A Chronology of the "Peace Process" 

The information contained in this Chronology of the Oslo Accords was based on the press reports which appeared in the Israeli printed media from l992-l996. The original archives of Inside Israel can be found at Israel's National Library and Archives in Jerusalem. The author of this essay is asking all who receive it to translate it, post it on the Internet, send it to many other Jews and to print out copies and post them on bulletin boards in synagogues, community centers, schools and yeshivot. We all need to know how this catastrophe began so we will know who is responsible for it.

HOW OSLO REALLY BEGAN
Year 1...1993
Palestinian Affairs:

The Labor party's official chronology of events leading up to Israel's recognition of the PLO has the seeds planted after the party assumed power. This is a lie. According to the official scenario, Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin started the "Gaza-Jericho First" ball rolling at an academic conference. It was revealed in March 1995 in an interview with Yediot Ahronot that Dr. Henry Kissinger took credit for the idea that led to the Oslo Accord. Dr. K claimed that he suggested pulling out of Gaza and Jericho first to then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin back in l976.
The most recent version of the idea, the one that led to the "Oslo Accords", was brought to life by Beilin who subsequently pursued it for a year at a Norwegian university through the offices of Terje Roed Larsen, a social scientist who had been doing research on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Another version of the official version of how Oslo began is that it was the result of a chance meeting in a hotel in Oslo between representatives of the PLO and Yair Hirshfeld and Ron Pundak- two unknown Israeli academics who happened to be staying at the hotel. Due to that chance meeting, the "Oslo Agreements" were said to have evolved as Pundak and Hirshfeld (who held no standing whatsoever in the Israeli government) hammered out an agreement with these PLO officials and then presented it to the Labor party or ratification.

Neither story is the truth.

The origins of Oslo are in January 1990, when the then Science Minister later to become President, Ezer Weizman meets with PLO officials in London. He told Labor party head Shimon Peres, who was then a member of the National Unity Government, about the meetings. Peres knew then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir would not go along with it, so Peres engineered a coalition. When the "Baker plan" came up in February l990 it demanded that Jerusalem was put up for negotiations, which Shamir couldn't accept. On January 17th, l992, US Secretary of State James Baker tells Hosni Mubarak that the American government would begin a campaign to force Israel into freezing settlements, and that the Bush administration would oppose Israel's request to receive $10 billion in US loan guarantees. New elections were held in June l992 which swept the Labor to power under Yitzhak Rabin.

What is absent from this story is "Beilin and Peres' stinky deal". It went like this:

Starting in June 1991, Peres had sent Yossi Beilin to Egypt four times to make an agreement with the PLO. At the King Hotel in Cairo, Beilin offered Said Kamal and Mahmud Abbas, two Arafat aides, a deal; in return for the PLO shifting Arab-Israeli votes to Labor in the upcoming national elections, the Labor party would cancel the law which forbids meetings with the PLO, freeze Jewish settlements, and give recognition to something close to a state. The meetings were reported in the Israeli daily Hadashot by Arab affairs analyst, Yehoshua Mieri, and by two Egyptian newspapers, Al-Gomhouriya and Al-Wafd.

After Rabin's election victory, Arafat invited the leaders of the three radical Arab-Israeli political parties to Cairo and called for the delegates and the politicians to close ranks behind one united pro-PLO party that would vote on mass for Labor. This made the difference on June 23rd, 1992, in effect putting Rabin into power. On November 25th, just five months after the Labor party was placed back into power based on their support from the Israeli Arabs, Justice Minister David Libai introduced into the cabinet a bill to rescind the law banning Israelis from meeting with representatives of the PLO.

It is believed that those secret talks were arranged by members of the Council on Foreign Relations. In an interview with journalist Yitzhak Ben Horin of Maariv in January l996, Council on Foreign Relations point man on Israeli affairs, Canadian billionaire Edgar Bronfman, boasts using his influence to secure Rabin's election in l992, adding: "Usually I believe Americans should not interfere with the Israeli election infrastructure but in this case I broke my rule because I believed in the peace process." 

