Word: oslo
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...Both sides in the West Bank and Gaza are beginning to adopt, in a limited way, the tactics of the Lebanon war, as Oslo appears to slip further and further into history. Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon appears to believe that Israel can tough it out, systematically raising the ante of military pressure and exhausting the Palestinians' will to sustain their intifada. He has repeatedly stressed that a political deal of the type discussed at Camp David is out of the question, and speaks instead of some kind of long-term cease-fire. And while Sharon allows his foreign minister...
...groups. Instead, Israel's policy became to maintain a long-term occupation but begin settling tens of thousands of Israelis on swathes of territory seized from Palestinians in order to create "facts on the ground" - and, indeed, despite viewing these as entirely illegal, the Palestinians were nonetheless forced by Oslo to bargain over the fate of those settlements. And, in a situation much lamented by Israeli liberals, a state that prided itself on being the region's only democracy was forced into the Dr. Hyde role inevitably thrust onto any occupier...
...Yosef Goell writes in the Jerusalem Post: "For years supporters of the Oslo process were at pains to argue that there is no military solution to the conflict. They were partly correct. The painful truth is that in the short and medium terms there are no 'solutions,' either military or political, to such protracted conflicts. We now know there is no diplomatic and political 'solution' either...
...military solutions to the current uprising: The Israeli army learned, during the last intifada, that its troops are constantly vulnerable when deployed inside Palestinian urban areas. It was no coincidence that although Israel withdrew its troops from less than 40 percent of the West Bank and Gaza during the Oslo years, it was happy to include most Palestinian urban areas in the territory it handed over - better to have your troops and tanks surround the town than to be facing a potential ambush around every corner. And in Intifada II, the Palestinians have automatic rifles. So the Israeli troops...
...Sharon, of course, was a staunch opponent of Oslo's "land-for-peace" principles from the get-go, and his latest proposal is a reminder that his idea of peace doesn't really involve ceding land, simply an end to hostilities. But for the Palestinians, the relationship between the two is reversed - their objective is ending the occupation, whether by violent or peaceful means, and a peace agreement only appeals in as much as it offers a mechanism for achieving that goal. Bridging the gulf between those positions may be beyond even Herr Fischer's considerable mediation skills - and that...