Yohanan Tzoreff is a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). His areas of research are Israeli-Palestinian relations, Palestinian society, its connection to Israel and the settlements, as well as the Palestinian interorganizational system.
Tzoreff joined the institute at the end of 2019 following distinguished careers in the military and civilian fields. His most recent military role was Arab affairs adviser to the Civil Administration in the Gaza Strip (lieutenant-colonel in the reserves) during the First Intifada, until the completion of the implementation of the Oslo Accords.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
As we look back at 30 years since the Oslo Accords, I’d like to ask you about your reflections. You’re speaking at an INSS event on the accords. What are some of your insights?
When I began to prepare for the INSS conference, I thought of the slogan ‘Oslo is the first attempt to bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to an end.’ After I read the protocols that were just published in Israel, and by the Israeli government at the beginning of the 1990s, I reached the conclusion that I need to be more modest in my slogan. We need to say it was the first time we tried to find a solution to this conflict. Because, if you read the protocols of the Israeli government at that time, you will find they were very modest, they were very, very concerned, and it was not an agreement that created big feelings of euphoria or happiness.
I think this is the way we have to look at this agreement. Also, from the perspective of 30 years. I think that if you read the articles from the last two or three weeks on the topic of 30 years since Oslo, you can find two main messages: One of them is that it was a big mistake. We gave a lot and got a little. The second thing is that PLO leader Yasser Arafat was the big devil, the “monster” of all this, and he was the main reason for the unsuccessful agreement, responsible for the way we are living today.
I think it is a big mistake to look at it like this. Anyone who followed the developments at the end of the ’80s or the beginning of the ’90s will tell you the situation at that time was very bad. We tried to find a way to overcome the challenges that the Palestinian people gave the Israeli state. The First Intifada is the main event that gave us a lot of explanations of the situation and also brought us to the dialogue with the Palestinians and the PLO and the signing of the Oslo agreements.
How did it start?
What happened in the First Intifada was an idea of public struggle, the idea of nonviolent struggle. It doesn’t mean that there weren’t any terror attacks. The main scale of the struggle at the time was the public nonviolent struggle against Israel. What happened after it began [may have been different]... it was not the struggle of the PLO leadership that was in Tunis, it was the idea and initiative of the local leadership of the Palestinians in the territories. They reached the conclusion that armed struggle isn’t bringing us to the goals that we want. This was their first assertion.
Also, the local Palestinian leadership was asserting that ‘We are Palestinians and not Israelis and we deserve self-declaration of our own.’ The third message was that ‘We don’t want to create a state instead of you, we want to create a state next to you,’ and this made a big difference because a lot of dialogue opened between the Palestinian citizens of the territories and the Israeli peace camp.
What about Hamas?
Many Palestinians reached the conclusion that something else is going to be here in this area. It’s not the same situation that it was before. Now another player in this area reached the same conclusion. One of the big rivals of the national Palestinian stream was Hamas. Hamas at the same time reached the same conclusion. It reached the conclusion that the Palestinian national stream is not thinking anymore about replacing Israel; they are thinking about life side by side with Israel. So this is the reason, if you ask me, why Hamas was in such a hurry to declare its foundation a few weeks after the intifada began in 1987, when they understood there was something new happening. Otherwise, I am not sure they would have done it at the same time.
The main issue is that Hamas became the big rival of Fatah, the rival of the national Palestinian stream. They mixed nationalism and religion. When you do that, you enhance the identity of everyone. It gives you the ability to feel why you are Palestinian and why you belong to this area. You can find the situation in other National-Religious groups. They are more committed to the mission of the organization and to the society to which they belong.
The national stream was considered the main representative of the Palestinian people. But now that Hamas was on the scene, it gave an alternative to the Palestinian people. I think from the arguments that Hamas declared and expressed at that time, you can understand very well what’s really going on in the Palestinian street. In November 1988, when the Palestinian National Council put forward a declaration of independence and formally accepted UN Resolution 181 (that there will be a Jewish and an Arab state), despite all the rhetoric and messages the Palestinian national movement used before the Declaration of Independence and after, and since 1988 until now, they are talking very clearly about the 1967 borders being the borders of the Palestinian state.
What I want to say is that there would have been no ability and no way to reach the Oslo agreements without the declaration, and no Declaration of Independence without the First Intifada. It was important to have the Palestinian National Council, and then you could open the way to discussion. Then the US could be involved. Then the Israeli peace camp could be involved to put pressure on the leaders. Also, other Arab leaders could play an important role in pushing this kind of negotiation forward. Without these developments, I don’t think it would have been achieved. This is one of the most important issues to understand how we reached the Oslo agreements.
If you look back, everyone is generally saying that Oslo is bad, but what is your assessment? Thirty years is a long time.
Not everyone would agree with me, but one way these agreements were implemented is the way every side looks at this agreement. The Israeli side used to think about this agreement as something Arafat should deliver. The Palestinians thought about this as a common project. And they were not happy with the way Arafat behaved. At the end of the day, do we look at this development as a process or as an independent event?
