Missing the Spoiler: Israel’s Policy with Regard to Hamas during the Oslo Talks and the First Stages of the Implementation of the Oslo Accords
2023; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 36; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/09546553.2023.2242511
ISSN1556-1836
AutoresElad Ben‐Dror, Netanel Flamer,
Tópico(s)Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts
ResumoABSTRACTThe article examines how Israel related to the threat that Hamas posed to the peace process, both during the talks that led to the signing of the Declaration of Principles (December 1992–September 1993) and then until the signing of the Oslo 2 agreement (September 1995). The Israeli negotiators and leaders were locked into the idea that the PLO would "deal with Hamas" because of its clear interest to do so. During the talks, however, there was no detailed discussion of the matter. Instead, the negotiators focused—and with full justification—on the important achievement of an accord with the PLO and its agreement to refrain from terrorism. This, reinforced by the assumption that the PLO would suppress Hamas, paved the way for the signing of the Declaration of Principles without any concrete attention to Hamas. Thus Hamas terrorism proved to be a major obstacle to the fulfillment of the Oslo Accords. Hamas bomb attacks killed many Israelis and undermined Israelis' faith in the process. In parallel, the IDF activity to thwart Hamas, which involved major operations on the ground, as well as the accords' failure to produce an economic upturn for the Palestinians, diminished their support for the agreement.KEYWORDS: IsraelHamasOslo AccordsPLOArab-Israeli conflictspoilerpeace process Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. The Labor Party platform in the 1992 elections addressed the topic in detail, and stated, inter alia, that "Israel will continue and complete the negotiations with the Palestinians' authorized and agreed-on representation […] about an interim arrangement and the introduction of self-government" (Labor platform for the elections to the 13th Knesset, at https://www.labor.org.il/downloads/labor-org-il_havoda-platform_13th-knesset.pdf.2. Because of the need to keep the negotiations secret, no official minutes were taken. Still, the private documentation by the Israeli negotiators is quite detailed. See Yossi Beilin, Touching Peace (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999); Uri Savir, The Process: 1,100 Days that Changed the Middle East (New York: Random House, 1998); Yair Hirschfeld, Oslo: A Formula for Peace (Tel Aviv: Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies and Am Oved, 2000) [Hebrew]; Ron Pundak, Secret Channel, Oslo: The Full Story (Tel Aviv: Miskal, 2013) [Hebrew]; Joel Singer, "The Israel-PLO Mutual Recognition Agreement," International Negotiation 26 (2021): 1–25. For the Palestinian side, See Mahmud Abbas, Tariq Oslo (Beirut: Sharakat al-Matbu'at li-l-Tauzi' wa-l-Nashr, 1994); Ahmed Qurie (Abu 'Alaa), From Oslo to Jerusalem (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006).3. For the full text of the Declaration of Principles, September 13, 1993, See https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Peace/Guide/Pages/Declaration%20of%20Principles.aspx.4. For the full text of the Cairo Agreement, "Agreement on Gaza Strip and Jericho Area, May 4, 1994," See https://mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/guide/pages/agreement%20on%20gaza%20strip%20and%20jericho%20area.aspx.5. On the Oslo talks as well as the political background of the Madrid Conference and talks in Washington, See, e.g., Itamar Rabinovich, Israel and the Arabs, 1948–2003 (updated and revised edition), (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 38–77; Seth Anziska, A Political History from Camp David to Oslo (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), 267–287; Avi Shilon, The Decline of the Left Wing in Israel: Yossi Beilin and the Politics of the Peace Process (London: I.B. Tauris, 2019), 143–210.6. On Hamas and its continued attacks as an obstacle to the implementation of the Oslo Accords, See, e.g., Carmi Gillon, The GSS, between the Schisms (Tel Aviv: Miskal, 2000), 199 [Hebrew]; Ami Ayalon, "Broken Dream: An Analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process," a lecture delivered on May 23, 2001, in Yaakov Bar Simantov, ed., The Generals Speak: The Collapse of the Oslo Process and the Violent Israeli-Palestinian Confrontation (Jerusalem: Institute for International Relations, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2003), 5–12 [Hebrew]; Shimon Shamir, "Foreword," in Efraim