Promoting Democracy. Manal A. Jamal
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in postsettlement cases requires an appreciation of how these agreements came to shape associational and civic life.
Palestinian Territories: From the Madrid and Oslo Accords to the Post-Oslo Era
On 13 September 1993, the PLO and the state of Israel signed the historic Oslo Accords. Fatah, as the leadership party, negotiated these agreements on behalf of the PLO. Although, these accords were only meant to serve as interim agreements and their authors emphasized that their contents would not “prejudice” the outcome of permanent status agreements,1 the accords failed to meet minimal Palestinian nationalist aspirations. Ultimately, the Oslo peace process and initiatives related to this process would enjoy narrow support in Palestinian circles, and would marginalize important sectors of Palestinian political life. The establishment of the PA, and its associated institutions, would serve to reinforce these dynamics.
Palestine: Negotiations from a Point of Weakness
The circumstances under which the negotiating parties came to the table in many ways portended the outcome. Three factors decisively propelled the PLO to begin negotiations with Israel at a less than opportune time, when conditions were not in favor of the Palestinian bargaining position: (1) the PLO’s military defeat in Lebanon; (2) international geopolitical changes, specifically the demise of the Soviet bloc in the early 1990s; and (3) the PLO’s near bankruptcy after it was estranged from Egypt and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf following the Gulf War of 1991. By the end of the summer of 1982, Israel had destroyed the PLO in Beirut—not only its military potential, but also the entirety of its administrative and political apparatus in Lebanon.2 The PLO’s military defeat in Lebanon and its expulsion to Tunisia thereafter made clear that a military solution to the conflict was not a feasible option. Then, in 1988, during the PNC’s nineteenth session, the PLO made two momentous decisions that would forever alter the course of the Arab-Israeli conflict: a renunciation and rejection of armed struggle, and a declaration of a willingness to negotiate “directly” with Israel on the basis of UN resolutions 2423 and 338.4 These decisions tacitly implied acceptance of both Israel’s right to exist and a two-state solution. The shift in international public opinion and the new urgency that the international arena assigned to the conflict obliged the United States to turn its attentions to the region. With the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, many Arab regimes, particularly Syria, lost the economic, political, and diplomatic support they had previously received from the Soviets. Effectively, this was the end of an era for a Middle East that had previously been one of the Cold War’s most active playing fields.
Iraq’s defeat in the 1991 Gulf War asserted the United States as an uncontested hegemonic power in the region.5 A deeply divided Arab world and an end to Soviet involvement in the region created an environment conducive for new US policy initiatives in the Middle East.”6 In the aftermath of the Gulf War, President George H. W. Bush announced to Congress that he would pursue new strategic goals in the region, including a just settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Then Secretary of State James Baker maintained that the Madrid Peace Conference was a necessary part of President Bush’s “new world order” after the fall of Communism.7
Accompanying these changing regional dynamics was a weakened PLO. The PLO’s ill-fated decision to support Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait cost the PLO US$120 million in annual donations from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Confiscation of Palestinian deposits in Kuwaiti banks brought the PLO’s losses to about US$10 billion. As punishment for Arafat’s solidarity with Saddam Hussein, Kuwait summarily expelled 400,000 Palestinians. These financial losses completely undermined the organization’s ability to sustain itself, and by 1993 the PLO had closed a number of its offices in Tunis and elsewhere because of lack of funds.8 The grassroots Intifada, which had commenced in the WBGS at the end of 1988, and the ascendance of the local PLO leadership, also challenged the continued relevance of the exiled PLO leadership to developments in the occupied territories.
At the Madrid peace conference, the Palestinians did not attend as an independent delegation under the auspices of the PLO, but as part of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation. The conference set in motion bilateral negotiations between Israel and its neighboring countries, including the Palestinians. Simultaneously accompanying the ten rounds of negotiations between Israel and the PLO in Washington, DC, was a second track of negotiations: Israel and the PLO were secretly negotiating in Oslo.
The Oslo Accord’s Inadequate and Problematic Provisions
The fourteen meetings in Oslo culminated in the 13 September 1993 signing of the Declaration of Principles. The DOP began:
The Government of the State of Israel and the PLO team (in the Jordanian-Palestinian delegation to the Middle East Peace Conference) (the “Palestinian Delegation”), representing the Palestinian people, agree that it is time to put an end to decades of confrontation and conflict, recognize their mutual legitimate and political rights, and strive to live in peaceful coexistence and mutual dignity and security and achieve a just, lasting and comprehensive peace settlement and historic reconciliation through the agreed political process.9
The DOP was not a peace treaty, but rather an agenda for negotiations covering a five-year “interim period” that would lead to a permanent settlement. The agreements outlined the principles that would govern relations between Israel and the PLO for the five-year period. They were nonbinding, and they stipulated that “nothing in the interim would prejudice the outcome of final status negotiations.” After the first two years, final status negotiations would begin on the most critical issues related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—namely, Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, the status of Jerusalem, the fate of Palestinian refugees, water rights, borders, and security arrangements.
The main provisions of the DOP included the establishment of a “Palestinian Interim Self-Government Authority”—what would become known as the Palestinian Authority, or PA—for Palestinians residing in the WBGS, an elected legislative council, withdrawal of the Israeli military from parts of the WBGS, and a final permanent settlement within five years from the signing of the Interim Agreements. The DOP also stipulated that the permanent settlement would be based on UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. Within the first two months of the DOP’s implementation, the Israeli military would commence redeployment from Gaza and Jericho, and would be replaced by a Palestinian police force responsible for Palestinian “internal security and public order.” At a later point Israel would redeploy from the major Palestinian population centers—Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Qalqilya, Tulkarem, Bethlehem, and Hebron. Shortly after the Israeli military redeployment, Palestinians in the WBGS would hold elections for a Palestinian Legislative Council. In the interim, Israel would control the borders. Finally, the agreement called for the establishment of a joint Israeli-Palestinian Economic Cooperation Committee to carry out economic development programs for the WBGS.10
In many ways, the DOP resembled previous proposals relating to Palestinian autonomy, such as in the Allon Plan and Camp David Agreements, but for the notable exception of the PLO’s participation. Supporters of the DOP pointed out that the agreement de facto implied Israel’s formal recognition of the PLO, allowed the Palestinians to administer their own affairs, and addressed the Palestinians inclusively “as a people.”11 Critics pointed out that the Palestinians had not received any guarantees for a future independent, sovereign, viable state, as well as no guarantees for a halt to Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied territories. The DOP also failed to address Israel’s illegal claim to the “occupied territories”; rather, the DOP identified the territories as “disputed territories.”12 One of the most damning critiques of the PLO was that it had allowed itself to be transformed from a liberation movement into a governing body in the WBGS.13 Key Palestinian leaders pointed out that the Executive Committee and other representative bodies of the PLO—“the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”—were absent from the negotiations, and that unknown names of little relevance to the organization’s structure and their advisors were negotiating on behalf of the Palestinian people.14
Absent from the DOP and all the implementation agreements that followed was any recognition of the Palestinians’ historic grievances. The ambiguity enshrined in the political settlement was not unique to these agreements. This lack of precision, often referred to as “constructive