Why did it go wrong?

In the past, Palestine represented an ideal – like anti-apartheid – of justice and the struggle for equality; Today, this is forgotten in favor of corruption and injustice, led by Yasir Arafat and his people, writes Edward Said in the book "The End of the Peace Process. Oslo and after ». In the 1990s, the Palestinian-American full-time intellectual author has wholeheartedly engaged in the Palestinian struggle for independence within or outside Israel, as the Oslo Accords between the lines announced were to come. This is despite the fact that Said has never had any faith in the agreement signed in September 1993 in front of the Great White House in Washington.

On the contrary, it appears from the 50 articles collected in the book, written between 1995 and 1999. The Oslo Agreement has, more than any previous attempt at peace and reconciliation, helped to put the Palestinian commitment to sleep in anticipation of some sustainable solution. Instead of taking the fate between both hands, like the South Africans with apartheid, they have left the responsibility for peace to Clinton, Arafat and the Israeli leaders. The result, writes Said, is that Arafat has lost the pressure and can freely put money into its own pockets, build security forces and deal with strong investors.

Disastrous leader

According to Said, Arafat has been involved in the peace process in order to preserve his own empire with international approval. The consequence is that he has lost sight of everything that has been lost along the way.

The most important thing is to have food on the table and a roof over your head. It is as much Arafat's fault as the Israeli authorities. Arafat has money, but it is used to monitor Palestinian dissidents, strengthen the police, build prisons and feed the growing bureaucracy around Arafat and his "government." Arafat is more concerned with controlling his own population to preserve power than arriving at a just solution to the conflict, Said writes.

Despite the constant involvement of the regular Palestinians in the big questions, it is still here that Said believes the core of the problem lies. The Oslo Agreement exposed all the major challenges, not least the question of independence, the occupied territories and the Palestinian prisoners and refugees. Without these questions being answered, there is little help in organizing sandwich bread summits around the world. On the contrary again; as the weak party, the Palestinians cling to the hope of what is to come, while Israel seizes the chance to increase its superior lead. The Palestinians are waiting, and it is not incumbent on them to replace their leader. They wait, and it doesn't occur to them that they can do anything more sensible about the situation than throwing stones at an opposing shooter. Therefore, the Palestinians would have fared better without an Oslo agreement, Said says.

A new Mandela?

Once upon a time, people all over the world sympathized with the fate of the Palestinians and the people themselves thought justice would come only if they persevered. Today, the question is, Said writes, whether one is for or against the Oslo Agreement. If you are against the agreement, it means the same as not wanting peace.

Palestinian youth have difficulty identifying themselves with a piece of paper and with a leader who openly thinks only of their own good. A leader who actively opposes voluntary organizational life, but which can be corrupted by private investors, is not a guiding star for an oppressed people. The Palestinians need a Mandela, Said writes in a separate article comparing the two leadership figures. Admittedly, the white South African authorities had real international pressure on them (unlike Israel) and the blacks were in the majority, but basically the issue is the same. But where Mandela became a symbol of sheer decency, Arafat has become more and more a symbol of power arrogance, lies and weakness. Time and time again he has returned to his word, a Palestinian state has been repeatedly declared without seriousness and with Israel at the negotiating table he has consistently proved incapable of promoting legitimate claims. He even meets up ill-prepared, writes Said. Where Mandela lifted his people only by his mere presence and steadfastness, Arafat presses his people down by proving unfit to solve both their long-term and precarious needs.

As a Palestinian refugee, Said is, of course, most concerned with Palestine and its fate, and believes the Palestinians themselves must take part in the miserable situation they are in. Either it is possible to replace their leader, or it is not – and he should replaced as soon as possible. That said, Said is obviously not gracious to Israel or the role of the United States, for that matter.

Said challenges the notion that the Oslo Agreement requires Arafat and an Israeli Labor Party government on either side of the table. Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak are the same ulla, Said thinks, despite the rhetoric being different. The proof is history: Israel's over fifty bloody years have been Labor-ruled. Throughout the 1990, various Labor Party governments have mainly ruled the store, but as written above: It has not gotten any better for the Palestinians. No, worse, according to Said.

Change the reality

With the Labor Party's rhetorical peace profile, Palestinians, Israelis and the rest of the world have been led to believe that Israel believes seriously. Palestine will get what rightfully belongs to them. The problem is, of course, only that Israel, whether the politician belongs to the right, the left or the center, believes that the Palestinians are not entitled to anything. If they still get some patches of land, it is based on the goodness of Israel. They can do this because Israel has effectively suppressed what happened by World War II, where the Jews with the approval of the West and bad conscience, were able to raid parts of Palestine in 1948. They took a new job in 1967, and are obviously not yet satisfied.

So what is the alternative? The Oslo agreement is a reality, isn't it? Yes, but it is my job as an intellectual to work to change realities that are not sustainable, Said answers. The Oslo agreement should never have been entered into because the parties were never equal. The premise of Norway, the United States, Israel and Palestine is that Israel still has a legitimate claim to the area, and that the Palestinian "terrorists" should only be happy that they get something at all. A peaceful solution to the conflict presupposes – if nothing else – that the international community recognizes the parties as equals, and stops talking with a false tongue, as Norway's Foreign Minister does. Moreover, the question of independence must be in place before discussing border disputes, and here Said concludes that the time is probably over where it was realistic to talk about an independent Palestinian state. There are too many Israelis living in Palestinian territory and too many Palestinians in Israel. But how to make this happen?

Failed by everyone

Here Said becomes the great humanist who never stops believing in the best in man. Israel has suppressed much of its close history. After the war it was mostly about the Zionist dream and the Nazi nightmare. What kind of suffering the Palestinians have had to undergo in order for the state to become a reality, public memory has been suppressed. Either you don't talk about it, or you just don't know what's been going on.

Here, Said believes both critical Israeli historians and Palestinian intellectuals have a job to do, namely to penetrate the Israeli consciousness. Moreover, little progress will be made before the Israelis realize that Israel is "just" a state like all other states, and has not been given a world mandate from the Judeo-Christian world to create paradise on earth. The truth is that the Jews got a state because the world's leading nations had a poor conscience for how they had treated the Jews before and during World War II.

The Zionist dream must be put to death because it is this state-religious zealot that has allowed Israel to harass its Arab neighbors (with God and the United States in the back).

The Palestinians, for their part, must work to raise awareness of themselves and their historic destiny, in addition to rebuilding the will to fight – this time by peaceful means. The new state must be founded on religious tolerance and "a man, a voice." Both Israel and Palestine have long multicultural traditions, and moreover, they can be united in their historical destiny: Both peoples have in this century been harassed, killed, tried to exterminate, sent to exile, lost property and their homeland. It's not about forgetting, putting a line over what has been. On the contrary; one must remember and unite as victims.

Meanwhile, the Palestinians must take the future into their hands: Find a new strong leader, build houses that the Israelis tear down, build schools and universities, hand out unemployment money so people do not have to work for the Israelis and give the Israeli authorities no reason to shoot. sharply against Arab "terrorists".

The Oslo agreement was a dead end and the breach had to come sooner or later. Last week's Palestinian uprising was not so much about Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon's visit to a Muslim shrine, we believe Said. Frustration has peaked. The international community has failed. Arafat and Barak have failed. Clinton has failed. The Oslo agreement has failed. But perhaps most of all, the Palestinians are disappointed that they have failed themselves.

Edward W. Said: «The End of the Peace Process. Oslo and after ». Granta 1999