Reviving the Middle-East Peace Process: International Forums Were Never Intended to Replace Direct Negotiation

• The 1993-5 Oslo Accords were premised on a central assumption that only direct negotiation between the parties and resolution between them of all the issues in dispute could establish a basis of mutual trust and permanent peace.
• The Accords made no provision for involvement of international organizations or actors, or any third-party prejudgment or imposition of solutions, and specifically determined that the parties would not take measures to alter the status of the territories pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.
• The 7 October 2023 Hamas massacre and ensuing Gaza war, the belligerent involvement of Iran and its Hizbullah proxy in Lebanon and its Houthi proxy in Yemen in threatening and attacking Israel, appear to have undercut any premise of bona fides that could accompany a renewed and genuine peace negotiating process.
• The acute politicization and radicalization of international political and legal bodies, the general tendency among Arab countries towards Islamic radicalization and Jihadism, and the progressive “woke” ideological influence increasingly prevalent in Western politics, all render an atmosphere that works against regional stability and acceptance of peaceful neighborly relations.
• Lack of unified Palestinian leadership willing and capable of negotiating with Israel, as well as ongoing internal issues of Israeli political resilience, also impede any possibility of returning to a direct negotiating mode.

Oslo Accords and Direct Negotiation

Given the ongoing armed conflict in the region and the political and security surroundings in which Israel presently finds itself, one may wonder whether it would be at all possible, today, to reach the same type of agreement that was reached between Israel and the Palestinian leadership in the years 1993-5 with the Oslo Accords?¹

These were premised on basic foundational and underlying principles, first enunciated in the September 1993 Exchange of Letters between PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in which Arafat declared that “The PLO commits itself to the Middle East peace process and to a peaceful resolution of the conflict and declares that all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations.”²

This was formalized in the preambular provisions of the 1993 Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Governing Arrangements (Oslo I),³ and repeated in the preamble to the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (Oslo II).⁴

These foundational and underlying principles included:

• enunciation of the will of the parties to “end decades of confrontation and conflict” and to live in peaceful coexistence and mutual dignity,
• recognition of their mutual legitimate and political rights,
• the desire to achieve a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace settlement and historic reconciliation
• that this be achieved solely through an agreed and exclusive political mechanism of dispute settlement through negotiation.

The concept of resolving disputes through negotiation did not emanate from a vacuum. It was set out in the 1945 UN Charter, which prohibits the use of force and calls for the lasting resolution of disputes through norms of mutual respect and legal parity, as well as through appropriate mechanisms.⁵

UN Security Council resolution 242 (1967), adopted following the 1967 “Six-Day War,” specifically called for establishing contacts with the States concerned to promote agreement and assist efforts to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement in accordance with the resolution’s provisions and principles.⁶

This was further enhanced in Security Council resolution 338 (1973), following the Yom Kippur war, which called for negotiations between the parties concerned under appropriate auspices aimed at establishing a just and durable peace in the Middle East.⁷

Accordingly, the Oslo Accords established a negotiated mechanism that combined a transitional period of governance with direct negotiations toward a permanent status agreement.

In the final clauses of the 1995 Oslo II Accord, the PLO and Israel undertook to refrain from initiating or taking “any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.”⁸

In fact, the principle of negotiated dispute settlement constituted the very backbone of the Middle East peace process from its very beginning, based on the assumption that only through direct negotiation could the parties develop between them a basis of mutual trust and respect that would enable the implementation of the commitments in the agreements and consolidation of a lasting relationship of peaceful coexistence and bonhomie.

The Oslo Accords made no mention of international conferences, UN intervention, or any form of unilateral or other third-party determination. There was no reference by international leaders to prejudging or imposing a resolution of the Middle East dispute. Similarly, there was no mention of recourse to juridical intervention through international tribunals or of unilateral recognition campaigns as means of bypassing the agreed contractual negotiating framework.

Clearly, the concept of agreed negotiation proscribed any unilateral action, whether within or outside the UN, that prejudged or predetermined the status of the territory, declared or recognized Palestinian statehood prior to a negotiated settlement, or called for any other process that sidestepped or replaced the agreed negotiation process.

