Twenty years ago to the day on Friday, I stood at the South Lawn of the White House and saw history in the making. Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli general who had been fighting the Arabs all his adult life, and Yasser Arafat, whose Palestine Liberation Organization had worked to destroy Israel, shook hands in front of an amazed and jubilant world.
To say that the Oslo agreement came as a surprise to me would be an understatement. It was a shock. Like all other Israeli officials (I was the government spokesman), I had been parroting the mantra that we would never speak with the P.L.O. and that a Palestinian state was out of the question. None of us knew that at the same time Rabin, our prime minister, had allowed Israeli delegates in Oslo to secretly negotiate a peace treaty with the P.L.O.
In hindsight, I should have guessed that something was going on. Rabin himself gave some signals. In December 1992 he had expelled more than 400 alleged Hamas activists to Lebanon. The move was controversial, but through my prism as spokesman — Israel’s image in world media — it was a disaster. The story around the world was that “cruel” Israel had dumped “innocent” people to freeze in the snowy Lebanese terrain.
I had a brilliant idea, or at least I thought so. In a meeting in Rabin’s office, I invoked historical examples from different wars when armies had suspended fighting for the holidays, and suggested that as a Christmas gesture Israel should allow Red Cross doctors to visit the deportees. But Rabin turned red in the face and yelled at me: “And will they stop the intifada in return?”
Everybody around the table was puzzled by this unexpected outburst, but today I think I understand. Rabin, who was defense minister when the intifada erupted in December 1987, had initially dismissed the uprising as riots instigated by Arafat from his headquarters in Tunis, and thus to be quickly crushed. But he had come to realize over the following five years that this was a genuine, popular revolt by Palestinians living under occupation.
I came to see that his outburst reflected the realization that the intifada could not be crushed by force; that there was no alternative to a political settlement. Rabin the general had met the limits of military power, and it was around that time that he began to look with greater interest at the secret Oslo talks.
I suspect that the expulsions, ordered in response to the killing of four Israeli soldiers and a border policeman, were also meant to show Israelis that wherever Rabin was about to lead them, he could be trusted to remain tough.
In January 1993 Rabin gave another signal, which, in hindsight, puts Oslo in a broader context. Addressing the Knesset, he made the surprise announcement that Iran was launching a military nuclear project. Then he said: “That is one of the reasons why we should take advantage of the window of opportunity and move forward to peace.” None of us in the hall — except Shimon Peres, then the foreign minister — knew that he wasn’t speaking in the abstract, and that as he spoke the talks in Oslo were warming up.
Unlike Peres, Rabin was never in love with the Oslo Accords. His body language when President Bill Clinton elegantly maneuvered him to shake the hand of Arafat spoke volumes.
Hours before, on the flight to Washington for the historic event, the ever-energetic Peres worked the journalists on the plane while Rabin tried to catch some sleep. Usually he slept like a baby on those flights, but not this time. Later I understood why: The veteran commander had qualms about relinquishing any of Israel’s security into the hands of the Palestinians. But the statesman in Rabin understood that peace could bring greater dividends.
Years later I dubbed myself “an Oslo disappointee,” which earned me cheers from the right and jeers from the left. Actually, what I meant was simply that I was disappointed that the Oslo process didn’t work. The reasons are known: Arafat was turning a blind eye to terror; Rabin was assassinated; Israelis and Palestinians were not ready yet.
Despite all that, the Oslo Accords remain a great landmark in the histories of two peoples fighting for the same land. They remind Israelis and Palestinians that this is not a zero-sum game; that the only alternative to endless bloody struggle is a negotiated compromise. That it failed 20 years ago doesn’t mean it is forever doomed to failure.
Exactly 10 years ago, I wrote a piece for this newspaper wondering how history would judge the 1993 ceremony at the White House. “Will it turn into a dim, fading memory from a different world? Not necessarily,” I answered. “Once the two peoples let each other go, the easing of tension might invoke the desire to be at the heart of the world’s attention again — but this time shaking hands as true, albeit reluctant, partners for peace.” I stand by these words today.
Uri Dromi, executive director of the Jerusalem Press Club, was the spokesman of the Israeli government from 1992 to 1996.