I think you need to look at this intifada and agreement as having roots in 1977 when Anwar Sadat, the president of Egypt, came to Israel and succeeded in reaching an agreement with Israel. Then to look at 1982 as another point where the Palestinians were in a weak situation when they were deported from Lebanon. Then the intifada of 1987 was a part of this process. The agreement we signed with the Palestinians was a part of this process. And this requires a lot of things... we used to talk about people-to-people relationships and how to get close to each other. There was a lot of opposition on both sides of the agreement. Most of the disagreement came from a religious point of view. Hamas, the most religious Palestinian group at that time, did not accept Israel. Also, the Israeli National-Religious camp was not ready to evacuate any kind of settlements and did not accept any kind of agreement with the Palestinians.
The Palestinian delegation that negotiated in Washington before the Oslo agreements didn’t want to continue because they said Israel needed to give a commitment that it would evacuate all the settlements. From their point of view, there was no way to establish a Palestinian state with the settlements, but the PLO leadership in Tunis had a different view, and that’s why we reached the agreement.
There are two kinds of outcomes that could have happened after Oslo. One was an independent state that was strong, and another was an authority that was very weak and that lost a lot of legitimacy with its people. How can we continue in this way where we Israelis feel we aren’t secure enough and we have to work on it all the time and that the PA doesn’t do enough to deliver on its commitment? What do we have to do in this case? From my point of view, we need to understand what happened from 1993 until now.
Three or four things have already been achieved, and we need to keep those as they are. First, the PA of Mahmoud Abbas, not like Arafat, committed to the agreement, and we don’t want to make it collapse. Second is the internal Palestinian discourse. Everyone understands that no one can ignore the two-state resolution that took place in the 1980s. Even Hamas in 2017 said it was ready to accept a Palestinian state with 1967 borders if it is clear this is the consensus of the Palestinians. It’s very clear that most of the Palestinians, a majority, think there is no other way. Hamas came closer to the PA on this strategic issue. The question today is about the reality of this idea, not about the position of the Palestinians.
The third thing is that the Palestinians have nowhere to go back to. There is no alternative. For Israel, there are a lot of alternatives. The Palestinians are not going to give up on the PA. They need to keep it because it is a national institution; it needs to be kept if they are to reach independence at the end of the day. This is why Abbas is different from Arafat. For instance, coordination with the IDF is holy; it is very important for him. I think if you ask all the Israeli officials who have a good connection with the PA, they will tell you the Palestinians do a good job. Maybe it’s not enough from our standpoint, but it helps Israeli security and settlers and it needs to be kept.
The fourth thing we need to talk about in this case is that there is no PLO outside of the Palestinian Authority. If you recall, before Oslo all the terror attacks came from abroad. Today, we are controlling the PLO. It is under our control. No Israeli official would say it is better to deport them (i.e., Jordan, Lebanon, Tunis).
The situation today is that there are some Palestinian organizations such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad that try to attack Israel from abroad, Gaza, and the West Bank.
At the same time, we must note that there are many Arab states that fight the PA. A lot of Arab countries don’t let them do anything from inside their borders, except Lebanon, because it is a weak country and due to Iran, and Syria a bit.
From a security point of view, if you look back 30 years ago you will find that we paid a big price from Palestinian terrorism, especially in the first eight years of the agreements. But once Abbas was elected in 2005, the Oslo agreements were implemented as they were written in the text. He is committed to it. He doesn’t use violence against Israel. He is fighting through words, in the international community and forums. It is not an easy thing for Israel, but it is not the same as shooting and fighting. Today, Israel has a stronger ability in the international community than the Palestinians do. As long as we don’t give up on the idea of seeking peace. Israel’s problem in the last few years is that it is no longer seeking peace. Since 2009, the Israeli government hasn’t been considered a partner for peace.
All the governments since 2009 have made a lot of efforts to avoid initiatives for meetings or negotiations. It was not part of these governments’ agendas. You can only challenge the Palestinians when you show you are strong from a security point of view and at the same time you insist on reaching an agreement, through talks, negotiations, and coexistence. When you don’t work toward an agreement, then you end up in the spotlight of international criticism. The situation today is a good example of this.
What about the next 30 years?
Over the next 30 years, we will continue to live here. The question is how? A common state or two independent states? We are witnessing one of the biggest protests in Israel, and no one is talking about the Palestinian issue in these demonstrations. But this is the heart of the demonstrations. I think the leaders of the demonstrations will understand it sooner or later. The main threat to Israeli democracy is in our relationship with the Palestinians. Are we going to separate or live together? I think the current government does not really think about living together. Something else, another player has to be part of the discussions inside this government to create a new kind of idea. Otherwise, we will find ourselves in a bad situation in the future.
All the ideas of normalization with Saudi Arabia wouldn’t exist without the Oslo agreements. Oslo is the base of all our relationships with the Arab countries. The agreement with Jordan would not have existed if we hadn’t signed the Oslo agreements. Also, US president Donald Trump, who offered the Palestinians a very bad deal, would not have been able to push the UAE and Bahrain to sign an agreement with Israel without Oslo.
Therefore, it means that if we want to keep our relationship with other Arab countries, we need to understand that the Palestinians are the core of all the issues. ■