Lavie, Yael Ronen, and Henry Fishman, eds., Oslo Peace Process: A Twenty-Five Year Perspective (Jerusalem: Carmel, 2019), 14 [Hebrew]; Hani Awad, "Understanding Hamas," AlMuntaqa, Vol. 4, No. 2 (2021): 57. Even those who do not directly attribute the failure of the Oslo process to Hamas terrorism agree that the dynamic that emerged from its continuation in the years after the signing of the first agreement (1993) had a decisive impact on its implementation. See, e.g., Haim Ramon's remarks on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the agreement, https://www.makorrishon.co.il/opinion/73749/ [Hebrew], accessed July 12, 2020. On how Hamas influenced the relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and the implementation of the Declaration of Principles, See Wendy Pearlman and Boaz Atzili, Israel's Targeting of States that Host Nonstate Actors (New York: Colombia University Press, 2018), 130–174.7. On Hamas's attitude towards the Oslo Accords and their effect on the movement, See, e.g., Wendy Kristianasen, "Challenge and Counterchallenge: Hamas's Response to Oslo," Journal of Palestine Studies 28, no. 3 (1999): 19–36; Meir Hatina, "Hamas and the Oslo Accords: Religious Dogma in a Changing Political Reality," Mediterranean Politics 4, no. 3 (1999): 37–55; Tareq Baconi, "The Demise of Oslo and Hamas's Political Engagement," Conflict, Security & Development 15, no. 5 (2015): 505–509.8. Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, The Palestinian Hamas (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 69.9. Hirschfeld, Oslo, 160.10. Zahir Jabarin, Ḥikaiyat al-Dam min Sharaiin al-Qassam (Damascus: Musasat Filastin al-Thaqafa, 2012).11. Stephen John Stedman, "Spoiler Problems in Peace Processes," International Security 22, no. 2 (1997): 5–53.12. Ibid., 14–15.13. Kelly M. Greenhill and Solomon Major, "The Perils of Profiling Civil War Spoilers and the Collapse of Intrastate Peace Accords," International Security 31, no. 3 (2006/2007): 11–15, 23.14. Desirée Nilsson and Mimmi Söderberg Kovacs, "Revisiting an Elusive Concept: A Review of the Debate on Spoilers in Peace Processes," International Studies Review 13, no. 4 (2011): 607, 624.15. Wendy Pearlman, "Spoiling Inside and Out: Internal Political Contestation and the Middle East Peace Process," International Security 33, no. 3 (Winter 2008/09): 79–109.16. Pearlman, "Spoiling," 79. For more on peace-process spoilers, See, inter alia: Andrew Kydd and Barbara F. Walter, "Sabotaging the Peace: The Politics of Extremist Violence," International Organization 56, no. 2 (2002): 263–296; Zahar Marie-Joëlle, "Political Violence in Peace Processes: Voice, Exit, and Loyalty in the Post-Accord Period," in Violence and Reconstruction, ed. John Darby and Roger MacGinty (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2006), 159–177; Juliette R. Shedd, "When Peace Agreements Create Spoilers: The Russo-Chechen Agreement of 1996," Civil Wars 10, no. 2 (2008): 93–105.17. Zaki Chehab, Inside Hamas (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007), 20; Mishal and Sela, The Palestinian Hamas, 27.18. Mishal and Sela, The Palestinian Hamas, 155–159; Tareq Baconi, Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018), 28–20.19. Yaakov Peri, He Who Comes to Kill You (Tel Aviv: Keshet, 1999), 34, 64–65, 168 [Hebrew].20. On the abduction, the factors behind the deportation, how it was carried out, and its ramifications, see: David Hacham, Gaza in the Eye of the Storm: The Inside Story of the Intifada (Ben Shemen: Modan, 2016), 193–215 [Hebrew]; Minna Saarnivaara, "From Terrorists to Celebrities: Deportation as a Political Opportunity for Palestinian Islamic Hamas," Studia Orientalia 114 (2013): 257–276; Elad Ben-Dror, "'We Were Getting Close to God, Not Deportees': The Expulsion to Marj al-Zuhur in 1992 as a Milestone in the Rise of Hamas," The Middle East Journal 73, no. 3 (2020): 399–416.21. Pundak, Secret Channel, 15; Hirschfeld, Oslo, 87.22. Pundak, Secret Channel, 35; Hirschfeld, Oslo, 92.23. Pundak, Secret Channel, 17, 183.24. Hirschfeld, Oslo, 70–71.25. Pundak, Secret Channel, 23, 34.26. Yair Hirschfeld, "The Oslo Accords: Today, Yesterday, Tomorrow?" in Oslo Peace Process: A Twenty-Five Year Perspective, ed. Efraim Lavie, Yael Ronen, and Henry Fishman (Jerusalem: Carmel, 2019), 105–107 [Hebrew]; Savir, The Process, 12–13.27. Authors' interview with Joel Singer, December 13, 2021.28. Beilin, Touching Peace, 61, 81; Pundak, Secret Channel, 138–139.29. Authors' interview with Joel Singer.30. Pundak, Secret Channel, 69–70. It is important to stress that, according to Amidror, after the agreement was signed he explicitly