The fundamental dynamic of Olso:
(1) Israel and Arafat begin negotiations based on a land-for-peace formula.
(2) Israel agrees to give something tangible – money, training, land. Arafat agrees to give something intangible – an end to incitement, confidence building, etc.
(3) Both sides ‘begin to fulfill their obligations’. Israel begins either handing over physical goods or withdrawing from territory. Arafat ‘takes steps to fulfill his obligations’. If you’re confused about what the means, just think of how Iran ‘takes steps to fulfill their NPT obligations’
(4) There is a major Palestinian attack, followed by a crises period. Israel points out that Arafat has done none of what he promised. Arafat responds by saying that Israel is in violation of their agreements, because they haven’t finished handing over everything they were promised.
(5) The Clinton Administration announces that the US recognizes that ‘both sides have legitimate grievances’, and commits his Administration to brokering new negotiations.
(6) Go back to step (1) and start the entire process all over again. Except for one thing: Arafat gets to pocket all of the physical goods and territory that Israel had handed to him (because what’s Israel going to do? Launch a full scale military operation to take it back, under the near-certainty that the US would blame Israel rocking the boat too much?).
And this went on and on and on for the better part of a decade. Along the way, in return for all of the real things that Israel gave the Palestinians, the Israelis managed to get Arafat to sign binding agreements that would obligate the Palestinian Authority as an entity. Among those binding documents, having the force of international law, was the Palestinian Authority’s recognition of the State of Israel.
During that time, the PA was basically just a corrupt government structure waiting to get an actual country to run into the ground – but a government-like entity it was nonetheless. For the Palestinians to start moving towards a state, the thinking ran, they needed to be developing a government alongside their civil institutions. So when Arafat signed a treaty, he was committing more than his Fatah party – he was acting as the Palestinian President, and he was thus signing in the name of the office
Let’s be precise: for Hamas to back out of a treaty that Arafat signed as the Palestinian President is exactly equal to a Democratic President taking over the White House and refusing to honor obligations made by a Republican predecesor. If the original treaty did not provide for such a unilateral withdrawal, then the Democrats’ actions would be in every sense illegal under international law. Ergo the concept of the rule of law – when a government official acts from within his or her office, she is in most senses acting not as an individual but as an institution.
That’s the theoretical perspective. Now in reality, nobody ever expected the Palestinian Authority to tether itself to the rule of law (how else to explain how many times Clinton forced Israeli leaders to run the entire gamut from (1) to (6), and then again). But everybody acted like they did have real expectations that the PA would meet its obligations. And so, for the purpose of documentation if nothing else, it’s interesting to do historical reesarch and identrify the exact strategy and the speicfic excuses that the Palestinians used at any given time to dodge their obligations.
We’ll do one better. Instead of dipping into the history books to describe how the Palestinians dodged their obligations last time, we’re going to try to describe how the Palestinians will dodge their obligations next time:
Meanwhile, the Gaza source said he knows the identity of the kidnappers, who he said have told him, “Gilad Shalit’s state of health is better than good.” “I can say with certainty that they won’t try to harm him,” the source said. “If they had wanted to do so, it would have happened a long time ago.”
He predicted that Shalit’s release would pave the way for a general Palestinian agreement on a long-term cease-fire with Israel. “The Hamas government is interested in succeeding and advancing a hudna [cease-fire],” the source said. “A unity government is also a matter of time. Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas] and [Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail] Haniyeh will not be able to survive another three years separately. A unity government will give them a second opportunity in the international community, due to the prisoners’ document, among other reasons.”
If there is actually a Palestinian unity government and that government declares a ceasefire, the following things will happen:
* The international community will announce that the ceasefire is a concession by Hamas which should be rewarded in order to encourage them to moderate further.
* Hamas will send out conflicting signals regarding the precise status of their anti-Jewish genocidal commitments – which everyone will convienetly ignore had been unnegotiable divine obligations just a few short days before (and who knows, maybe they’ll be serious this time).
* The PA will begin negotiations with Israel based on the prisoner’s document. Israel will be unable to refuse, because here finally the Palestinians are acting like they might not want to destroy the Jewish state. Except the Prisoner’s Document, uh, demands the Right of Return, which means the destruction of Israel. But Israel will be told that they can negotiate about that part of the document – and who ever got hurt by entering negotiations? There’s nothing to lose by sitting down and talking, right?
Actually, historically that’s demonstrably wrong. Entering into negotiations is costless – but walking away from the table once you’ve sat down is incredibly hard. That’s why Presidents bring negotiaters to retreats like Camp David to close treaties – at the end, when the parties finally have to address all the issues they’ve been kicking down the road, you want to make it as inconvienent as possible for either party to physically leave. And if that doesn’t work, Presidents can always highlight how damaging it will be for them if the negotiations – negotiations that they’ve now “put their prestige behind” – turn out to fail. And then Presidents will express to Prime Ministers how much that damage would hurt their countries’ relationships. Look at it this way – it always takes effort and force to change a situation that you’re already in. So pretending that starting negotiations is totally nonbinding is just disengenuous.
But let’s pretend that what’s true in theory – entering negotiatoins is costless – is also true in practice. Then the negotiations with the Hamas-Fatah unity government would still be an injustice – albeit, a very familiar injustice. Israel would be expected to offer concessions – prisoner exchanges, money, land. And what would Hamas be putting on the table? The promise that, if negotiations work out, they would be willing to recognize Israel. Which is… exactly… what they are already obligated to do! Hamas controls the Palestinian Authority – the Palestinian Authority that for the purposes of international law is the same one that Arafat committed to recognizing Israel. It would be the same Oslo formula all over again – Israel would be expected to give up new, tangible resources and the Palestinians would promise to do the same bare minimum that they’ve been promising to do since the early 1990s.