Officially, Israel was not publicly involved in a "peace process" until late August l993.


February 1993:

According to the Lebanese publication, El-Kifach Al Arabi, secret talks are underway between PLO officials and the Israeli government in Paris and London. The French magazine Le Canard Enchaine revealed that French experts will be in charge of establishing a Palestinian police force to secure an autonomy arrangement in the West Bank and Gaza. The agreement was reached in November l992 in a series of meetings in London under the auspices of the American government. One of the reasons the talks continued in secret is because Israel wanted to have already concluded an agreement with the PLO before the negotiations are made public.In a May l995 report in an Israeli newspaper, Oslo negotiator Ron Pundak revealed that the US State Department "was in on the secret process from day one."
A secret clause to the Oslo Accords, authored by then Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin, was entitled: "The Palestine Interim Self-Government Agreement".

It explains how the ultimate aims of the peace process are to:
1) roll back Israel's territory to the l949 borders;
2) to create a Palestinian "entity", which, after an interim period will be granted statehood; and
3)to permit the right of return for any Palestinian to the new nation.


The document which dealt with Jerusalem, called: "The Illegitimacy of Israeli Sovereignty Over Jerusalem," outlines the Israeli government's program for the future of Jerusalem. It called for the division of the Old City into cantons whose border posts will be under UN control. The Plan also wanted to work towards the removal of all Jews from beyond the Green line, to be done in stages. The first stage would be the disarming of the settlers. Once the settlers become less able to defend themselves, army presence on the roads leading to their homes will be greatly diminished leading to heavy terrorist casualties and a feeling of fear and helplessness. As part of this program, a "dehumanizing" effort would take place to paint the residents of the territories as fanatics" as they were against the peace process. Once such an image had been planted, the settlers would no longer be identified by most Israelis as one of them and it would be easier to break their morale to resist.

Three days before the Washington signing of the Oslo Accords on September 10th, 1993, Prime Minister Rabin ratified a decision made earlier allowing 187 members of the Hamas leadership deported to Lebanon to return home to the West Bank and Gaza three months early. Though Rabin had stated publicly that week that Hamas could scuttle the agreement with the PLO, he nevertheless strengthened the organization by placing its strategic leadership in the battlefront. In Kiryat Shemona hundreds of demonstrators pelted the busloads of deportees with rocks. With absolutely no protest from any wing of the political establishment in effect, Rabin's decision put in place the series of events that led to the wave of deadly terror that Israel's civilian population is experiencing ten years later.

Security Affairs:

February 1993:

Arafat flew to Khartoum from Amman where he attends two meetings with Osama Ben Laden and Hassan Atourbi, leader of the Sudanese Islamic Fundamentalist Movement. The plan to bomb the World Trade Center in l993 was hatched there with Arafat's approval.


June 1993:

Egypt agreed to establish courses for hundreds of Palestinians from the territories to team them how to administrate law enforcement activities. More than 50 Palestinians will be sent to Egypt to learn how to become police captains. The Egyptians warned that if the Palestinians don't act soon, they won't have any trained personnel to run a country.


August 1993:

For the first time Arabs gathered at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem heard the assistant mufti, Sheikh Mahmud Aljemal, call for the killing of all Israeli Jews. The police had taped these comments but refused to hand them over to the office of the state legal advisor, Yosef Harish when National Religious Party MK Hanan Porat demanded that Harish charge Aljemal for incitement to murder. Nonetheless, in the previous six months 25 mosques were closed down by Israeli authorities after routine searches uncovered inciteful recordings by Islamic Fundamentalist leaders.