asked Hirschfeld whether the religious aspect of the conflict (relevant to Hamas as an Islamic movement) had come up in the talks. The reply was that it had never been mentioned in any context. Authors' interview with Yaakov Amidror, May 8, 2022.31. Ibid., 94–95, 117–118, 153–154.32. Ibid., 198, 228–229, 255; Hirschfeld, Oslo, 130–131. It is important to note that Israel, despite the fears it might have had about strengthening and arming Fatah, gave the green light to the establishment of the PA security forces and equipping them so they could do their job. See: the Cairo Agreement, "Agreement on Gaza Strip."33. Pundak, Secret Channel, 73, 207, 247, 318–319. See also the recollections of the then-head of the General Security Service, Yaakov Peri, in Dror Moreh: The Gatekeepers: Six GSS Directors Speak (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Books, 2014), 110–111 [Hebrew]; Uri Sagi, Lights in the Fog (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronoth, 1998), 137–141 [Hebrew].34. Avi Shilon, The Left-Wing's Sorrow: Yossi Beilin and the Demise of the Peace Camp (Modi'in: Zmora-Bitan-Dvir, 2017, 14 [Hebrew].35. For more on the idea that the PLO did not enter into negotiations because of a strategic change in its approach, from war to peace, but only in order to obtain Israeli concessions that would facilitate a continuation of the armed campaign against it, See Adi Schwartz and Eitan Gilboa, "The False Readiness Theory: Explaining Failures to Negotiate Israeli-Palestinian Peace," International Negotiation (2022): 1–29.36. Shilon, The Left-Wing's Sorrow, 39, 232.37. Authors' interview with Yaakov Amidror.38. Singer, "The Israel-PLO Mutual Recognition Agreement," 2; authors' interview with Joel Singer.39. Pundak, Secret Channel, 306, 313, 328–327, 334; Savir, The Process, 42–43.40. As reported by Jacques Neriah, "Yitshak Rabin, the Oslo Accords, and the Intelligence Service," The Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center: Institute for the Study of Intelligence Methodology, May 2019, p. 20, at https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/app/uploads/2019/05/H_118_19.pdf [Hebrew].41. Ibid.42. Authors' interview with Joel Singer.43. Beilin, Touching Peace, 127–128.44. Authors' interview with Joel Singer.45. Declaration of Principles.46. Singer, "The Israel-PLO Mutual Recognition Agreement," 23–25.47. Beilin, Touching Peace, 123–127.48. MK Benjamin Netanyahu in the Knesset, August 30, 1993, in Divrei Haknesset 41, session 127, pp. 7557–7558.49. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in the Knesset, August 30, 1993, in Divrei Haknesset 41, session 127, pp. 7567–7568.50. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in the Knesset, September 9, 1993, in Divrei Haknesset 41, session 128, pp. 7596–7597.51. By a vote of sixty-one in favor, fifty opposed, and nine abstentions.52. For more on Hamas's attitude to the conflict with Israel, which is based on a radical rejection of the very possibility of peace with "the Zionist entity," accompanied by a measure of pragmatism that allows cease-fires of limited duration—and thus required it to reject the Declaration of Principles, see: Meir Litvak, "The Islamization of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: The Case of Hamas," Middle Eastern Studies 34, no. 1 (1998):148–163; Daniel Baracskay, "The Evolutionary Path of Hamas: Examining the Role of Political Pragmatism in State Building and Activism," Terrorism and Political Violence 27, no. 3 (2015): 520–536. And, at greater length: Menachem Klein, "Hamas in Power," Middle East Journal 61, no. 3 (2007): 442–459; Benedetta Berti, "Non-State Actors as Providers of Governance: The Hamas Government in Gaza between Effective Sovereignty, Centralized Authority, and Resistance," Middle East Journal 69, no. 1 (2015): 9–31.53. Faiza Rais, "Hamas: The Present Stage," Strategic Studies 26, no. 3 (2006): 65–70.54. "Report on the Implementation of the Israel-PLO Agreement since its Signing, September 13, 1993–February 24, 1994," Mabat le-Shalom, 1994, pp. 55–58 [Hebrew].55. Jabarin, Hikaiyat al-Dam, 95–97. Note the disagreement as to whether this was in fact the first suicide bombing perpetrated by Hamas; some assert that it was in fact a "work accident." See, e.g., the interview with GSS operative Yitzchak Ilan, Maariv, May 28, 2020 at, https://www.maariv.co.il/news/military/Article-767800 [Hebrew].56. Haim Broide, "The Computer with Hamas's Secrets," Yedioth Ahronoth, August 19, 1993, p. 5 [Hebrew].57. Mishal and Sela, The Palestinian Hamas, 27.58. Baconi, "The Demise of Oslo," 505.59. Jabarin, Hikaiyat al-Dam, 101–102.60. Saarnivaara, "From