The overriding foundational concept was bona fide, direct negotiation, without any outside intervention or predetermination of the negotiation’s outcome.

Changing Factors Adversely Influencing a return to negotiation.

After thirty years, while the basic assumptions leaning toward peace may have remained in place, a number of international, regional, and local factors are now influencing the prospects for achieving peace by returning to a direct negotiating mechanism similar to the one that enabled the adoption of the Oslo Accords.

International and Regional Factors

Evolving radicalization within the Islamic world, including elements advocating jihadist tendencies against Israel, the U.S., and the West, is now being generated and exported by Iranian Shiite extremism with the support of such Islamist states as Qatar. These impede and even obstruct more moderate elements in the Arab world.

What was once a readiness by moderate elements in the Arab world to accept Israel as a partner in the area appears to have become fractured, radicalized, and fanaticized.

Even those moderate Arab states that enthusiastically joined the “Abraham Accords” in 2020 at the initiative of President Trump appear to be apprehensive when presently faced with the still-existent Jihadist Iranian regional influence and the lack of any viable and decisive Western response.

Radicalization of the international community: The organized international community is becoming monopolized by radical and non-democratic regimes, including some with Jihadist tendencies, that dictate an international agenda serving their political interests. Such interests generally orient against the West and increasingly undermine and neutralize the United Nations and its ability to fulfill its aims and purposes as set out in its Charter.⁹

Politicization of international legal bodies: The tendency of international and regional bodies to resolve disputed legal questions with predetermined political conclusions, influenced by shared political and economic preferences, drastically weakens and undermines these bodies.¹⁰

The manipulation and abuse by South Africa of the International Court of Justice, the main juridical arm of the UN, under the direction and financing of Iran, in order to engage in a futile crusade against Israel,¹¹ as well as ongoing Palestinian abuse and manipulation of the International Criminal Court by obliging it to engage in a similar crusade against Israel and its leaders,¹² only serve to politicize such bodies, to weaken and prejudice their credibility and international standing and to render them basically ineffective.

The Woke influence on Western governments: A progressive “woke” ideological framework is influencing Western politics and decision-making, through progressive indoctrination within Western educational and governmental systems and media, driven by popular social-justice activism.¹³

Islamist Financing of Western Universities: In addition to the progressive woke educational indoctrination of Western governments and social media, billions of dollars in propaganda and social media manipulation are being funneled by Islamist state actors, especially Qatar, seeking to influence Western culture and educational institutions and governance.¹⁴

Tax-exempt dollars are being channeled through foreign funding by such states to enhance interference in U.S. higher education by entities that propagate anti-democratic, anti-American, antisemitic, and anti-Western ideologies.¹⁵

Local Factors

Israel’s Defensible Borders Concept following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre

The tragic events of October 7, 2023 fundamentally altered Israel’s security concept of defensible borders, and those of its assumptions underlying all previous political and territorial compromises and arrangements.

The foundation of mutual trust that had generated and accompanied the peace-negotiation process up to then, as well as Israel’s assumption that the international community was a willing partner in accompanying any such negotiating process, have been basically and irreparably shattered.¹⁶

Israel’s previously consistent perceptions of defensible borders, establishment of internationally monitored and supervised buffer zones and areas of arms limitations, involvement of willing international actors, and international community guarantees can no longer be considered relevant. Israel can only rely on its own security capabilities to ensure the safety of its borders.¹⁷

Pressure for immediate Palestinian statehood

The ongoing external pressure by foreign states and international organizations for immediate Palestinian statehood without negotiated and reliable security arrangements, as foreseen and agreed in the Oslo Accords, undermines the Oslo Accords principle of negotiating a permanent status agreement. Such irresponsible and naïve international pressure risks institutionalizing and augmenting instability rather than advancing peace.

Partisan actions by what were perceived to be friendly governments, including those who witnessed the Oslo Accords, in attempting to prejudge any negotiated resolution of the dispute through proactively encouraging Palestinian statehood and UN recognition thereof, have undermined the agreed premise of the Oslo Accords of permanent status negotiation.

