In the 1992 Israeli elections, the Labor party returned to power, promising to solve internal security problems by granting autonomy to the Palestinians, as agreed in the Camp David Accords. The ability of Israeli political culture to adopt, with relatively little major domestic resistance, an accord with the Palestinians under the leadership of the PLO (with which contact had only shortly before been legally off limits to any Israeli) should be considered a major historical upheaval. This is even more dramatic when we consider that this agreement means, not only acceptance of the PLO and its demands for legitimacy, but a far-reaching change in the status quo on the ground. The first stage of this is acceptance of Palestinian autonomy in the Gaza and Jericho areas, and then probably in most of the West Bank. This includes a major relocation of Israeli troops as a kind of “disengagement” between the two collectivities.
How are the “Declaration of Principles” and the Cairo Agreement of May 5, 1994 (the basis for the “Gaza and Jericho First Plan”), and their de facto implementation, possible from the Israeli point of view? Will September 13, 1993, the date of the signing of the Declaration of Principles by the Israeli prime minister and the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, be a significant turning point in the hundred years of Jewish-Arab conflict? Is this a movement toward genuine reconciliation or just another piece of paper? We shall evidently have to wait a few years more for the answers.
Despite its “revolutionary character,” this new policy is well rooted in the power-oriented Israeli culture. From the beginning of Yitzhak Rabin's Labor party's return to power, a rigid policy toward the Palestinians was demonstrated through the mass deportation of Islamic activists, extension of curfews on the Palestinian population, and closure of the territories. Rabin's macho image had been previously well established when as minister of defense he formulated a “bone-breaking policy” in response to the Intifada. He is thus well identified with the power oriented culture.13 As an aside, the previous rightist and “patriotic” Likud administration, despite its rhetoric, is more strongly identified with the “weak” components of Israeli political culture, because most of its political moves have been “anxiety-arousing” tactics, in contrast with the “activist” and security-oriented components of Labor's message.
Thus, a power-oriented analysis of the situation leads to the conclusion that indirect control of the Palestinians is a better and cheaper strategy than direct control, especially of a completely ungovernable area such as the Gaza Strip. The transfer of local rule to a Palestinian authority that would take over police and security services was the logical conclusion to be drawn by the power-oriented Israeli culture. In any case, Palestinian “autonomy,” or, in the alternative scenario, a sovereign state divided territorially between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and compressed between Jordan and Israel, would be more of a strategic asset than a threat.
The PLO and its leadership have already made a few essential moves in this direction. The first of these moves was the 12th PNC (July 1974) resolution “establishing a Palestinian national authority in any area liberated from Israel”—the so-called “mini-state option.” The second move was made when, in 1988, in Geneva, Yasser Arafat denounced terrorism and declared, on behalf of the PLO, recognition of the rights of all parties concerned in the Middle East conflict to exist in peace and security, including the states of Palestine, Israel, and their neighbors. These were abstract declarations, however, without any concrete policy and institutional applications, and they aroused strident antagonism from other Palestinian factions. Even so, the entire process of accepting the Israeli offer and its implications was a revolutionary move for the PLO.
None of this is to say that the PLO's leadership, represented at the time by al-Fatah and encouraged by part of the local leadership in the occupied territories, was unaware of Israeli motives and the unfavorableness of the terms from the PLO's point of view, nor of the danger of becoming, not only a weaker partner to the Israelis, but their soldiers of misfortune as well. Their Palestinian and Arab rivals continue to remind them of these facts all the time. The misfortune is that both Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat were labeled traitors by parts of their own constituencies. Indeed, after the political mistake of supporting the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, only a weakened al-Fatah leader, threatened by a growing Islamic movement within the occupied territories, could be coerced into accepting almost near-capitulation terms in order to survive. On the other hand, the deal proposed by the Israelis was better than any other previously proposed to the Palestinians by their enemies. Most important, however, the inner dynamics of the process will most probably lead to the formation of an independent Palestinian state.
From the opposite perspective, the Oslo Accords are perceived as a psychological, cultural, and political acceptance of the legitimate existence of a Jewish state in the region. This should be appreciated as the second biggest Zionist achievement, right after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent war victory that completed the first stage of Jewish state-building efforts.
Nevertheless, for the majority of Israeli Jews, regardless of the different evaluations of these agreements and the Israeli leadership's motives for agreeing to the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority, the Accords and their implementation were a political earthquake. The explicit recognition that Palestinians as a people have collective rights over what is known as “The Land of Israel” and the likely establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state were not by any stretch of the imagination commonly acceptable ideas, even though they have long been promoted by certain elite groups. For a while, it seemed that the majority of Israeli Jews hesitantly supported rapprochement with the Palestinians. In addition, the major source of parliamentary opposition, the secular right-wing Likud party, was unable to suggest a convincing alternative policy to withdrawal from major Palestinian urban centers and refugee camps, which since the 1987 Palestinian uprising had become a major burden on the Israeli armed forces, state, and society. The only strong and salient opposition during most of the period was provided by nationalist and Orthodox religious supporters of the settler population and by the settlers themselves. Major resistance and demonstrations against the “peace process” were organized by some extraparliamentary groups, while the majority of the population stood on the sidelines, expressing high ambivalence toward the government and its policy and adopting a position of “wait and see.”
Thus, in a relatively short period of time, Rabin's government tried to impose major change within Israeli political culture. By passing responsibility for control of the majority of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to the PNA, the government established a political fait accompli without touching any Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. Any attempt to dismantle settlements was considered likely to trigger large-scale popular resistance, if not civil war. Vast resources were invested in bypass roads in order to minimize friction between Palestinians and settlers, and PNA collaboration with Israeli security forces was supposed to prevent attacks against targets within Israel and against the Jewish settlers.
Fundamentalist religious groups argued that Rabin's policy was disastrous, and that his government could not legitimately give up parts of the Jewish “holy land” because it was a minority government, formed with the unprecedented support of two non-Zionist Arab parties (see chapter 4). Secularist right-wing parties did nothing to distance themselves from these arguments, in the expectation that they would penetrate the electorate's consciousness and aid them politically.
From the beginning, Rabin's coalition expected the support of three “Jewish”