CONFERENCES & WORKSHOPS 1996

SUMMARY

The goal of the panel was projected towards advancing the theory of conflict resolution by looking at the Oslo process from a number of different viewpoints. The following is a summary of Dr. Mahdi Abdul Hadi's presentation on Oslo - The Conflict, the Mediators and the Breakthrough:

During the last ten decades, the Arab-Israeli conflict went through various phases, that may be classified as the international, the Arab and the Palestinian era. Although they each represent a certain period, they are interconnected and overlap in terms of dates, places, proposed solution (political and military) and respective outcomes. The evolution of the conflict throughout these three eras shows that each left its mark and influenced the others in terms of players, mediators and issues of concern. None can be studied independently or separated from the others since each stage of the conflict evolved over time and led, eventually, to some kind of result, which influenced the development of stages yet to come. Moreover, what may be viewed as a breakthrough at any one stage in any of the eras has to be seen as a product of preceding events. In order to understand the full meaning of what is widely chronicled as the "break-through" at Oslo in October 1992, there is a need to trace and study certain events as they occurred during the three eras.

The International Era
The political environment of the time included the "renaissance" of the Arab national movement and the birth of the Zionist movement, both of which faced three major, contradicting political documents: the Hussein-MacMahon Correspondence of 1915, in which the British invited the Arabs to become allies against the Turks and offered, in return, to help them establish their sovereign independent Arab states; the Sykes-Picot Treaty of 1916, which outlined the new colonial map of the Middle East as drawn up jointly by the British and the French; and the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which the British declared their support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

At the doorsteps of the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 we saw the British officer T.E. Lawrence adopt the role of a mediator and attempt to satisfy both sides' aspirations by drafting the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement. The Arabs, including the Palestinians, did not recognize nor accept the concept or the content of that document, arguing that since Faisal spoke no English and Weizmann no Arabic, the document reflected Lawrence's "interpretation" in accordance with British "wishful thinking" and was merely an attempt to close the gap between the three contradicting political documents.However, as the British and French governments held the mandates in the region for several decades, the international era was dominated by third party involvement.

The Arab Era
As an outcome of World War II the geopolitical map of the Middle East was redefined. The Palestinians emphasized their Arab roots and their status as an integral part of the Arab nation with all its aspirations. With the establishment of the Arab League in 1945, a central Arab political address was realized. At the same time, the Jewish-Zionist political decision-making apparatus moved from London to Washington, and thus, the center of influence and alliances was shifted. Soon after, a series of events - the UN Partition Plan for Palestine of 1947, the subsequent first Arab-Israeli war of 1948, and the establishment of the Israeli state - led to the uprooting and expulsion of the Palestinian people and their search for refuge in the neighboring Arab countries.

The mediators, their proposals and ideas for resolving the conflict, and the manner in which they were introduced during this era were not very different from those of the previous period, although they had been somewhat adjusted to the new balance of power in terms of intervention, interpretation and reasoning.

The bi-national state thesis, for example, which had previously been discussed between Jewish, British and Palestinian intellectuals, was now (July 1947) presented by King Abdallah to the UN Commission as a collective Arab position. Similarly, the plan to partition Palestine, originally proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937 and developed by the Woodhead Commission in 1938, was now presented in the Partition Plan of Resolution 181, passed by the UN General Assembly. Thirdly, the proposed annexation of the Arab part of Palestine to the Jordanian state, which had been discussed most intensively between King Abdallah and Zionist leaders in August 1946, was now brought up by the Swedish UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte. Finally, the question of Jerusalem was continuously addressed as a key component of any future political settlement, with many proposals that essentially promoted a 'special status' for the city. The real novelty in this era was the shift in priorities, which put the issues of borders, refugees and direct negotiations towards mutual recognition at the top of the agenda.

The Palestinian Era
The Palestinization of the Arab-Israeli Conflict was accelerated by the Israeli occupation of the remainder of Palestine in the course of the June 1967 war. The Palestinian era reached its peak with the signing of the Declaration of Principles (DoP) in Washington DC on September 13, 1993.

This era witnessed many political phases with numerous attempts to build a bridge between and by the two people immediately concerned: Palestinians and Israelis. More than 30 years have left a long record of contacts, dialogue, confrontation and, more recently, numerous meetings between individuals and groups from both sides, sometimes with the presence of a third party.

