MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL 61:2 Spring 2007

Co-opting the PLO: A Critical Reconstruction of the Oslo Accords, 1993-1995, by Peter Ezra Weinberger, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006.

Claiming to examine the failure of the Oslo process in order to draw broad lessons for conflict resolution, this volume is an example of social science theory that goes far beyond what the empirical traffic will bear. The theory, in this case, focuses on relative power distribution, and the author’s thesis is that Israeli dominance produced a policy based on “complex co-optation” of the Palestinians, and which, in turn, was responsible for the catastrophic end to the negotiation efforts. In this framework, the government of the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, which initiated (or was pushed into) the negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that led to the 1993 Declaration of Principles (DoP), is portrayed as innately similar to its “predecessor and successor” (p vii), uninterested in the transformation from confrontation to cooperation. According to Weinberger “at a deeper level the Oslo Accords represent a continuation of past Israeli positions toward Palestinians,” served to “consolidate Israel’s post-1967 settlement presence in the West Bank and Gaza strip” (p. x), and reflect the continuation of the “nee-colonial arrangement” (p. 17).

This argument will convince those whose view of this conflict is based on the simplistic division between dominant Israelis and perennial Palestinian victims, or, in the jargon of the literature, a rejection of “hegemonic perspectives” and a “master’s or colonialist discourse” (p. xi). Rabin and his successor, Shimon Peres, are portrayed as calculating and cunning, manipulating the Oslo process in order to “preserve Israel’s guiding nationalist vision” (p. 47).

Following the standard narrative of this genre, history begins in 1967 with “the Occupation,” rather than seeing the 1967 War and its outcome as a consequence of the protracted ethno-national conflict that began four decades earlier. The impact of that history, including the Arab rejection of the 1947 partition plan. followed by the 1948 war, in which one percent of the Jewish population was killed, has been erased from the context.

Selecting the outcome of his research from the beginning, Weinberger then presents selective evidence to make the case credible. The brief overview of the process that led to the secret negotiations and DoP relies heavily on Aharon Klieman’s analysis (pp. 6-12). But he differs from Klieman’s explanation, and contends that “the Israeli preference for constructive ambiguity was deliberate, and served a complex tactical objective.” And Weinberger largely omits discussion of Jerusalem’s complexities and Palestinian refugee claims, tacitly acknowledging that these central dimensions of the conflict cannot be encompassed in his analytical framework.

The core of the case is presented in the chapter on “A Changing Economy of Power” (pp. 29-52), based on subjective definitions in which Israel is always dominant, and a map in which Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq (before 2003), and other regional actors have been erased. In contrast to the asymmetric Israeli hegemony that is highlighted in this publication, a different “discourse of power” that includes Arab oil wealth, the political impact of the Muslim bloc in international organizations such as the United Nations, non-governmental organization (NGO) superpowers that reflect an anti-Israel ideology, and other dimensions, would reach entirely different conclusions.

Confined to this subjective and highly ideological framework, Weinberg focuses on Israel, devoting only a few pages to analyzing the Palestinian side of the equation, in a chapter entitled “An Extra-Dialectical Condition.” Citing a few secondary sources, Yasir ‘Arafat’s “diplomatically uncouth style” (p. 108), continuing terror, and the “cavalier attitude to the letter of the Oslo Accords” are attributed to the need to consolidate his “tenuous authority vis-a-vis the Islamic opposition” (p. 108). In contrast, Dennis Ross, the American negotiator whose analysis of the negotiations is the most detailed and credible to date, concludes that the outcome was the result primarily of the continued strength of anti-Israel rejectionism.’

As the debate continues on the causes of the catastrophic failure of Oslo, the situation on the ground has changed fundamentally. In the post-Arafat era, Palestinians are divided into factions (primarily Fatah and Hamas) fighting for control of resources from international donors, and the Palestinian Authority is under de facto international trusteeship. The lip service paid to the “Roadmap” notwithstanding, the focus has shifted from formal conflict resolution to conflict management based on short-term unilateralism. This is also part of the legacy of Oslo, but beyond the scope of theory mired in “colonial discourse.”

Professor Gerald Steinberg. Director, Program on Conflict Management, Bar Ilan University, Israel and a member of the Board of Directors of SPME.
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1. Dennis Ross, The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace (New York; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004).