Journal of Undergraduate Studies at Trent (JUST)
Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 5 - 16, Summer 2009
ISSN 1913-0937 (Print) | 1913-0945 (Online)
© Journal of Undergraduate Studies at Trent
A Law of Diminishing Returns: The
Oslo Accords and the Dynamics of
Palestinian Self-Governance
Ryan Perks, Julian Blackburn College, Trent University
The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) has for decades claimed to embody the
national aspirations of the Palestinian people. The 1993 Oslo Accords conducted between Israel and the PLO, and the ‘Middle East peace process’ which resulted, seemed
only to cement this claim. However, the 2006 electoral victory of the Islamic Resistance
Movement, or Hamas, and their subsequent formation of a majority government within
the Occupied Territories, shocked much of the world, as well as Palestinian observers.
While the stipulations of the Oslo Accords allowed for a much sought-after degree of
Palestinian self-governance within the Occupied Territories, the PLO’s performance
was far from stellar. This paper aims to explore the difficulties inherent in the post-Oslo
‘state-building’ process, and the complex process by which Hamas came to provide the
PLO with the first significant political opposition of its four-decade history.
In the wake of Hamas’s historic victory at the polls of the 2006 Palestinian
legislative elections, much ink was been spilt regarding the regional consequences
of such a victory. Some have expressed dismay at the prospect of an Islamic
resistance movement, having refused for years to join the political process1,
forming a majority government in the Occupied Territories; a group which,
unlike its predecessors in the PLO, remain steadfast in their refusal to recognize
Israel’s right to exist.2 Indeed, this feeling of trepidation was echoed, albeit in
its most extreme form, by former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s
reaction to the Hamas victory: “Hamastan has been formed, a proxy of Iran in
the image of the Taliban.”3 Yet, despite the significant, if not extraordinary, shift
Graham Usher; Bassam Jarrar, “The Islamist Movement and the Palestinian Authority,”
Middle East Report 189 (1994): 29.
2
Article 11, Charter of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), translated and
reprinted by Muhammad Maqdsi, “Charter of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) of
Palestine,” Journal of Palestine Studies 22.4 (1993): 125.
3
Associated Press, January 30, 2006, qtd. in Aaron D. Pina, Palestinian Elections
(Congressional Research Service, Report for Congress, February 9, 2006) 11 (Order Code
1
Ryan Perks
in Arab-Israeli politics that the Hamas victory has come to signify, it would
be wrong to perceive this shift merely as a sudden move on the part of the
Palestinian population towards a more radical or extreme form of government.
Rather, this period of change is in marked contrast to the three decades which
preceded the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords by Israel and the PLO, in
which the PLO could safely claim the mantle of ‘sole representatives of the
Palestinian people,’ and as such, constitutes a clear rejection on the part of the
Palestinian electorate of the status quo that the PLO, and its brand of secular
nationalism, had come to engender. Moreover, it may be argued that a PLOdominated Palestinian Authority contained the seeds of its own destruction;
A national resistance movement, scattered throughout various Arab capitols,
was a concept not easily translated into the nuances of democratic institutionbuilding, such as the PLO, and later the Palestinian Authority, intended
to undertake. With a Palestinian electorate only too aware of its desire for
democratic forms of government, compounded by the perceived failures of the
PLO in the Middle East peace process, the PLO’s future as the manifestation of
Palestinian political will was far from secure.
The 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO marked a significant
step in the so-called ‘peace process’ initiated by the two parties. Israel was
now engaged not only in direct talks with the PLO, but as the ‘Letters of
Mutual Recognition’ exchanged by then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
and PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat assert, was willing “to recognize the PLO as
the representative of the Palestinian people and commence negotiations with
the PLO within the Middle East peace process.”4 This recognition marked a
drastic turn-around for an Israeli government which had hitherto reserved
little distinction between the PLO and other, more extreme Palestinian
‘terrorist’ groups.5 The PLO, for its part was continuing down the path it had
earlier embarked upon during the late 1980’s. The resolutions adopted at the
nineteenth session of the Palestinian National Council of 1988, which included
RL33269).
4
Burhan Dajani, “The September 1993 Israeli-PLO Documents: A Textual Analyses,”
Journal of Palestine Studies 23.3 (1994): 7.
