Maria Gilani
The 1993 Oslo Accords, which aimed for ‘comprehensive peace … and historic reconciliation’, marked a diplomatic breakthrough for Israel and Palestine for which the twentieth century was rife with tension as Zionist settlers dispossessed the Palestinians (Oslo Accords, 1993, p. 4). However, in this essay I refute the notion that Oslo was a peace process. Instead, I argue that the Oslo process further entrenched Israel’s occupation of Palestine and made prospects for peace and Palestinian sovereignty increasingly elusive. To supplement this argument I will assess the outcomes of the Oslo process, revealing that behind the façade of peace these negotiations facilitated the economic, political, and territorial dispossession of Palestine for Israeli benefit (Sen, 2015, p. 170). Before undertaking this analysis, I will briefly explain what the Oslo agreements entailed and situate the process in a wider history of Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic relations. It must be noted that the Oslo process was a key historical juncture for the Israel-Palestine conflict with far-reaching implications such as the second intifada and subsequent violence in the region. Yet, this essay focuses on the direct impacts of Oslo on territorial, economic, and political development in Israel and Palestine as these categories best illuminate the unequal outcomes of the process in line with my thesis.
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