In its August 30 issue, Newsweek carries a report by Joshua Hammer entitled “Palestine: A Change in Direction.” The report describes a potentially far- reaching change:
After four years of an armed uprising that is now widely regarded as a catastrophic failure, Palestinian society and legislators are rising up in an open revolt against the leadership — including their once unassailable chairman. . . .
Dennis Ross . . . said last week that Palestinian leaders from within Arafat‘s own Fatah movement were serious, for the first time, about building a “positive political framework” . . .
He added that there was an emerging consensus among the Palestinians, trigged by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s desire to withdraw from Gaza, that they must “create a civil society based on the rule of law.” Said Ross: “This is a remarkable development.” . . .
Many Fatah members now acknowledge that Arafat‘s rule has been a disaster. . . . Israel’s near-defeat of the Palestinian resistance has . . . stirred demands for reform. After 3,000 deaths (many of them civilians) and massive destruction, many Palestinians feel exhausted, beaten and skeptical about the logic of continuing the armed struggle.
The few active guerrillas in the West Bank admit that attacking Israeli targets has become a near-insurmountable challenge. “The [724km security] wall has made it almost impossible for us to conduct operations,” says Zacaria Zubeideh, the leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the Jenin refugee camp.
Battered by Israel’s harsh reprisals, ordinary Palestinians have turned their anger toward both the militants and the Palestinian Authority.
There are now only three conditions necessary for peace: (1) the removal of the once unassailable, now acknowledged disaster, Yasser Arafat: (2) the creation of a Palestinian civil society based on the rule of law; and (3) the emergence of a Peace Now movement among the Palestinian populace with a realistic peace proposal to make to Israel — not a new set of leaders with peace-of-the-brave press releases in English.
As Dennis Ross’s monumental book makes abundantly clear, it was the absence of a Palestinian civil society educated for peace, combined with a leader whose negotiating strategy was to pocket every Israeli concession and then simply wait for the next one, that was critical to Oslo’s failure.
It was not the absence of Israeli or American proposals, or sufficient American “involvement,” or even-handed American negotiators, or full-time American envoys, or a forum aimed at a “comprehensive” agreement.
It was not the absence of a process: it was the absence of the three conditions set forth above.
Once those conditions are fulfilled, peace will happen overnight. Until they emerge, peace will never happen.
And unless they emerge, any peace “agreement” will simply be a prelude to the next war — just as the critics of Oslo predicted when it was signed.