5
Amnon Kapeliouk, “Israel, Terrorism, and the PLO,” Journal of Palestine Studies 16.1
(1986): 188.
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A Law of Diminishing Returns: The Oslo Accords and the Dynamics of Palestinian
Self-Governance
among others, the formal renunciation of terrorism, as well as the recognition
of the State of Israel,6 set the PLO firmly on the course of a “two-state solution”;7
a move which necessarily foreshadowed any political development vis-à-vis
Israel.8 However, while the talks which preceded the signing of the Accords
constituted no small undertaking for either side, it was the projected outcome
of the agreement itself which would provide the PLO especially with several
challenges far greater than any they had confronted during the negotiations.
The first of these challenges was the formation, as stipulated within the
agreement, of the ‘Palestinian Interim Self-Governing Authority,’ of which the
intended function was to be, “the elected council . . . for the Palestinian people
of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, for a transitional period not exceeding
five years . . .”9 This foray into self-government, while long touted as the goal of
the Palestinian resistance, was to have a significant impact on the way politics
were conducted, both inside the Occupied Territories as well as the wider
Diaspora, as it amounted to nothing short of the fundamental reorientation of
the decades-old system through which the PLO, not to mention the myriad of
lesser resistance movements, had conducted their struggle for the liberation
of Palestine.10 For the first time since 1948, the political center was to be inside
Palestine itself, rather than the various Arab capitols which had at one time
or another provided the PLO with a base from which to organize a scattered
constituency.11 This was something for which the Palestinian resistance had
been fighting for decades, both diplomatically and militarily, yet had never
come close to achieving.12
Paradoxically though, the long awaited goal of ‘self-rule’ within the
Yezid Sayigh, “Struggle within, Struggle without: The Transformation of PLO
Politics Since 1982, Royal Institute of International Affairs 65.2 (1989): 247.
7
Jamil Hilal, “PLO Institutions: The Challenge Ahead,” Journal of Palestine Studies
23.1 (1993): 48.
8
Dajani, 7.
9
Ibid, 9.
10
Ali Jarbawi, “Palestinian Politics at a Crossroads,” Journal of Palestine Studies 25.4
(1996): 29-30.
11
Ibid, 29-30.
12
Yezid Sayigh, “Armed Struggle and State Formation,” Journal of Palestine Studies
26.4 (1997): 17.
6
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Ryan Perks
Occupied Territories would present the newly formed Palestinian Authority
(PA) with a set of challenges not encountered during the PLO’s decades of
exile, and unique to the transition to an institutionalized democracy .13 These
challenges were especially present in terms of security. Indeed, the very success
of the Accords, and the resulting Palestinian self-rule, were predicated from
the start on the PA’s ability to provide law and order in Gaza and the West
Bank.14 As Article VIII of the Declaration of Principles stresses:
. . . the [Palestinian] Council will establish a strong police force,
while Israel will continue to carry the responsibility for defending
against external threats, as well as the responsibility for overall
security of Israelis for the purpose of safeguarding their internal
security and public order.15
As straightforward as this statement may appear, it does highlight the curious
discrepancy which arose out of the signing of the agreement, between that
which was required of the PA in regards to security, and the wide ranging, and
at times ambiguous, powers which the Israeli government had reserved for
itself. This may lead one to ask the obvious question: is an agreement, concluded
between two parties of such disparate positions of power, significantly flawed
from the start? Indeed, it could be argued that the notion of Palestinian self-rule
as outlined in the Oslo Accords, and any legitimacy that may derived from it,
was contingent, first and foremost, upon Israeli security.16 As some Palestinian
critics have noted, the inordinate emphasis placed on the PA’s obligation to
deliver up “Israel’s right to exist in peace and security”17, while no doubt a
reasonable request, necessarily subordinates the right of the Palestinians
within the West bank and Gaza to these same luxuries.18 Nonetheless, the PA
Naomi Weinberger, “The Palestinian National Security Debate,” Journal of Palestine
Studies 24.3 (1995): 17.
14
Ibid, 16.
15
Article VIII, Israeli-PLO Declaration of Principles, reprinted in “Special Document
File: The Peace Process,” Journal of Palestine Studies 23.1 (1993): 117.
