What was the lesson from the Oslo Failure and what is the solution for peace?

Joseph_Botwinick · Aug 21, 2005

FP: What were your feelings and thoughts when Arafat died?

Sharansky: First, I thought that a terrorist and murderer had left this world. Second, I thought that a new opportunity for peace could emerge if we had learned from the mistakes of the past.

Oslo failed because the democratic world, including Israel, thought that peace could be made with a dictatorship. The central premise behind Oslo was that if Arafat were given enough legitimacy, territory, weapons and money, he would use his power to fight terror and make peace with Israel.

Unfortunately, little attention was paid to how Arafat ruled. In fact, some saw the harsh and repressive nature of Arafat’s regime as actually bolstering the prospects for peace. According to this logic, Arafat would be able to fight terror organizations without his hands tied by the constraints of democratic rule. As former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin chillingly put in the earliest days of Oslo, Arafat would fight terror “without a Supreme Court, without human rights organizations and without all sorts of bleeding heart liberals.”

Only weeks after Oslo began, when nearly all the world and most of Israel was drunk with the idea of peace, I argued that a Palestinian society not constrained by democratic norms would be a fear society that would pose a grave threat to Israel. As Andrei Sakharov taught me, regimes that do not respect the rights of their own people will not respect the rights of their neighbors.

In the post-Arafat era, the success of the peace process will hinge on whether the world finally focuses on what goes on inside Palestinian controlled areas . Just as the democratic world did not care how Yasser Arafat ruled, it may not care how his successor ruled. This would repeat the mistake of Oslo and lead to the same tragic results.

On the other hand, if the free world is concerned with how a new Palestinian leader governs, then the peace process will have a real chance to succeed. By telling Palestinian leaders, whoever they may be, that the support of the free world will be made conditional on enacting real reform - from dismantling the refugee camps in which Palestinians have lived for four generations to developing private enterprise to changing the curriculum of hate in Palestinian schools - the free world can help the Palestinians rebuild a destroyed civil society and create the foundations for a genuine peace.

The message of the free world to any potential Palestinian leadership should be a simple one: Embrace democratic reform and we will embrace you. Reject democratic reform and we will reject you. By focusing once and for all on helping the Palestinians build a free society, I have no doubt that an historic compromise between Israelis and Palestinians can be reached and that peace can prevail.
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http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=16319

Ps104_33 · Aug 21, 2005

Joseph,
Did you read Krauthammer's recent column? It is very good. Tell me what you think.
KRAUTHAMMER

What was the lesson from the Oslo Failure and what is the solution for peace?

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What was the lesson from the Oslo Failure and what is the solution for peace?

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