The first phase (1967-1970) was determined by the shock of the Arab defeat, the fear of the unknown future, the absence of a leadership and the total military occupation. The Palestinians "inside" responded with a policy of non-cooperation with the occupiers, while waiting for a solution to come from outside, either internationally (UN Resolution 242 of 1967), regionally (Arab Summit, Khartoum, August 1962) or from the PLO. However, none of the outside players delivered a solution, while the Palestinian society inside was crippled by the lack of an economy, health, welfare or education services and institutional development.

The Israeli policy, from as early as 1967, had three main aims as described by Moshe Dayan, then Defense Minister: to maintain daily contact between the Palestinians and the Arab world to divert the Palestinian focus from Israel to outside; to use the Palestinians to pass political messages to Cairo and Amman; and to initiate direct contact with the Palestinians, hoping that they will accept to accommodate themselves to the Israeli reality.

In the second phase (1970-1982), the Palestinians "inside" adopted a new policy: su-mud (steadfastness), i.e., keeping their civil society functioning and developing institu-tions and their leadership. This phase was characterized by the loss of power and status of local notables and old families, the rise of a national front, the formation of the National Guidance Committee, and acceptance of the challenges of confrontation but with a willingness to negotiate. The "outside" leaders voiced their desire for a peaceful solution based on coexistence and mutual recognition. However, this new development in Palestinian thinking was faced with many sacrifices and the assassination of PLO leaders abroad, which brought the Palestinians to a state of isolation.

The third phase (1982-87) witnessed Israel's invasion of Lebanon, followed by the Palestinian resistance movement's exodus. The Israelis hoped that these two events had cleared the way to reach a political settlement with "moderate" Palestinians inside the territories. The Israeli plan was "an autonomy" based on the Jordan Option. The Jordanians called for the exchange of "land for peace" to be negotiated within the context of an international conference with PLO participation (11 February 1985). A series of contacts, dialogue, drafted joint statements, documents, and declarations occurred during this phase. Examples are Shimon Peres's meetings with "inside" activists, the encounters of Uri Avineri and Mattiyahu Peled with "outside" leaders, including Chairman Arafat, and the academic dialogue between Abba Eban and Walid Khalidi.

The meetings resulted in three main initiatives, none of which led to a breakthrough:

The Abba Eban-Siniora "declaration" acknowledging the destiny of the Jewish and Palestinian people to live side by side in one land, jointly calling for negotiations and the repudiation of violence and terrorism.

The Moshe Amirav-Faisal Husseini draft document, the importance of which Mahmoud Abbas later described as follows: "[it]... prepared a suitable base for dialogue and contact and compiled ideas on which we (Palestinians and Israeli negotiators) could build and which assisted us in reaching what we achieved on 13 September 1993."

Guidelines for a political settlement drafted by King Hussein and Peres, dated 11 April 1987.

At the time of the fourth phase (1987-90), the Palestinians "inside" had reached a stage of desperation and anger, which made them feel they had nothing to lose. They decided to change the status quo, i.e., to end Israeli occupation and to build a new society based on self-reliance, and to direct it towards freedom, independence and statehood. This phase was introduced with what became known as the Intifada.

The Intifada had three main characteristics: no fear of direct confrontation with the military occupiers; the Palestinization of the Palestinian Territories; and the elaboration of a political settlement based on a two-state solution.

Several mediators rushed to the scene with many ideas on how to bring the two sides - the occupier and the occupied - together in a peace conference:

• The Egyptians proposed an initiative in January 1988 that called for a six-month truce and a freeze on settlements.
• US Secretary of State George Shultz added to the Egyptian idea in March 1988 by suggesting that negotiations be held along the provisions laid down in the Camp David Accords, and that Palestinian self-rule be achieved by February 1989.
• Mikhail Gorbatchov encouraged PLO leader Yasser Arafat to recognize Israel's right to exist.
• The "inside" Palestinian leadership favored two initiatives: (a) issuing a declaration of independence; and (b) forming a provisional government-in-exile. Meanwhile, the "outside" PLO leadership expressed its readiness to sit down with Israel if Israel, in turn, agreed to withdraw from the Palestinian Territories.