16
Graham Usher, “The Politics of Internal Security: The PA’s New Intelligence
Services,” Journal of Palestine Studies 25.2 (1996): 21.
17
Dajani, 6.
18
Ibid, 6-7.
13
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A Law of Diminishing Returns: The Oslo Accords and the Dynamics of Palestinian
Self-Governance
went to great lengths to fulfill their obligation to “establish a strong police
force,”19 following the implementation of the Accords - a task performed, at
times, with startling efficiency.
While the Oslo Accords, as well as subsequent agreements between
Israel and the PA, outlined specific restrictions on the number of Palestinian
security personnel to be deployed in the areas of self-rule, these were frequently
ignored. The result was the proliferation throughout the Occupied Territories
of numerous (and ambiguous) police and intelligence forces whose jurisdiction
often overlapped each other, whose activities were scarcely monitored, and
whose loyalties often extended beyond ‘official’ boundaries to factional and
political allegiances.20 Moreover, the advantages of Palestinian security could
not have been lost on the Israeli government during the Oslo negotiations. In
an interview published in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, just prior to
the signing of the Accords, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin put it bluntly:
I prefer the Palestinians to cope with the problem (emphasis added)
of enforcing order in the Gaza Strip . . . [they] will be better at it
then we were because they will allow no appeals to the Supreme
Court and will prevent the [Israeli] Association for Civil Rights
from criticizing the conditions there by denying access to the area.21
Any further attempt to demonstrate the degree to which Israel had benefited
at this time from Palestinian governance would be difficult, and far beyond
the scope of this paper. However, considering the outcome, it may also prove
irrelevant. Regardless of any Israeli predictions as to the brutal efficiency of
the Palestinian security apparatus, it may be safe to assume that the numerous
forces deployed by the PA throughout Gaza and the West Bank went beyond
most preconceptions. Speaking to the general breakdown of societal order in
the Occupied Territories following the arrival of the PA, to which the Palestinian
security forces were among the most visible contributors, a Human Rights
Watch report from 1996 described a situation increasingly characterized by, “. .
“Special Document File: The Peace Process,” 117.
Usher, 22-25.
21
Rabin, Yitzhak in Yediot Aharonot, September 7, 1993, qtd. in Naseer H. Aruri; John
J. Carroll, “A New Palestinian Charter,” Journal of Palestine Studies 23.4 (1993): 12.
19
20
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Ryan Perks
. physical abuse of detainees . . . closed-door trials of opposition suspects . . . acts
of violence and intimidation against Palestinians by the overstaffed security
agencies . . .”22 Tragically, whereas the Palestinian population had, generally
speaking, welcomed the arrival of the PA security forces as both a welcome
change from Israeli authority, as well as an important step in the process of
building a functioning state,23 these attitudes were gradually overshadowed
by a Palestinian society in which “Distrust of authority, associated in the
minds of the youth with the [Israeli] occupier . . . [had] now been extended to
the Palestinian leadership as well.”24
Such descriptions of a Palestinian civil society wracked by fears of an
ultra-vigilant police force speak greatly to PA President Yasir Arafat’s personal
governing style, and in particular, the system of patronage that was broadly
employed during this time. The preeminent position held by Fatah – the
guerrilla movement co-founded by Arafat in the 1950’s25 – within the PLO,
and their subsequent dominance within the PA following the Oslo Accords,
meant that virtually all members and supporters of the group were welcomed
into the police forces.26 Though of course Fatah/PLO members and supporters
did not constitute the only factional representation within the police, the
proliferation of the security forces remained, for the most part, emblematic of
the former group’s power on the Palestinian street.27 As some scholars have
claimed, Arafat’s influence over the fortunes of his colleagues throughout
the PA, his ability to promote his subordinates throughout the ranks of the
security forces, resulted not only in increased political sway, but was a direct
attempt to counteract the formation of a sizeable political opposition.28
Given the many difficulties which no doubt attended the transition
Beverley Milton-Edwards, “Palestinian State-Building: Police and Citizens as Test
of Democracy,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 25.1 (1998): 114.
23
Ibid, 110.
24
Sara Roy, “The Seed of Chaos, and of Night: The Gaza Strip After the Agreement.”
Journal of Palestine Studies 23.3 (1994): 90.
