After Oslo: New Realities, Old Problems.

George Giacaman and Dag Jorund Loning, Eds. London and Chicago: Pluto Press, 1998, 241 pp. Paperback, no price indicated.

Reviewed by Ibrahim Abu Lughod

This is an important and timely collection of ten essays contributed by an interdisciplinary team consisting of scholars, a journalist, and an Arab scholar who is a member of the Knesset. The volume is the product of a cooperative venture between Chr Michelson Institute of Bergen, Norway, and Muwatin, the Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy, Ramallah, Palestine. The parsimonious introduction of the editors (each of whom contributed to the volume) does not provide sufficient information on the process by which the various contributors essentially addressed themselves to what many of the contributors identified as the Palestinian/American/Israeli obsession with the so-called Peace Process of Oslo. Even in the absence of such information, it is clear from a very careful reading of the volume that the authors were either briefed very carefully or did actually engage in a dialogue that contributed considerably to the coherence and the integration of these diverse essays.

The authors represent an interesting mix: five are Palestinian (whether hyphenated or not), one Israeli, two Norwegians, one British and a Dutch. All have made important scholarly contributions on the subject, are quite familiar with the scene and thus their assessment of the post-Oslo reality of Palestine is well-grounded. The emphasis and the raison d'etre of the volume is clearly on the Palestinian reality (and the Israeli one as it impinges on Palestine) as it has been shaped by four years of the writ and functioning of Oslowizing Palestine. In one important respect, the volume is not really concerned with history; only very minimally do some of the essays (Giacaman, Butchenson, Hilal and Raz-Krakotzkin) allow a historical reference in their depiction of the contemporary political and social reality. In that sense, the title of the volume is quite faithful to the substance and thus what the authors intend to accomplish is to describe, analyze and assess the new Palestinian politics in so far as these are the outcome of the process of Oslo, euphemistically referred to by the principal actors American, Palestinian, Arabs and the Norwegian broker. While the volume's framework is Palestine/Israel from the standpoint of the Oslo process, many of the essays refer to external powers especially the U.S. and clearly Israel. This reviewer finds the omission of any discussion of Norway's role and expectations from the process and reaction to the unfolding reality significant. After all the major assistance, financial, political and moral, extended to the Palestinian Authority that enables it to implement so faithfully and energetically, with disastrous consequences, the policies of subordination to Israel so well annotated in the various essays could not have been conceived had it not been for the successful intervention of Norway, probably on behalf of both the United States and Israel. Therefore, even if the sponsors of the volume did not wish to address foreign policies or external powers that should not have prevented a serious discussion of Norway's sustained intervention and thus its contribution to what George Giacaman identified as the defeat of the Palestinians.

Essentially the thrust of the volume deals with the politics of Palestinian defeat and Israel's success as a colonial, settler state. The Palestinian acquiescence to the Israeli policies of conquest, epitomized by the Oslo Agreements, enabled the two parties, in the process of implementation of the Accords, to pursue policies and structures that would simultaneously protect the Accords and enhance the possibilities of entrenchment. On the one hand, it enabled Israel to consolidate its previous gains and to proceed to actualize its agenda of conquest. On the other hand, the Palestinian Authority managed to institutionalize an authoritarian (benign or otherwise) system of politics with all its structures, policies, institutions and control. Such an institutionalized system made it inevitable that democratic principles, structures, instruments and policies are trivialized. This is evident in the chapters by Giacaman commenting on the potential emergence of a civil society; in Hilal's assessment of the emerging political system party control, decline and irrelevance of political, social and organized opposition; dealing with the increasingly arbitrary administrative and repressive instruments of the Authority and Jayyusi's keen and reasoned analysis of thought control. The latter is illustrated by her clear portrayal of the Palestinian electronic media performance (even though it is in its infancy) and its controlled and manipulative (on behalf of the Authority and the so-called peace process) messages to the population.

