Thirty years after its euphoric launch, the โOslo peace processโ between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) stands as the worst calamity to have afflicted Israelis and Palestinians since the 1948 war, and the most catastrophic strategic blunder in Israelโs history. By replacing Israelโs control of the West Bank and Gaza Palestinians with corrupt and repressive terrorist entities that indoctrinated their subjects with burning hatred of Jews and Israelis, as well as murdered some 2,000 Israelis and rained thousands of rockets and missiles on their population centers, the Oslo process has made the prospects for peace and reconciliation ever more remote. By deflating the fighting spirit and combative ethos of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), it has weakened Israelโs national security and made the outbreak of a multi-front warโa scenario that effectively vanished after the 1973 warโa distinct possibility. By transforming the PLO (and, to a lesser extent, Hamas) into internationally accepted political actors without forcing them to shed their genocidal commitment to the Jewish stateโs destruction, it weakened Israelโs international standing and subjected it to sustained de-legitimization campaigns. And by deepening Israelโs internal cleavages and destabilizing its sociopolitical system, it has created a clear and present danger to the Jewish Stateโs thriving democracy, indeed to its very existence.
PLO
- Dr. Asaf Romirowsky
- November 17, 2020
- Paper No. 1823
โThe struggle for Palestineโ has long been an axiomatic slogan in the Arab-Palestinian narrative and continues to be used to this day to galvanize the massesโbut as the Middle East changes, the power of the phrase may be diminishing.
Precisely two decades after the failure by the Golda Meir government to identify a willing Arab peace partner triggered the devastating 1973 Yom Kippur war, another Labor government wrought a far worse catastrophe by substituting an unreconstructed terror organization committed to Israelโs destruction for a willing peace partner. Instead of ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the โOslo peace processโ between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) created an ineradicable terror entity on Israelโs doorstep that has murdered some 1,600 Israelis, rained thousands of rockets and missiles on the countryโs population centers, and toiled tirelessly to delegitimize the right of the Jewish state to exist.
- Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar
- January 18, 2018
- Paper No. 719
The existence of a living Jewish people in a functioning Jewish state threatens the very raison dโรชtre of Islam, which came into being to render Judaism obsolete. For that reason, Arabs and Muslims will never accept Israel as the Jewish State.
- Jose V. Ciprut
- November 26, 2017
- Paper No. 657
By refusing to be Israelโs direct interlocutor, and by turning instead to third parties in the hope of cornering Israel into submission, while also demanding that it be prosecuted for โwar crimes,โ the PLO manifests inordinate duplicity vis-ร -vis Israel. It disqualifies itself entirely from the trust of the Jewish state. The PLO will have to face the consequences of its actions: for, short of imperiling its own legitimacy, no โhonest brokerโ could abet the PLOโs double dealings much longer.
- Dr. Alex Joffe
- November 26, 2017
- Paper No. 656
From the 1920s to the present, Palestinian elites have called for Muslim, Arab, and other forms of international support in order to situate their cause at the head of emerging trends and movements. Internationalization has also served as a means to nationalize the Palestinian masses. But in the process, Palestinians have repeatedly ceded control to outside forces and interests, from Arab, pan-Arab, and revolutionary nationalists, to todayโs anti-globalization red-green alliance, which have manipulated Palestinian nationalism for their own ends. The root cause of this process is weak Palestinian national identity.
- Prof. Efraim Karsh
- April 28, 2014
- Paper No. 246
The Palestinian Authorities' decision to strike an agreement with Hamas is proof of the Palestinian leadership's continual rejection of both peace and independent statehood.