On 2 August 1990, delegations from the Palestinian and Israeli mainstream met in Jerusalem to sign a joint statement, which included mutual recognition and a call for direct negotiations; however, the Gulf Crisis halted their work. At the same time, the world witnessed the fall of the Soviet Union, the Arab world dividing over the issue of the Gulf War, and Israel remaining the strongest military arsenal in the Middle East while the PLO had no military power, or Arab financial or political support.

The Palestinians (inside) faced land confiscation, settlement building and, since the beginning of the Intifada, four years of social and economic suffering. Their options were limited when US President George Bush introduced a new initiative - commencement of negotiations - on 6 March 1991. The US formula to the Madrid Conference was based on the implementation of UN Resolutions 242 and 338; the principle of "land for peace"; the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people; and security and peace for Israel.

Israel made it clear that its participation in Madrid was conditional on the following elements regarding the Palestinian participation: no to Jerusalemites, no to PLO members, no to an independent Palestinian delegation, no to the Palestinian flag and no to a Palestinian state.

The Palestinians realized that they could not deter those who were invited to go to Madrid, nor change nor amend the terms of reference; nor could they afford to stay away. Thus they accepted the challenge of negotiations, confident that they would be able to change the conditions and influence other parties based on the mechanism of the Intifada, "establishing new realities." In Madrid, they were acknowledged, and perhaps for the first time, the world showed concern for what they had to say.

The Palestinian delegation to Madrid was nominated by the PLO "outside" leadership in Tunis. Some classified the delegates as representatives of certain interests (e.g., villages, tribes, political factions or professions); others maintained that their selection was the result of PLO recognition of their long years of suffering under occupation.

In Washington, the talks were of the nature of a diplomatic game, which in itself created special problems for a "people" acting in the role of a "nation-state." After 22 months of Washington negotiations, the Israelis presented their version of a transitional phase: the old autonomy plan, starting with the gradual transfer of 12 technical civil departments from Israeli to Palestinian hands, but without any mention of authority transfer, military withdrawal, or recognition of Palestinian rights to the land, water, or Jerusalem, and nothing on the question of sovereignty. In addition, the Israeli plan limited Palestinian rule to only one-third of the Palestinian Territories, meaning all authority would remain in Israeli hands, including borders, continued settlement activities etc. The Palestinians developed and presented a "political document," later known as PISGA (Palestinian Interim Self-Government Authority), confirming the Palestinian demand to freeze all settlements, guarantee the geographic integrity of the Palestinian Territories, and to hold democratic elections. The Israeli Autonomy Plan and PISGA were the only documents trying to close the gap between the two sides that emerged without the interference of a third party.

The Oslo Channel
Following nine months of negotiations in Madrid, five rounds of talks at the US State Department and the exchange of numerous documents outlining the totally different positions of the Palestinian and Israeli sides, and after it became obvious that neither the mediators nor the US could successfully influence the talks in one way or another, the negotiations had seemingly reached a deadlock.

Throughout this period, both the Israeli government and the PLO were very much concerned with the role, performance and future of the Palestinian delegation, though for different reasons. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was extremely worried that the PLO would infiltrate the Palestinian delegation, and he constantly opposed any attempt to this end. He even outlawed any contact between the delegates and the outside PLO and dismissed Science Minister Ezer Weizmann from his cabinet after the latter established contact with the PLO representative to Switzerland, Mr. Nabil Rimlawi. Shamir wanted to maintain the umbrella of a joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation. He sent verbal messages to Amman suggesting joint economic and tourist projects in the Red Sea area (Aqaba-Eilat), anticipating the implementation of the old Likud plan for a Jordanian role on the West Bank that leaves the "Jordan option" open to interpretation.

Meanwhile, PLO Chairman Arafat tried to balance the Likud's plans by opening various back-channels with the Labor Party. Among these attempts was his encouraging Faisal Husseini to meet with Peres, Ephraim Sneh and others. Throughout nine rounds of talks in Washington - after newly-elected Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin took office, formed a new government, and resumed negotiations with the Palestinians - the Palestinian delegation remained loyal to Arafat and the PLO leadership and refused to bypass either of them. Arafat saw the delegation as a "Trojan Horse" and encouraged Faisal Husseini and Hanan Ashrawi to convince Washington of the need for the PLO to take part in direct talks. However, Washington's advice was not to rush things, nor to jump to later phases, as, according to the US, the PLO's role was yet to come.

