word withdraw) from Gaza will still allow it to hold on to occupied Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank. The motivation in Oslo was similar: impose a meaningless agreement on a totally incapacitated and desperate partner to preempt the demand for a real agreement.”
I disagree with Ambassador Hassan on his analysis of the motives of those who were the architects of Oslo. The Israelis insisted on the delay because they did not believe the Israeli public was “ripe” for a two-state solution. It was an act of political stupidity on their part.
In fact, the results of that delay are exactly as Hassan describes. While Rabin was apparently sincere in his desire to get to the end point, even he was hesistant to push too far, too fast. The hesitation did not help him. He was murdered in any case. After Rabin’s assassination, subsequent Israeli governments used the delay imposed by Oslo to consolidate Israel’s hold on the West Bank, instead of preparing for a total withdrawel. That laid the seeds for the subsequent disaster.