The Oslo Idea: The Euphoria of Failure

by Raphael Israeli

Overview

The idea of peace is always enchanting, for it encompasses the tranquility and serenity for which every human yearns. The nation of Israel has never known peace, but it dreams of peace. In practice Israel navigates between the poles of war and peace, with endless middle-of the-road situations like cease-fire, truce, armistice, and other temporary cessations of hostilities.The Oslo Idea traces the roots of the current campaign to delegitimize Israel. The campaign is not linked to Israeli resistance, to the absence of an acceptable settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, or to Israel's reluctance to abandon territory. It results from a change of tactics by the Palestinian leadership. Israeli argues that these tactics have been used to exhaust, reduce, and replace Israel rather than produce a compromise. Half the Palestinian people and other uncompromising Arabs and Muslims have stated that goal openly and act to achieve it.Raphael Israeli deconstructs the immense illusion of the Oslo peace accords, which initiated the so-called 'peace process.' He shows how Oslo lured a naive Israeli leadership into a trap. He shows how outside factors, bent on finding and supporting an evasive peace, have helped perpetuate the fiasco Oslo represents. He shows how Oslo's supporters have advanced the 'peace process' by coaxing and threatening Israel behind the scenes, and binding Israel alone with the Oslo commitments and their derivatives. More importantly, the author outlines and analyzes the basic and seemingly unbridgeable points of contention that remain: security, refugees, settlements, water, borders, and the status of Jerusalem itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781412846110
Publisher:	Transaction Publishers
Publication date:	06/15/2012
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	228
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Raphael Israeli is professor of Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at the Hebrew University. He has authored over thirty books, including Islamikaze, The Iraq War, Muslim Minorities in Modern States, and Blood Libel and Its Derivatives, as well as over a hundred scholarly articles in the fields of Islamic radicalism, Islamic terrorism, the modern Middle East, and Islam in China and Asia.

Table of Contents

Introduction—The Oslo Idea; 1: What Happened in Oslo? The Conspiracy; 2: What Happened to Oslo? The Debacle; 3: Palestinian Identity between Nationalism and Islam; 4: Territories and Security; 5: Palestinian Refugees and Israeli Settlers; 6: United Jerusalem in a Jewish State; 7: Foul Environment: Land Pollution and Ambience Poisoning; 8: Options for Extra-Oslo Solutions; Summary Reflections

Editorial Reviews

Israeli writer and lecturer Israeli (The Iraq War: Hidden Agendas and Babylonian Intrigue) traces the current quagmire of Palestinian-Israeli relations to the failure of the Oslo Accords in this inflammatory and one-sided treatise. The author hits the ground running, blaming Yasser Arafat's "machinations" for dooming the Oslo idea from the start, and asserts that Israel now faces "one of the worst world campaigns of delegitimation and demonization." Israeli maintains that the purpose of his book is to show that "Israeli recalcitrance" is not the cause for the violent stalemate; opting instead to blame "the Arab determination to preserve" the impasse rather than consider another solution. While Israeli admits that the Palestinian refugee situation is lamentable, the author criticizes the UN and Palestinian authorities for corroborating a narrative of hereditary exile. Though Israeli proposes steps to reconciliation—beginning with an equitable distribution of drinking and irrigation water, and recognition of Israel and its history in Palestinian textbooks—his tone is politically bleak and unwavering. Presented in labyrinthine prose, Israeli's argument—though supplemented with extensive footnotes—will likely prove too polemical and biased for most readers. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

[A]n intricate political examination of Israel and its failure to attain lasting peace, considering the involvement of Palestinian campaigns and Israel's own contribution to the illusion of the Oslo peace accords. In fact, Raphael Israeli shows, the promises of Oslo lured a naive Israeli leadership into a trap and perpetuated an impossible ideal, with Oslo's supporters threatening Israel behind the scenes and working against an actual compromise. This book collects and analyzes the major points of contention over water, borders, settlements and more, and points out the detrimental makeup of Oslo. Any collection strong in Israeli politics needs this.” —California Bookwatch “Entering into the Oslo Accords was certainly one of the most fateful diplomatic decisions made by the State of Israel. Dr. Israeli of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem argues that it was a stupendous blunder. This is not a dry scholarly tome but a mixture of polemics and insight with an almost stream of consciousness style that is certainly lively…. Dr. Israeli considers various aspects of the Oslo Accords and their consequences, including some not commonly dealt with such as the possible environmental dangers posed by an Arab state west of the Jordan, the change in tactics Israel has had to undergo to deal with asymmetrical warfare, and the fact that the Palestinian charter completely negating Zionism has not been amended as has often been claimed…. [A] good addition to collections dealing with the modern State of Israel.” —Shmuel Ben-Gad, Association of Jewish Libraries Reviews “Raphael Israeli’s book The Oslo Idea: Euphoria of Failure dares to call things by their names. It challenges, and really exposes and lays transparent, the flawed ‘politically-correct’ conventional wisdom on the Oslo accords and process, that was designed to bring peace and reconciliation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Professor Israeli lays out compelling evidence to demonstrate that ‘Oslo’ was a Palestinian fraud and deception, while Israelis succumbed willingly to the hoax that gave Palestinian duplicity gains of land, recognition, weapons, and money—and maybe a state. This book throws light on a dark tale of Israeli self-delusion and Palestinian manipulation, of obligations not fulfilled, of unrelenting Arab-Muslim hatred of Israel that has not diminished or dissolved.The Oslo Idea can change how people think about the entire Israeli-Palestinian problem, of a final agreement whose obstacles are legion and whose conditions have never really existed. Written with that verve and spirit that have given to all his works the air of a thriller, Professor Israeli unravels the mysterious and lays the truth before the reader. A specialist on Middle East politics, Raphael Israeli shows courage in this breakthrough volume, in going against the academic grain and diplomatic consensus, to expose delusionary optimism and call for new thinking and solutions. This book may be disconcerting to some, but will not leave you indifferent.” —Mordechai Nisan, Hebrew University of Jerusalem “The fearless and remarkably prodigious Dr. Raphael Israeli casts his unique prism on the failed Oslo peace process. With a rare combination of patient research, scholarly wisdom, honesty, and wit, Dr. Israeli exposes the persistent, institutionalized delusions that engendered Oslo’s predictably catastrophic results. As he notes, foremost among these has been the failure to appreciate how the various ‘Palestinian’ factions, and the global Muslim community, view the destruction of Israel as a legitimate jihad imperative.” —Andrew G. Bostom, author, The Legacy of Jihad and The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism

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