November l993:

Colonel Ron Naveh of Acharei forms an organization just after the Oslo accords were signed on Sept 13th composed of Israel Defence Forces officers who refuse to do reserve duty in protest over the agreement. Naveh predicted: "The agreement is a disaster for the security of Israel and our only reply is not to serve under the government which arranged it." Nine months later in May 1994, dozens of IDF officers signed a protest advertisement that appeared in Israeli newspapers. The public notice read: "The surrender to terror is the only achievement of the negotiations with the PLO, which threaten our survival. Shaking hands with terrorists means terror has won. Arafat represents his own interests and will never fight for the security of Israel."
December, l993: Israel Defence Ministry's urges the Israeli negotiating team with the PLO to demand a detailed report of every weapon held by PLO personnel in the territories, now and every year after. It also demanded a joint committee of the PLO and the Mossad to fight terrorism, and the names and locations of terrorists responsible for 14 of the most serious PLO attacks.

Secret Diplomacy:

September 10th:

Three days before the signing of the Oslo Accords in Washington, the Italian newspaper La Stampa reported that Foreign Minister Shimon Peres concluded a secret deal with the Vatican to hand over sovereignty of Jerusalem's Old City to the Vatican. The plan was originally discussed in November 1992 (the same time the first meetings in London took place to discuss an agreement between Israel and the PLO, which were probably arranged by Council on Foreign Relations executive, Edgar Bronfman) when then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres met with Vatican officials in Rome. Under the plan, Jerusalem will stay the capital of Israel but the Old City will be administered by the Vatican. Arafat agreed not to oppose the plan. The plan also calls for Jerusalem to become the second Vatican of the world with all three major religions represented but under the authority of the Vatican.


October 1993:

Peres sends a letter to the Norwegian Foreign Minister committing Israel to respect PLO governing institutions in Jerusalem. Peres later denied that such a letter existed, much to the chagrin of Cabinet whip Moshe Shachal, who transmitted Peres' message to the Knesset and was furious when the government later admitted that such a letter was actually sent. In response to the revelation of the letter, Peres told the Knesset


If you are insinuating that we would ever divide Jerusalem, then that's an ugly slander


November l993:

In a report in the weekly newspaper Kol Ha'ir, it was revealed that: "for the past six months, the Israeli government has been taking advice on the future of Jerusalem from a planning commission headed by a close aide of Teddy Kollek, Raanan Weitz, formerly the settlement director of the Jewish Agency. At a secret meeting on September 9, 1993, one day before Prime Minister Rabin signed the recognition agreement with the PLO in Israel, the forum met secretly and approved in principle a plan for Jerusalem concocted by Weitz, which he calls, "Metropolitan Jerusalem."


December 1993:

In a Knesset debate on the security situation in the territories, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres announced, " When a Palestinian state in Gaza is established, it will take care of security." Members of the opposition were shocked, believing that Peres had finally admitted publicly the ultimate goal of his agreements with the PLO. After the Knesset session turned into an uproar, Peres backtracked, claiming he had meant to say, 'Palestinian police force,' not 'Palestinian state.' Many opposition MKs were convinced that Peres had already promised the PLO a state and this was Peres' confession, whether intended or not.

Year 2...1994
Palestinian Affairs:

January l994:

Achmad Awad, leader of the Black Panther militia of the PLO, asks the court to subpoena Yasir Arafat as a witness for his defence. Awad was being tried for the murders of sixteen people and for being an accessory in the deaths of ten others. Awad's defence was that them murderers were the result of direct orders from Arafat. His attorney presented faxes to the court from Arafat to Awad ordering executions of alleged Palestinian collaborators.


February 1994:

PLO members throughout the territories met secretly to discuss the mental state of their leader. They reached the conclusion that years of intrigue and assassination attempts have taken their toll. In Lebanon, PLO chief there, Monir Makdakh, refuses to acknowledge Arafat's right to lead the PLO and call the shots. Makdakh told reporters that he will not lay down his arms. He predicted a schism will create two PLOs, one committed to war on Israel's northern frontier and another within the autonomous regions purportedly dedicated to snuffing out Palestinian violence against Israelis with its police force. Makdakh has little faith in the Palestinian police force's resolve to stop any future bloodshed, adding: "Lots of my supporters have been placed in this police force. They will act as I see fit not as Arafat tells them to."