From day one of the Washington negotiations, Arafat had sent two emissaries to establish direct contact with the Palestinian delegation (Akram Haniyyeh and Dr. Nabil Sha'ath), since it was his nightmare that the Palestinian delegation (Al-Wafd) would turn into a substitute leadership. His famous quotation, "They want Yasser Arafat to be a male bee, i.e., deliver once and die," speaks for itself. Arafat's ongoing fear was that the negotiation process would not be governed by desires but by results and, despite the loyalty of the delegates to the PLO and to his leadership, he realized that those who delivered were likely to become future leaders. There were several indications of such an unwelcome development; for example, it was the Jerusalemite leader Faisal Husseini, who, in his capacity as the head of the Palestinian delegation to the peace talks, exchanged official correspondence with US Secretary of State Baker, who was officially received at the State Department, and who, before the end of the eighth round of talks, was received by President George Bush at the White House.

The situation Arafat faced at this time resembles that of Chaim Weizmann, leader of the World Zionist Organization, and David Ben Gurion, leader of the Jewish Agency "inside" Palestine, in 1948: following Israel's declaration of independence and the establishment of the Jewish state, the "outside" leader Weizmann became the symbol of the state and its head, but it was Ben Gurion who formed the government and ruled as Prime Minister.

With this background in mind, Chairman Arafat and the PLO leadership in Tunis saw that the official negotiations in Washington would lead to nowhere. Recalling the experience of Vietnam, Algiers and Camp David, Arafat and his inner cabinet were convinced that other channels must be opened. The PLO badly needed the peace talks to progress in order to maintain its legitimacy as the official representative and leadership of the Palestinian people, especially in the light of an increasing opposition steered by the radicals in Damascus and the Islamic trends of Hamas and Jihad Islami, and in order to face King Hussein whose popularity was rapidly growing. Progress in the peace process was furthermore crucial in order to contain the already recognized "inside" Palestinian leaders, and to grab the possibility of establishing direct secret contacts with Israel. The opening of new channels besides the official talks in Washington was encouraged by the Israeli Knesset decision to lift the ban on contact with the PLO.

Rabin and his inner cabinet thought along similar lines, realizing that the Palestinian delegation itself was not capable of signing an agreement with Israel nor of governing any interim regime, and that it lacked legitimacy as it was not elected by the community but chosen by Israel in back-door coordination with the US and the PLO. The Israelis also comprehended that (a) any agreement would require a strong and highly legitimate Palestinian authority in order to gain acceptance and in order for its security and police forces to be able to control the Palestinian Territories; and (b) Israel's only alternative to dealing with the PLO was the Islamic movement and its leaders. This, however, would imply the transformation of the political conflict into a religious one - something the Rabin-Peres government could not afford.

Thus, numerous channels of Palestinian-Israeli contacts were opened behind the official talks in Washington. Some of these contributed major elements to the final text of the accords. One of these channels was the "inside", i.e., Faisal Husseini's and Hanan Ashrawi's contacts with and through Washington, ordered by and directly reported to Arafat, but without the knowledge of any other member of the delegation or of any other PLO leader in Tunis. Another channel was the indirect contact with and through Cairo of Arafat himself and members of his inner cabinet. A third channel was proposed by PLO Executive Committee member and head of the Palestinian negotiation committee, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen): to open a back-channel contact with and through the Russians in Moscow in order to balance the Washington track. The Russians made a great effort to convince the Israelis of the need for their intervention, but Foreign Minister Peres' answer was that there were already enough parties involved.

At a time when the talks had seemingly come to a deadlock and the two parties urgently needed to break out of their domestic constraints and to deliver some kind of an interim arrangement, an intermediary appeared and introduced an issue that addressed a major concern of both sides, despite their different motivations. Terje Larsen, founder of the Norwegian Institute for Applied Sciences, who at the time was working on a project to alleviate Gaza's chronic social problems, suggested to focus on "Gaza first" as an initial step towards a comprehensive agreement. Gaza was of particular interest to the Israelis and Palestinians. Peres's thinking had centered for years on the notion of withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and Rabin had repeatedly expressed in public speeches the wish that Gaza would disappear from the map and "sink into the sea." On the other hand, Arafat and most PLO leaders were aware of and seriously concerned with Gaza's daily cry for freedom and the need to rid the area of the Israeli occupation. As far back as in 1974, at the Rabat Arab Summit where the PLO was recognized by the Arab leaders as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, Egypt's President Anwar Sadat and Arafat had mentioned Jericho as a possible base for PLO authority and talked about the need to have a strong PLO presence in Gaza as well.