But Israel's incredible success (and the corresponding Palestinian defeat) is made abundantly clear in Butenschon's narrative of the transformation of Palestinian objectives as they confronted Israel. The Palestinians clearly lost their initial battle for independence and statehood against the British colonial administration and the nascent Zionist movement in 1948. But they lost their second battle, this time for national liberation much earlier than 1993. For a time they espoused national liberation as a motto while, in fact by 1974, they were willing to settle for the United Nations endorsed goal of independence and sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza. Even this internationally supported and sanctioned modest goal, which made the Palestinian movement a typical Third World independence movement (similar to Sri Lanka, or Syria, etc. and very much unlike Algeria, Vietnam, Mozambique and South Africa). National liberation was transformed when the Palestinian leadership accepted the Oslo terms, signifying their assent to a severely restricted form of autonomy in a truncated homeland. The many essays of the volume address the consequences of this truncated homeland and Israel's ability and determination to pursue its policies of conquest to fulfill its objective of a Jewish State in as much of Palestine as it can obtain while upholding the peace process. The two trenchant essays by Professor Raz-Krakotzkin and De Jong portray clearly Israel's ideological commitments, not only to its Jewish constituents, but also to its Palestinian subjects. It is difficult to imagine how a Palestinian leadership can grasp the meaning of Raz-Krakotzkin thoughtfully honest discussion of Zionism and Israels policies and continue to uphold the Oslo Process. De Jong demonstrates the material evidence for Israel's continuing policies of conquest of the land, now carried out on a grand scale under the gazing eyes of a Palestinian population that can protest but which is unable to confront and alter the inevitable outcome of landlessness. The various schemes for final status negotiations which Israel is likely to submit to the Palestinian leadership are all detailed and documented, illustrated with clear maps, and their implication for the survival of the Palestinians and their national economy realistically exposed. If there is a relationship between knowledge and policy-making, certainly Palestinians need not read much beyond Raz-Krakotzkins analysis and that of de Jong to resolve and pursue a policy of national survival that is totally at variance with their present politically subordinate stance.

Is there much hope? Professor Moughrabi, surveying in general terms the position and conditions of the Arabs, concludes that they too have accepted their subordinate position, affiliation with and dependence on the United States. Not much countervailing power can emanate from that source. Dr Azmi Bishara demonstrates clearly how bifurcated Palestinian society has become; Israel's policy of co-option and supporting a certain class of Palestinians who develop a vested interest in working with Israel to sustain the Oslo system has been quite successful. It is the political class that now stands in the forefront of the defenders of Oslo and in defusing Palestinian general opposition. Clearly the economic, social and political benefits of the political class whose members are classified by Israel as VIPs and thus have considerable freedom of movement, of economic participation, etc. and contribute significantly to the basic division of Palestinian society. Even an antagonistic collaborative relationship between such a class and Israel does not detract from the possibility of benefiting from the Israeli developed control system and thus perpetuate the Oslo process in situ. Bishara cautions us about the prospects for an Intifada of the old type; systematic opposition to Israel by the now demobilized but mobilizable population may discover the solid connection between the political class and Israel. As the economic and social situation of the Palestinians deteriorates further - growth in unemployment, corruption, sustained confiscation of land etc. - a mobilized population will react correctly.

Can the Palestinians devise a strategy for a future which quite evidently Israel is pursuing relentlessly on the ground with the open assistance of the United States and implicit acquiescence of the regional and world system? A future that is so clearly projected in this book dominated by Bantustanization/Cantonization in an apartheid system? Lonning raises the possible alternatives which individual Palestinians face. In the past, Palestinians were sustained by a vision and thus had considerable hope and resilience. The Oslo process reversed these and brought about, at best disappointment, but certainly disempowerment and thus hopelessness.

Where do we go from here? If we follow the logic of the serious discussion evident in this book of essays, one is likely to conclude what one of Lonning's informants concluded, I cannot do anything. Does this mean that settler colonial regimes succeed in the twenty-first century while they failed in the twentieth, viz France in Algeria, Portugal in Mozambique, Angola, Guinea Bissau, Britain in Zimbabwe and of course the apartheid regime of South Africa? Will Israel be an exception to the rules governing settler colonial states as Palestine was an exception in 1948 when it failed to achieve its independence? If we are to conclude that settler regimes succeed only when they excise the indigenous people - Australia, the United States and much of Latin America etc., does this mean that Palestinians need to be excised from their national patrie? Or is there a possibility of a different kind, perhaps another exceptional resolution to an enduring conflict between a native and his colonizer?

A critical reading of this well-documented and relevant volume will undoubtedly contribute to a more profound understanding of the Palestinian reality after Oslo.

Ibrahim Abu Lughod is Professor Emeritus, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, and Professor of International Studies, Birzeit University.