Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, spoke on September 13 on a Middle East Forum Webinar (video), hosted by Ashley Perry, adviser to MEF's Israel office. The following summarizes his comments:
Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) signed the Oslo Accords on Sept. 13, 1993, or precisely thirty years ago. Hosted by the U.S. government, the signing ceremony ostensibly ended the hostilities between Palestinians and Israelis, with the PLO's Yasir Arafat saying the accords would "give peace a real chance."
However, rather than end hostilities, the Palestinians unleashed more violence and delegitimization against Israel, turning a "peace process into a war process." Accordingly, they bear "full moral responsibility" for the accords' failure, which Pipes calls "Israel's Nakba," or "catastrophe" - the term Palestinians use for the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.
In their eagerness to end the conflict, Israel's leaders made three overarching miscalculations in their pursuit of peace with its enemy: "One, a shift in strategic thinking; two, misunderstanding the Palestinians; and three, very poor negotiating tactics." More specifically, Israel committed twelve "bewildering" mistakes. It:
- Minimized the importance of the military, leading it to degrade its own military power.
- Exhibited a "severe reluctance to take casualties."
- Assumed that Arafat, an unelected leader, represented the Palestinian population, which he did not.
- Ignored the venomous radicalism, "verging on the anti-rational," openly expressed by Palestinians.
- Regarded Palestinian representatives as "partners for peace" who accepted Israel's existence.
- Parroted each other in making "painful concessions" – a euphemism for "unilateral surrender"; no less than five Israeli prime ministers (Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, and Benjamin Netanyahu) used this term.
- Made self-abnegating speeches bemoaning the national fatigue from fighting.
- Engaged in "magical thinking" that "became a parody of itself" by describing the Palestinians in fantastical terms.
- Gave Arafat territory and legitimacy in return for his signature on documents, without testing him or his motives.
- Did not enforce multiple agreements between 1993 and 1998.
- Misunderstood the nature of peace: Rabin's oft-repeated phrase, "You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with unsavory enemies," missed the mark, for peace can only be achieved with former enemies that have been defeated.
- Permitted a "false parity" between Rabin, the elected head of a sovereign government, and Arafat, the dictatorial leader of a "murderous organization," creating a "dysfunctional illusion" that still persists.
Nonetheless, there is good news for Israel: its population and leaders are unlikely to repeat the majority of those mistakes. Really, just three remain: numbers 2, 3, and 12.