Terje Larsen suggested that Israeli Labor politician Yossi Beilin - who regarded Gaza as one of Israel's biggest political and military problems in need of an immediate solution(1) - should meet Faisal Husseini and discuss the issue. The meeting took place shortly before the June 1992 Israeli elections, but a second meeting did not materialize after Beilin became Peres's Deputy Minister in the Rabin government and Husseini received too much public and media attention. The Israelis also knew that Arafat would not welcome such a contact with the "inside leaders," and were aware of the conflict and mutual fear defining the Palestinian inside-outside relationship at that time.

Yossi Beilin overcame this situation by giving the green light to one of his academic colleagues, Professor Yair Hirschfeld of Haifa University, to contact Ahmad Qrei'a (Abu Ala'), the PLO's financial expert, at the multilateral meetings on 3-4 December 1992, in London. Faisal Husseini and Hanan Ashrawi, together with the PLO representative in London, Afif Safieh, encouraged Qrei'a to meet Hirschfeld and arranged the first encounter. Meanwhile, Terje Larsen persuaded Hirschfeld to attend. PLO leaders in Tunis viewed this meeting as a watershed, marking the beginning of direct, secret negotiations between the PLO and Israel. They were extremely concerned that the "inside" delegation, i.e., Faisal Husseini, Hanan Ashrawi, Haidar Abdul Shafi and others would not learn about the development of this channel. Abu Ala' later revealed that whenever Hirschfeld, during the talks, made attempts to approach Husseini, Ashrawi or any other Palestinian activist from inside the territories to discover their views, the PLO threatened to halt the talks. The PLO inner cabinet that supervised this back-channel consisted of Chairman Arafat, Abu Mazen and Abu Ala', while Peres, with his close advisors(2), and Beilin, with his academic team(3), negotiated on the Israeli side. Both parties were keen to maintain the secrecy of the talks and the Norwegian mediator committed himself to take full responsibility for facilitating the meetings but without intervening in their substance.

The two leaderships both faced domestic constraints and feared a political storm that would shake their foundations. The Palestinians faced two crises: the first arose over the resignation of the Palestinian delegation's leading figures, namely Faisal Husseini, Hanan Ashrawi and Sa'eb Erekat, due to differences with Arafat regarding strategies and because of the absence of a centralized body to coordinate and govern the negotiation process. Additionally, they suspected the existence of another channel, undermining their own efforts behind their backs. The second crisis emerged when three PLO leaders (Abu Mazen, Yasser Abed Rabbo and Mahmoud Darwish) resigned due to differences with Chairman Arafat regarding the handling of the PLO's financial affairs and the possible bankruptcy of its institutions. Arafat contained the first storm by accepting the establishment of a higher coordinating body to supervise the negotiations, and allowing the participation of leaders from the inside. He managed to abort the second crisis by disclosing the news of the successful developments on the Oslo track to the resigning PLO leaders. They withdrew their resignations with the exception of Mahmoud Darwish whose move was followed by others.

On the Israeli side, there was the case of Mr. Dare'i of the Shas Party who was - after being convicted of bribery by the Israeli High Court - asked to resign, or otherwise be dismissed from office by the Prime Minister. As a result, the Shas Party withdrew from the government, which in turn shook and weakened the coalition, leaving it dependent on the Arab vote in the Knesset. At the same time, rumors of alleged secret Israeli-Jordanian negotiations stirred more dissension within Israeli ranks, especially as the rumors served as "an invitation" to Hamas and other Islamic organizations on both banks of the Jordan River to coordinate positions and prepare strategies to face any outcome of the alleged talks.

The main components of the Israeli agenda for the breakthrough were: a partial staged Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian Territories, beginning with Gaza; postponing difficult and complicated issues to later rounds of talks (final status of the Palestinian Territories) - thus, leaving the future of the territories, for the time being, enveloped in fog; and building a strong foundation of economic cooperation. With the "Gaza-Jericho first" concept, Israel was able to make the future of Palestinian autonomy dependent on the ability and performance of the Palestinians during a transitional phase in which they were transformed into a scattered "bantustan" with Israeli de facto sovereignty.

