“The Oslo Accords . . . died with Rabin’s Assassination.”
The Oslo accords were stillborn.
On May 10, 1994, Yasir Arafat gave what he thought was an off-the-record
talk at a mosque while visiting Johannesburg, South Africa. But a South
African journalist, Bruce Whitfield of 702 Talk Radio, found a way secretly
to record his (English-language) remarks. The moment was an optimistic one
for the Arab-Israeli peace process, Arafat having just six days earlier
returned triumphantly to Gaza; it was widely thought that the conflict was
winding down. In this context, Arafat’s bellicose talk in Johannesburg about
a “jihad to liberate Jerusalem,” had a major impact on Israelis, beginning a
process of disillusionment that has hardly abated in the intervening years.
No less damaging than his comments about Jerusalem was Arafat’s cryptic
allusion about his agreement with Israel. Criticized by Arabs and Muslims
for having made concessions to Israel, he defended his actions by comparing
them to those of the Prophet Muhammad in a similar circumstance:
“I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our
Prophet Muhammad and the Quraysh in Mecca”.
In an Interview with Arafat, Jordanian TV, 13th September 1995, Arafat said:
“Since we cannot defeat Israel in war we do this in stages. We take any and
every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish sovereignty there,
and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get
the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.”.
Documents seized at the Mukata’a show that he paid terrorists,
even as he publicly denounced them.