8-2018 Oslo25 | ‘We must liberate our thinking from the Oslo straitjacket’: An interview with Hussein Agha Hussein Agha – Fathom

http://fathomjournal.org/oslo25-we-must-liberate-our-thinking-from-the-oslo-straitjacket-an-interview-with-hussein-agha/

 

… Looking back, I have concluded that Oslo was more than anything else an attempt by Israel to resolve its security predicament by making the Palestinians responsible for Israel's security in the territories and saving Israeli money allocated for basic services in these areas. That required giving up some already-Palestinian areas that they were not interested in keeping, like Gaza. The idea was that instead of Israel being in the front line of containing Palestinian violence, it would be the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). It didn't work out perfectly, but that was the idea… When Palestinians are close to reaching an agreement and are genuinely faced with giving up 78 per cent of their homeland, they feel surrender, so they recoil. Whenever Israelis find themselves at a similar point and try to justify giving up material assets in return for mere words, i.e. promises about future conduct, they recoil. After all they consider themselves the victors. Whenever both sides get close to a deal, their consciousness of their respective realities becomes paramount and they retreat. This pattern has repeated itself over the last 25 years. Yes, the only party able to make both sides not recoil was the US, but as the Americans, with their eternal optimism, never really fully appreciated the psychology of the two parties nor how to address their deep fears and dark hesitations, they repeatedly missed the opportunity to lead them towards a deal. So now we need something else.

 

Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

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