25
Cobban, Helena. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation (Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 1984) 6.
26
Milton-Edwards, 108.
27
Ibid, 108.
28
Usher, 29-30.
22
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A Law of Diminishing Returns: The Oslo Accords and the Dynamics of Palestinian
Self-Governance
from liberation movement to civil police force, it may be relevant to claim, as
did one UN Coordinator in charge of police, that the task of establishing and
training a Palestinian police force “. . . is difficult [because] most of the PPF
[Palestinian Police Force] were formerly in the PLA [Palestinian Liberation
Army].”29 Nonetheless, the nepotism shown by Arafat and the PA leadership
during the recruitment process must have exacerbated the situation, fueling
the descent of some sectors of the PA security forces into an overtly militaristic
movement.30
That the emerging Palestinian leadership, whether through lack of
resources, by the sheer enormity of the task confronted, or for other more
nefarious reasons, leaned heavily on its security forces during the post-Oslo
‘state-building’ process has been well documented. However, the transference
of genuine political influence by the PA - as opposed to a simple, albeit powerful,
show of force - from the Palestinian Diaspora, to the residents of Gaza and
the West Bank, not all of whom viewed the Oslo Accords and the arrival of
the PA in a positive light, would prove more difficult than perhaps originally
thought.
While the PLO had long claimed the distinction of ‘sole representatives
of the Palestinian people,’ the validity of this claim has, since the earliest days
of the organization, been challenged by some Palestinians.31 Of the many
resistance groups operating within the Occupied Territories at the time of
the Oslo Accords, perhaps the strongest, and thus most likely to come into
conflict with the PA, was the Islamic Resistance Movement, or, Hamas.32 A
branch of the older Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas was formed and first came
to prominence during the Palestinian uprising of 1987.33
Along with the other Islamic movements, there were fundamental
ideological differences between Hamas and the predominantly secular
PLO. While the ‘two-state solution’ embraced by the PLO in 1988 ultimately
Per Blekelia, UN Coordinator of Policing, qtd. in Milton-Edwards, 108.
Ibid, 109.
31
Rashid Hamid, “What is the PLO?” Journal of Palestine Studies 4.4 (1975): 94.
32
Ziad Abu-Amr, “Hamas: A Historical and Political Background,” Journal of Palestine
Studies 22.4 (1993): 5.
33
Ibid, 10.
29
30
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Ryan Perks
provided the organization with a ‘roadmap’ by which it was hoped Palestinian
self-rule could be arrived at, it was this very notion – the recognition of Israel
- which was at the heart of Hamas’s refusal to join forces with the PA in a postOslo Palestine.34 However, despite the tensions which would eventually erupt
between the two groups, Hamas’s attitude towards the secular nationalist
PLO prior to the establishment of Palestinian self-rule was, to put it mildly,
one of polite philosophical disagreement. As the Hamas charter claims:
The Palestinian Liberation Organization is closest of the close
to the Islamic Resistance Movement, in that it is the father, the
brother, the relative . . . [However] not underestimating its [the
PLO] role in the Arab-Israeli struggle, we cannot . . . adopt [a]
secular ideology . . . 35
Nonetheless, this brotherly rhetoric would be greatly altered by the
establishment of Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and the West Bank. It was in the
Occupied Territories that Hamas had originally been born, from which it had
directed its resistance against Israeli occupation, and where it would ultimately
come into conflict with a PA determined to assert its political hegemony. While
the friction between these two groups should not be over-exaggerated as the
only threat to order within the Occupied Territories at this time, there was,
following the implementation of the Oslo Accords, a concerted effort on the
part of the PA to ‘deal’ with Hamas. This did not necessarily entail a direct
and forceful subjugation by the former of the latter; absorption of Hamas
into the mainstream political process, therefore granting the PA a degree of
control over the group, was as desirable an outcome as any.36 However, this
was difficult to say the least. For a group, such as Hamas, with little or no
reliance upon the PA in terms of financial, security, or ideological sustenance,
little reward could be offered in return for compliance.37 The resulting violent
Wendy Kristianasen, “Challenge and Counterchallenge: Hamas’s Response to
Oslo,” Journal of Palestine Studies 28.3 (1999): 20.
35
Article 27, Charter of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), qtd. in Maqdsi,
130-131.