Terrorists to Celebrities," 257–278.61. Boaz Ganor, "Israel and Terrorism: Before the Oslo Agreement and After It," Jerusalem: Shalem Center, 37–39 [Hebrew].62. Sagi, Lights in the Fog, 200.63. Maariv, October 21, 1994 [Hebrew].64. Gillon, The GSS, 17–18, 201.65. Ron Pundak: "From Oslo to Taba: What Went Wrong," Survival 43, no. 3 (2001): 31–45, on 32.66. Ayalon, "Broken Dream."67. Moreh, The Gatekeepers, 148.68. See, e.g., the remarks by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Maj. Gen. Danny Rothschild: "When Yasir Arafat entered Gaza our expectation was that he would take control of the territory. […] That was our key mistake" (Ha'aretz, February 16, 1995).69. Ha'olam Hazeh, September 15, 1993; quoted by Ganor, "Israel and Terrorism," 45.70. Ganor, "Israel and Terrorism," 44–49.71. Gillon, The GSS, 189–190, 196–197.72. Shilon, The Decline, 89.73. Efraim Karsh, "The Oslo Delusion: With the Passage of Twenty-Five Years," in Oslo Peace Process: A Twenty-Five Year Perspective, ed. Efraim Lavie, Yael Ronen and Henry Fishman (Jerusalem: Carmel, 2019), 165–166 [Hebrew].74. Ayalon, "Broken Dream," 7.75. Authors' interview with Yaakov Amidror.76. Hirschfeld, Oslo, 170–171.77. Yossi Beilin, Touching Peace [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: LaMiskal, 1997), 158; the passage was omitted from the English translation cited in n. 2 et passim.78. Shimon Shiffer, Sounding the Alarm: Conversations with Major General Amos Gilead (Rishon Letzion: Lamiskal, 2019), 72 [Hebrew].79. According to Yuval Diskin: in Moreh, The Gatekeepers, 210, 225.80. Robert Powell, "War as a Commitment Problem," International Organization 60, no. 1 (2006), 170.81. Kurt Taylor Gaubatz, "Democratic States and Commitment in International Relations," International Organization 50, no. 1 (1996), 109–139.82. Moreh, The Gatekeepers, 209.83. "Prisoners of Peace: Administrative Detention during the Oslo Process" (Jerusalem: B'Tselem, June 1997), 4, at https://www.btselem.org/sites/default/files/publications/199706_prisoners_of_peace_eng.pdf.84. Hirschfeld, Oslo, 157.85. For details of the limits on Israeli counter-terrorism operations imposed by the Oslo Accords, and their outcome, See Ganor, "Israel and Terrorism," 14–20.86. Gillon, The GSS, 200–204.87. Peri, He Who Comes to Kill You, 264.88. Hirschfeld, "The Oslo Accords," 102.89. More on the Israeli settlers and right-wing as a spoiler to the Oslo process can be found in Joyce Dalsheim, Producing Spoilers: Peacemaking and the Production of Enmity in a Secular Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).90. Yossi Beilin, Touching Peace [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: LaMiskal, 1997), 16.91. Avi Dichter, Facebook profile, July 16, 2017, https://www.facebook.com/AviDichter1/videos/10154288933606723/.92. Avi Dichter, interviewed by Eyal Levi, "Avi Dichter: Arafat Told Me in the Simplest Terms: 'We Screwed You,'" Yisrael Hayom, March 24, 2022, https://www.israelhayom.co.il/magazine/shishabat/article/9413342. A similar observation can be found in the book by Moshe Ya'alon, who served as the head of IDF Intelligence in 1995–1998: Moshe Bogie Ya'alon, The Longer, Shorter Path [Hebrew] (Tel-Aviv: Yediot, 2008), 71–77.93. Richards J. Heuer, Jr., Psychology of Intelligence Analysis (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1999), 111–172. For a comprehensive survey of how biases affect negotiations, See Andrea Caputo, "A Literature Review of Cognitive Biases in Negotiation Processes," International Journal of Conflict Management 24, no. 4 (2013): 374–398.94. Jonathan Baron, Thinking and Deciding, 4th ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007 [1988]), 215–216.95. Ibid., 172–173.96. Anthony Wanis-St. John, "Back-Channel Negotiation: International Bargaining in the Shadows," Negotiation Journal 22, no. 2 (2006): 127–128.97. Shlomo Gazit, "Intelligence and the Peace Process in Israel," Intelligence and National Security 12, no. 3 (1997): 40–47, 64.Additional informationFundingThis research was supported by the IHEL Foundation.Notes on contributorsElad Ben-DrorElad Ben-Dror is an associate professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Israel. His research focuses on various aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Elad.Ben-Dror@biu.ac.ilNetanel FlamerNetanel Flamer is a lecturer at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and a senior fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. His research focuses on intelligence, asymmetric warfare, and non-state actors in the Middle East. netanel.flamer@biu.ac.il
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