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                       Obituary for the Oslo Accords
                   R.I.P. Sept. 13, 1993 - Sept. 28, 2000
                            by Francis A. Boyle
                                3 July 2002
                                CounterPunch


     Oslo is dead. Generals Barak and Sharon deliberately killed off
     Oslo on 28 September 2000 when they knowingly instigated the Al
     Aqsa Intifada by desecrating the Haram-Al-Sharif. When Barak could
     not compel President Arafat into permanently accepting the Oslo
     Agreement as the "final solution" for the Palestinian People at
     the Camp David II negotiations in July, he and Sharon decided to
     revert to inflicting raw, naked, brutal force that would culminate
     in the planned reimposition of Israel's outright military
     occupation upon the West Bank. All of the subsequent violence
     between Israelis and Palestinians is directly attributable to this
     malicious decision undertaken jointly by Barak ("Labor") and
     Sharon ("Likhud") with the full acquiescence of the United States
     government (under both Clinton and Bush Jr.) every step of the
     way.

     The Israeli/American destruction of Oslo was only a matter of
     time. There was never any good faith on the part of the Israeli
     government and the United States government when it came to
     negotiating a just Middle East peace settlement with the
     Palestinians going all the way back to the preparatory work for
     the convocation of the 1991 Madrid Conference by the Bush Sr.
     administration. American bi-partisanship at work directed against
     Palestine and the Palestinians.

     When the Israeli government finally tendered a proposal for an
     interim peace agreement to the Palestinian Delegation to the
     Middle East peace negotiations in Washington D.C. in 1992, the
     Palestinian Delegation rejected it because it constituted nothing
     more than an apartheid Bantustan for the Palestinian People. Akin
     to the legal chicanery that the Afrikaners had unsuccessfully
     attempted to impose upon the Black People in the Republic of South
     Africa. Or the "Indian reservations" that the United States has so
     far successfully imposed upon its Indigenous Peoples. Not
     surprisingly, the United States government fully supported Israel
     in its attempt to impose this apartheid Bantustan upon Palestine
     and the Palestinians.

     Nevertheless, the Palestinian Liberation Organization applied
     enormous political pressure upon the Palestinian Delegation and in
     particular its Head, Dr. Haider Abdul Shaffi, to accept the
     Israeli Bantustan proposal right then and there in Washington,
     D.C. This he adamantly refused to do. But it then became incumbent
     upon Dr. Abdul Shaffi to produce an anti-Bantustan model that
     would (1) protect and promote the Palestinian right to their own
     independent and viable nation state; (2) be negotiable in good
     faith with Israel; and (3) convince the PLO leadership in Tunis
     that these twin objectives could be accomplished. It was my great
     honor and pleasure that Dr. Abdul Shaffi and the Palestinian
     Delegation turned to me at this critical time in their Nation's
     history in order to devise this Palestinian alternative to the
     Israeli Bantustan proposal.

     This I did by means of oral briefings and later a formal
     Memorandum of Law dated 1 December 1992 that was addressed to the
     Palestinian Delegates to the Middle East Peace Negotiations as
     well as to the top political leadership of the PLO then
     headquartered in Tunis. This lengthy Memorandum was translated
     into Arabic for review, consideration, and approval by the PLO
     Executive Committee, which serves as the Provisional Government of
     the State of Palestine, whose President was at the time and still
     is Yasser Arafat. My Palestinian anti-Bantustan model was approved
     by the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace
     Negotiations as well as by the PLO leadership in Tunis. In other
     words, there was an officially approved Palestinian alternative to
     Oslo. So there did indeed exist a "choice."

     Because of its historical significance, the Board of Editors of
     the distinguished Arab Studies Quarterly decided to publish this
     Memorandum in full in their Volume 22, No. 3, Summer 2000 Issue,
     together with a brief editorial Note. While going through this
     Memorandum, the reader should understand that the Israeli proposal
     severely criticized therein would later become the Oslo Agreement.
     In other words, this 1 December 1992 Memorandum provided the PLO
     leadership with a detailed roadmap of precisely what was wrong
     with Oslo, what would be the negative consequences of Oslo, and
     why Oslo would inevitably fail. Indeed, this 1 December 1992
     Memorandum repeatedly predicted the failure of the Israeli
     proposal that would later become the Oslo Agreement, which was
     signed by President Arafat at the White House on 13 September
     1993.

