The End of the Oslo Peace Process and Beyond

Edward Said says in the introduction to his book, The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and Beyond, that the Oslo Accords provided Israelis and Israel’s supporters with a sense that the Palestinian problem had been resolved once and for all. It also gave liberals a sense of accomplishment, especially with the attacks on “peace” from Likud and the settler movement.
This, in turn, made it unacceptable for Palestinians to express anything other than appreciation for what the Oslo Accords and what Clinton, Rabin, and Peres had offered them, despite the fact that unemployment in Gaza had reached 60 percent, while the closure of the West Bank and Gaza demonstrated that the practices of the Israeli occupation had not changed at all. When Edward Said was asked about the alternative, his answer was that it had existed from the beginning: an end to the occupation, the removal of settlements, the return of East Jerusalem, and the right to real self-determination and real equality for Palestinians. He does not object to real peace and real coexistence; this is what he has been talking about for twenty years. However, what he and the majority of Palestinians oppose is a false peace and the continuing inequality between Palestinians and Israelis, who are allowed sovereignty and territorial integrity. And self-determination, while the true owners of the land are denied it.
After all of this, those great minds who succumbed to Israeli pressure and were convinced by sweet talk that they had been granted a great gift when Israel recognized them—these minds are incapable and will remain incapable of leading the battle to regain Palestinian rights. This is what children themselves can see. Edward Said adds that what puzzles him is the large number of Palestinian intellectuals, businessmen, academics, and officials who persist in the illusion that the peace process is in their interest and the interest of their people, and who also continue to give their loyalty and submission to the Palestinian Authority, despite the fact that, at best, the Palestinian Authority is leading its people down the completely wrong path, and at worst, it is imposing the Israeli occupation at the instigation of Israeli leaders who have convinced themselves and their supporters that this is a genuine “peace process.”