In September 2015, Palestinian President Muhammad Abbas proclaimed that the state of Palestine was no longer under any obligation to follow the Oslo Accords, crafted over two decades prior. Citing Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Abbas argued that Palestine had been the only side upholding the terms of the once-heralded agreement, and that they were tired of being exploited as a “state under occupation.” How could the state have gotten here from the widespread optimism following the Oslo Accords? The answer lies in both what the accords did and didn’t do, as well as the general opposition among Israelis towards the agreement. The Oslo Accords, created without the full backing of the citizens of both countries, were doomed from the start.
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Where the Yom Kippur War was a battle between two armies, the intifada came from a grassroots group of Palestinians slinging rocks against the IDF. It’s easy to romanticize the intifada in the same way Americans view the Summer of Love. The songs and poems of protest were prevalent, and the original attackers were mainly women and children. This fact made it hard for the Israelis to strike back while maintaining a good moral conscience. The intifada “damaged the sense of superiority many Israelis had harbored toward the Palestinians” (282). Here the Israeli side characterizes the intifada as directly causal of the Oslo Accords, accelerating “the opening of channels of dialogue between the two peoples” (286), On the Palestinian side, while the Oslo Accords signaled the end of the intifada, violence “was always likely to erupt again” (289). The skepticism on the part of the Palestinians is representative of the difficulty of getting two disparate populations on the same page in a …show more content…
Public Israeli opposition to the agreement was clear and only became clearer when put to a vote. The Oslo II agreement was approved by the Knesset by a “tiny margin: sixty-one voted in favor, fifty-nine against” (312). The negligible difference between those who supported the Oslo Accords and those who firmly disagreed was only made more significant by the large, disgruntled group of Israelis who felt their government does not represent them. These tensions came to a head when in 1995, Yigal Amir, an Israeli college student, shot and killed Rabin. Though this event was nominally an individual action, the assassination reflected the far-right Israeli sentiment. After killing the biggest proponent of the agreement, Israel became quick to turn against the accords, as the Palestinians did against Camp David. To add insult to injury, the Israeli public went on to elect Benjamin Netanyahu, a Prime Minister whose “stance against the Oslo Accords was well known” (320). Netanyahu went on to begin construction again within the Israeli Settlements in the West Bank, as if to show just how against the Oslo Accords he really was. The Israeli people had violated the agreement just three years after its signing, and did not seem to have any plans to change their
Where the Yom Kippur War was a battle between two armies, the intifada came from a grassroots group of Palestinians slinging rocks against the IDF. It’s easy to romanticize the intifada in the same way Americans view the Summer of Love. The songs and poems of protest were prevalent, and the original attackers were mainly women and children. This fact made it hard for the Israelis to strike back while maintaining a good moral conscience. The intifada “damaged the sense of superiority many Israelis had harbored toward the Palestinians” (282). Here the Israeli side characterizes the intifada as directly causal of the Oslo Accords, accelerating “the opening of channels of dialogue between the two peoples” (286), On the Palestinian side, while the Oslo Accords signaled the end of the intifada, violence “was always likely to erupt again” (289). The skepticism on the part of the Palestinians is representative of the difficulty of getting two disparate populations on the same page in a …show more content…
Public Israeli opposition to the agreement was clear and only became clearer when put to a vote. The Oslo II agreement was approved by the Knesset by a “tiny margin: sixty-one voted in favor, fifty-nine against” (312). The negligible difference between those who supported the Oslo Accords and those who firmly disagreed was only made more significant by the large, disgruntled group of Israelis who felt their government does not represent them. These tensions came to a head when in 1995, Yigal Amir, an Israeli college student, shot and killed Rabin. Though this event was nominally an individual action, the assassination reflected the far-right Israeli sentiment. After killing the biggest proponent of the agreement, Israel became quick to turn against the accords, as the Palestinians did against Camp David. To add insult to injury, the Israeli public went on to elect Benjamin Netanyahu, a Prime Minister whose “stance against the Oslo Accords was well known” (320). Netanyahu went on to begin construction again within the Israeli Settlements in the West Bank, as if to show just how against the Oslo Accords he really was. The Israeli people had violated the agreement just three years after its signing, and did not seem to have any plans to change their