Hence, the recent attempt by EU states including France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, as well as other Western states including Canada, Australia to prejudge and impose a solution by-passing any negotiation process, by seeking recognition in the UN General Assembly of a non-existing Palestinian state undermines the Oslo Accords.¹⁸

This has generated a situation in which Israel can no longer depend on international guarantees and cooperation.¹⁹

The Illusion of the “Two State Solution”

The insistence by international leaders, especially those of France, the UK, Canada, Australia, and others, as well as repeated UN General Assembly resolutions, in advancing the “two state solution” has become a curious, ill-advised international fixation. It is indicative of an utter lack of understanding of the history, complexities, and realities of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. In so doing, these leaders and organizations in effect seek to bypass the negotiating table and impose what they believe is the necessary solution.

While the “vision of two states living side by side in peace and security” was originally coined by U.S. President George W. Bush on June 24, 2002²⁰ as a possible outcome of the direct negotiating process, it was never intended to replace direct negotiation between the parties, nor was it intended to prejudge and impose a solution. It was nothing more than a possible outcome, should the parties agree thereto.

In fact, the Oslo Accords made no reference whatsoever to any “two-state solution.”

To the contrary, according to the Accords, only through the agreed permanent status negotiations could the parties determine the final status of the territories, whether one, two, three, or more states, a federation, a confederation, a condominium, or any other combination.

The fact that the term “two-state solution” has become a form of lingua franca, enunciated unthinkingly and even off-handedly, at every opportunity by European and some North American leaders, and appearing automatically in politically-motivated and partisan UN resolutions, does nothing to advance the settlement of the Israeli Palestinian dispute by one iota.²¹

Palestinian leadership vacuum:

The lack of any unified, responsible, accepted, and authoritative Palestinian leadership that could present itself as a reliable and stable negotiating partner for Israel only enhances the notion of continuing instability and lack of any likelihood of a return to a negotiating process.

This strengthens Israel in its determination to ensure its own security, on its own.²²

Israel’s own internal governance issues:

Israel’s need to preserve its democratic legitimacy, internal democratic resilience, and legal coherence are major factors in maintaining its international credibility.²³

Political and social elements that weaken Israel’s internal social and political cohesion serve to enhance the international perception of weakness. Israel cannot effectively defend the legitimacy of its international legal position while appearing divided over the authority of its governmental institutions, its judiciary, constitutional norms, and wartime decision-making processes.

The Abraham Accords as an Alternative Bilateral Model to Oslo

The historic series of agreements comprising the Abraham Accords, announced by President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu in 2020, perhaps constitutes the most significant and hopeful factor in demonstrating today the possibility and capability of achieving peaceful, mutually beneficial coexistence between Arab states and Israel, without necessarily returning to the Oslo-style negotiating framework. ²⁴

In the Abraham Accords, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan agreed to “foster mutual understanding, respect, co-existence and a culture of peace between their societies in the spirit of their common ancestor, Abraham, and the new era of peace and friendly relations ushered in by this Treaty, including by cultivating people-to-people programs, interfaith dialogue and cultural, academic, youth, scientific, and other exchanges between their peoples.”²⁵

As such, the Abraham Accords can indeed be seen as proof that peaceful, lucrative relations and mutual and regional acceptance are achievable when the parties decide that their interests align with the desire for peace.

At such time as other Arab states, including Syria, Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states, and the Palestinian people reach such a realization that they have everything to benefit from entering into such a framework, rather than engaging in terror and disseminating and financing Jihadism, an extended version of the Abraham Accords will doubtless serve as the inspiration.

Conclusion

The traditional penchant of the international political and legal community to act unilaterally by imposing ineffective and unrealistic third-party solutions is indicative of international institutional blindness and naivete. This cannot serve as a replacement mechanism for direct negotiations.

While it might respond to immediate partisan political and economic interests of the states concerned, imposing such a solution would only institutionalize and amplify regional instability rather than advancing regional peace, mutual trust, and prosperity.

This could never accord with the essential security interests of Israel, and would not be realistic and viable.

As long as such a nebulous situation exists, lacking any serious international inclination to encourage negotiation for peaceful relations, Israel clearly cannot place its trust in any foreign or international mechanism and will have no other choice but to rely on its own capabilities and power.

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Notes