The Palestinian agenda was determined by:

• The notion that an agreement would mean a historical breakthrough in terms of mutual recognition, possibly in the form of a declaration of principles or a framework agreement similar to the Camp David accords.
• The importance of the "Gaza-Jericho First" formula as an incentive to market the proposed declaration of principles by establishing an official, recognized PLO authority on Palestinian soil.
• The realization that postponing the difficult issues would make way for needed compromises.
• The realization that an agreement would open the door for other agreements with Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

For the Palestinians, Oslo was thus a means to establish an official and recognized PLO authority in part of their homeland and to have the territorial integrity of the Palestinian Territories recognized.

The Norwegian mediators contributed a great deal to what the world witnessed as the first ever historic handshake between top Israeli and Palestinian leaders on the lawn of the White House on 13 September 1993. The substance of the DoP was the exchange of "land for peace" and limited Palestinian self-rule during a transitional phase, until the final status talks on the remaining major issues would provide for a permanent settlement. In fact, this understanding was consistent with the principles of the initial Madrid Peace Conference, the invitation to which - dated 18 October 1991 - read as follows:

"The aim of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations within the current Middle East peace process is, among other things, to establish a Palestinian interim self-government authority, to elect a council for the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, for the transitional period not exceeding five years, leading to a permanent settlement based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. It is understood that the interim arrangements are an integral part of the whole peace process and that the negotiations on the permanent status will lead to the implementation of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338."

Conclusion
The nature, scope and results of the meetings from 1967 until 1990 can be summed up as follows: they helped in exploring opinions and ideas in the search for short and long-term solutions and illustrated the various reactions of the local communities to the respective suggestions and outcomes of these meetings. They also helped in shaping the Palestinian leadership and in coordinating among various figures and schools of thought, and they contributed to the promotion of a national leadership, although, on the other hand, they divided the people into moderates, independents, extremists and loyalists, into mainstream and opposition, inside and outside, thus preventing the emergence of a real national alliance. Finally, they paved the way for others to enter new rounds of negotiations, by exposing preconditions and offering starting points for future meetings based on the achievements and failures of all the procedures and attempts to resolve the conflict that occurred previous to Oslo.

The Oslo "breakthrough" provided one of many opportunities to build a just and lasting settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict but it seems that too many people are prisoners of past ideologies, principles and positions and do not realize the importance of looking forward to the future. Furthermore, they tend to underestimate the power and options of the other side. The major lesson to be learnt from the Oslo experience is that it needs more than the will and courage, and than pressure and constraints to force legitimate leaders to reach political agreements to put an end to deep-rooted historical conflicts. The role of the external parties involved in the Oslo phase has been that of assisting the two sides directly involved in the conflict in taking up their new positions and in reshaping their relationship, while, at the same time, scoring points and striking alliances of their own. It is true that the role of leaders is to lead, to bring about agreements, and to gain and maintain the consent of their people, but leaders with the required commitment and vision are not always available; and if they are, they may not have enough time to fulfill their dreams.

The Oslo blueprint delivered mutual recognition and conformed to the common interest in minimizing the role of Islamic groups and extremist bodies on both sides. Today, three years after Oslo, there is a Palestinian Authority with an elected legislative council governing the autonomous areas of the Zone A category, and coordinating with Israeli security forces in the territory falling in the Zone B category, while most of the Palestinian Territories - Zone C - remains under Israel's full control. The Palestinians, after accepting the transitional phase as an opportunity to establish their civil society and institutions and to build bridges of trust, understanding and cooperation with the other side, are now facing a new dilemma. It took them two decades of steadfastness under occupation, five years of challenging the occupiers, during the Intifada, and three years of long and painful negotiations in Madrid, Washington and Moscow to bring about the historic signing of the DoP, the reconciliation document signed with the Israeli Labor Party, representing half of the Israeli society.

Following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin on 4 November 1995 by a Jewish extremist, and, six months later, with the defeat of the Labor Party, the rise of the right wing Likud Party and the direct election of Benyamin Netanyahu as the new Prime Minister, the Palestinians realized that not even half of the Israeli society accepts a political settlement on the basis of the land-for-peace formula. It took Mr. Netanyahu 100 days in office to evoke a storm in both societies as well as in the region as a whole. The angry Palestinian outburst in September 1996 - in response to the Likud government's policies and practices - brought the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to yet another crossroads, with no clear indication of what lay ahead.