March l994:

Moshe Sasson, autonomy advisor for The Ministry of Police, confirmed to the Israeli press that an Israeli cabinet minister had been meeting with Hamas leaders on behalf of the Israeli government. It was believed to be Yossi Sarid. According to Sasson: "Some Hamas people want to be in line when we start handing out the fruits of autonomy. We are cultivating them."
The first meeting took place before the declaration of principles between Israel and the PLO was signed in September l993. At its conclusion, cash was given to the Hamas representatives in order to buy them into supporting autonomy and moderation. Israeli officials behind the policy see it as working. They point to the Hamas decision not to attack the PLO violently as a sign that the organization is coming around to the latter's way of thinking. They believe the wave of attacks against Jews since September is a temporary phenomenon that will end once full autonomy is instituted.


April 1994:

According to an arms dealer in Gaza, since the September 13th signing of the Declaration of Principles, the residents of Gaza have been arming themselves. He says smuggling guns from Israel became infinitely easier as 75% of all Gazans homes now conceal a weapon. This has caused the price of a pistol to rise from $1,300 in l992 to $3,600 in l994.
May l994: Faisal El-Huseini, the PLO's head in Jerusalem, says he believes that the new police force created by the Palestinian Authority might need some help to maintain order. If that is the case, an armed
militia, whose members are all Fatah supporters, are ready for action if Israeli authorization for the fledging Palestinian police is delayed for any reason.


June l994:

Talks between the PLO and Hamas over the administration of Gaza were completed. Hamas agreed not to oppose the PLO takeover of Gaza in return for sharing power. In return, Hamas activists received a significant number of jobs including posts in the Palestinian police force. Hamas also was allowed to have members of its assassination squad, Az Adin El Kasam, to be included in the Palestinian constabulary.


September l994:

Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasir Arafat sends a telegram to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein assuring him that the fight for Palestine had just begun and would not end until there was a victory in Jerusalem. There was no protest from the Prime Minister or any member of the Israeli government to his remarks.


October l994:

Graduates of training courses who are supposed to serve as policemen in Gaza and Jericho are operating out of the Orient House. The policemen boasted to the Palestinian press that: "We are really not policemen, rather feyadeen, and Jericho is our new base for capturing the rest of Palestine." Shared patrols by the IDF and the Palestinian police have become a fiasco. Commenting on why his jeep drove so far behind that of the Palestinian police, one Israeli soldier said: "We don't know when they are going to start shooting at us. It's a just a matter of time until they do."


October 1994:

Israel's internal security force, the Shabak, has had to increase its anti-Hamas operations in light of the recent fracture in the organization. Hamas in the northern West Bank is allied with the Lebanese Hizbullah and are the most radical of the factions. Hamas in Jerusalem and Bethlehem is tied to the Moslem Brotherhood of Jordan and is considered the most moderate faction. In Gaza and Hebron, Hamas leaders get their funding and orders from the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt.


November 1994:

Two Palestinian terrorists who kill two Israelis on a shooting spree in downtown Jerusalem, are found to have suspicious pasts. The first was a Palestinian Authority policeman holding weaponry supplied by Israel. The second arrived in Gaza via Egypt on July 14th. Found in his pocket were a list of operational commands including an order to "contact the Egyptian ambassador."

Secret Diplomacy:

April l994:

Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Shmuel Meir tells the Jerusalem press that he had received information that properties promised to the Vatican in Jerusalem would be granted extraterritorial status. (In early 1996 Meir was killed in a very suspicious car crash whereby the driver who drove a UN truck into Meir's car was not even charged.)
The plan for the dividing of Jerusalem would have the complete support of his planning organization, "The Jerusalem Forum." It is believed that the plan was drafted according to the wishes of the Vatican. Three weeks before the Cairo Agreement was signed, Peres and Arafat meet secretly in Bucharest, Rumania, with the Iranian Foreign Minister. Arafat was given pledges by Peres that the sovereignty of Jerusalem will be shared by the PLO and Israel. Peres also agreed to increase the size of the Palestinian police force to include 500 Sudanese trained by Islamic fundamentalists, and acquiesced completely on the right of return for all Palestinians to currently disputed areas, including Jerusalem.