     All of this analysis was well-known to President Arafat, Dr. Abdul
     Shaffi, the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace
     Negotiations, and the PLO Executive Committee well before 13
     September 1993. It was for this reason that Dr. Abdul Shaffi and
     several of the Palestinian Delegates refused as a matter of
     principle to attend the 13 September 1993 White House signing
     ceremony. They knew Oslo was a Bantustan and thus wanted nothing
     at all to do with it. Hence, contrary to some news media accounts
     and academic speculation, President Arafat knew exactly what he
     was signing on 13 September 1993. He had been fully informed and
     properly advised. But he signed on to the Oslo Bantustan anyway.

     In our conversations before Oslo was signed and afterwards, the
     greatest fear and concern shared by Dr. Abdul-Shaffi and me was
     that Oslo would set off a Palestinian civil war. This would not
     have bothered the Israelis and the Americans one bit. But to his
     great credit, so far President Arafat has refused to ignite a
     Palestinian civil war in the name of enforcing the Oslo Bantustan.

     Precisely because President Arafat would not do their dirty work
     for them, the Israelis and the Americans then turned upon him.
     Both the Israelis and the Americans have decided to jettison
     President Arafat in preference to installing some Palestinian
     quisling willing to become the "chief" of a Palestinian Bantustan
     where he would employ its "reservation police force" in order to
     suppress the Al Aqsa Intifada. I doubt very seriously that the
     Israelis and the Americans will succeed at imposing their
     nefarious objectives upon Palestine and the Palestinians without
     violent resistance. What the ultimate consequences might be I
     cannot predict at this time. But the longer the United States
     government enables Israel to torment Palestine and the
     Palestinians, the progressively less likely a comprehensive Middle
     East peace settlement becomes.

     In this regard, having served as Legal Advisor to the Palestinian
     Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations from 1991 to
     1993, and in a similar capacity to the Syrian Delegation to the
     Middle East Negotiations during their First Round held in
     Washington, D.C. during 1991, I can state unequivocally that if
     there had been good faith on the part of the governments of Israel
     and the United States back in 1991, there could have been
     negotiated a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement between
     Israel, on the one hand, and Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and
     Jordan, respectively, on the other, no later than by the end of
     1993. The conclusion is inexorable that the governments of Israel
     and the United States were never seriously interested in obtaining
     a comprehensive and just Middle East peace settlement in the first
     place. Rather, Israel's perpetration and prolongation of its "low
     intensity conflict" against Palestine and the Palestinians as well
     as against Lebanon, the Lebanese, and Palestinian refugees
     involuntarily living in Lebanon suit the interests of the
     interpenetrated security-military-industrial-complexes that really
     control the governments of the United States and Israel.

     Of course, from the Palestinian perspective, there is nothing "low
     intensity" about their just struggle for national survival against
     the Israeli-American juggernaut. And there are signs that Sharon
     would like to unleash a major new war against Lebanon and Syria
     just as he did in 1982 when as Israel's "Minister of Defense" --
     truly Orwellian! -- he got the proverbial "green light" from the
     Reagan administration to do so. Right now the "governments" of the
     United States and Israel are plotting to launch catastrophic
     aggression against Iraq, giving Sharon cover to initiate yet
     another round of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians by
     driving their West Bank inhabitants into Jordan. This incredibly
     volatile situation could readily degenerate into another regional
     war for the entire Middle East along the lines of 1948/1967/1973.



     Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law, University of Illinois, is
     author of Foundations of World Order, Duke University Press, and
     The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence, Clarity Press.


     Copyright © 2002 by Francis A. Boyle
     All rights reserved.
     Reprinted for Fair Use Only.




     See Also: 

        * The Al Aqsa Intifada and International Law,
          by Francis A. Boyle, 30 November 2000
        * Palestine, Palestinians and International Law,
          by Francis Boyle, 31 March 2002 



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