36
Kristianasen, 20.
37
Usher, 30.
34
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A Law of Diminishing Returns: The Oslo Accords and the Dynamics of Palestinian
Self-Governance
confrontations between Hamas militants refusing to cease operations against
Israel, and PA security personnel, were seen as an attempt by the PA leadership
to cement the claim made in 1994 that “From now on [Hamas] should know
that there is only one authority.”38
However, despite their refusal to be co-opted within the ranks of any
‘outside’ group, there was a recognition by the Hamas leadership at this time
of the PA’s undeniable political dominance in the Occupied Territories, as
well as a general weakening of Hamas’s military capabilities, to which the
escalation in violence between the two groups had contributed greatly.39 One
significant result of this shift was the movement away from an overtly political
or militaristic program to what could be broadly termed ‘social work.’40
Specifically, this term can be taken to represent the provision of such important
services as health care, education, literacy training, and geriatric care, among
others.41 In the post-Oslo period, this was increasingly seen as perhaps the
most effective path by which the so-called ‘opposition,’ of whom Hamas was
the most dominant, was able to ensure its survival. As one anonymous Hamas
official put it, referring to the importance of social programs in place of an
aggressive military strategy: “We must plant the seeds for an Islamic future
in the next generation through social change . . . We do this through example
and education.”42
Aresistance movement, long confined to exile and political marginalization
on the world stage, was bound to meet its match in the complexities of the
Oslo Accords. Regardless of the many challenges which the PLO had faced
since its beginnings in the 1960’s, the signing of the Accords in 1993, and the
state-building project which arose out of the agreement would prove unlike
anything previously confronted. Having waged a protracted and costly
struggle for national liberation, the PLO entered into a set of negotiations with
the Israeli government in which, “the cart of development was paradoxically
Ibid, 31.
Sara Roy, “The Transformation of Islamic NGOs in Palestine,” Middle East Report
214 (2000): 25.
40
Ibid, 25.
41
Ibid, 26.
42
Anonymous Hamas official, qtd. in Roy, 24.
38
39
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Ryan Perks
put before the horse of independence.”43 As such, the burden on the PLO to
obtain some positive results from the peace process was all the more present.
As one chief Palestinian delegate to the Oslo signing conceded:
The test of this whole agreement is how will we be able to
implement it on the ground . . . Everything now becomes our
responsibility . . . providing governance, assuring national unity,
providing economic opportunities and social justice.44
It would be difficult, if at all possible, to conclude that the PA had accomplished
any one of these goals. While any initial optimism for the success of the
Accords has all but dissipated in the Occupied Territories, an overwhelming
sense of stalemate has descended. One needs to look no further for evidence
of this than the Palestinian Authority itself - a structure transient in nature,
established as a five year interim authority over Gaza and the West Bank, but
which continues to govern more than ten years on.45
Although the process by which Hamas eventually found itself victorious
at the polls of the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections is complex, and cannot
be attributed to PLO corruption or mismanagement alone, these factors did
play a significant role in later developments. Under the former Palestinian
leadership, a law of ‘diminishing returns’ seems to have been in place in Gaza
and the West Bank, whereby the Palestinian population, having by and large
accepted the opportunities granted by the Oslo Accords in 1993, had come
to the realization that a decade under the same leadership has yielded little
in return. Unfortunately, while much of the outside reaction to the political
changes within the Palestinian landscape could be summed up by the former
Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert’s insistence that “a Hamas-led Palestinian
Authority is not a partner,”46 it seems clear the ordinary Palestinian had been
Ilan Halevi, “Self-Government , Democracy, and Mismanagement under the
Palestinian Authority,” Journal of Palestine Studies 27.3 (1998): 35.
44
Nabil Shaath qtd. in Journal of Palestine Studies, Nabil Shaath, “The Oslo
Agreement. An Interview with Nabil Shaath,” Journal of Palestine Studies 23.1 (1993): 12.
45
Philip McCrum; Hania Farhan, eds., Country Report: Palestinian Territories (London:
Economist Intelligence Unit, Feb. 2006) 4.
46
Pina, 11.
43
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A Law of Diminishing Returns: The Oslo Accords and the Dynamics of Palestinian
Self-Governance
left with little alternative.
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