November 13th, l994:

The Israeli newspapers Haaretz, Maariv and The Jerusalem Post report that David Rockefeller, the chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, landed at Jerusalem's Atarot Airport for a 12 hour secret visit with former mayor Teddy Kollek. Shortly after Rockefeller left Israel, Kollek flew to Cairo for the first time ever, met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Omar Mussa and presented him with his plan for Jerusalem's future. According to this plan, the city would be divided into quarters, each with its own separate governing body.


November l994:

Israel signs a peace treaty with Jordan which, according to reports in Haaretz, Maariv, and Yediot Achronot, included secret clauses concerning water and Jerusalem. The agreement had been negotiated in London eight months before between Rabin, King Hussein, and Lord Victor Mishcon, an attorney who represents much of British royalty as well as the Jordanian monarch. As part of the agreement, Jordan would receive control over the Islamic Holy sites within a Vatican-controlled Old City of Jerusalem.

Year 3, 1995
Palestinian Affairs:

March l995:

The Israeli government agrees that Palestinians would now be able to travel freely within Israel. Under the terms of the agreement, Palestinian Authority officials travelling between Gaza and Jericho will pass through Hebron and Jerusalem with their bodyguards fully armed beside them. Although Prime Minister Rabin initially told the country that the PLO would be allowed 9,000 policemen to protect Arafat and wipe out anti-Israeli terrorism, within two years 25,000 "policemen" were roaming the streets of the Gaza Strip. Many were fully trained terrorists imported from North Africa, Lebanon, Iraq an Yemen. They had no interest in arresting other terrorists and allowed the to train under their noses.


May l995:

Over a thousand PLO policemen roam the streets of Jericho and many residents of this once peaceful city of 12,000 want them out. They are accused of killing, raping and looting at will and with impunity and citizens are frightened to leave their homes.


June l995:

Speaking before members of the Weizmann Institute, then Deputy IDF Chief-of-Staff Matan Vilanai announced: "The Palestinians hate us like death and they don't consider someone who murders Israelis a criminal." (Vilani would later served as a minister in Ehud Barak's government.)


July l995:

Jibril Rajoub's personal bodyguards stand trial in Israel for kidnapping two Jerusalem Arabs at gunpoint to bring them to a PLO investigation.


September l995:

Israel suffers from enormous acts of sabotage from the PLO and the government covered each one up. Fires raged in July as Peres and Arafat were rushing to meet the deadline for the agreement on the second stage of the autonomy talks. Environment Minister Yossi Sarid and Police Minister Moshe Shachal conducted furious negotiations with the PLO on the morning of July 2nd beseeching Arafat not to allow any Palestinian group to take responsibility for the fires and in return he would get his agreement the next day. Labor feared that if the PLO or any Palestinians were blamed for the fire in the Jerusalem Forest it would cause their fall from power and the end of the peace process


October, 1995:

Nadav Haetzni of Maariv writes: "Arabs throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem dread the day the PLO takes over their cities and towns. One PLO supporter said: "The PLO have no sense of justice, no courts, no legal system. They will shake us down and ruin our businesses."
November, 1995: Two days before Rabin's death two car bombs exploded. Yediot Ahronot and Israeli TV reported that the car bombs were assembled in front of the PLO's border policemen and were allowed to pass through their checkpoints. This was said to be the latest example of collusion between the PLO and the "radical" camp.


November l995:

Before Israel releases Palestinians held in prisons to the PA, they must sign a document promising to support the peace process and never engage in terrorism again. Jamal Sakawi, who was sentenced to 24 years for attempted murder and released as part of the Oslo 2 agreement summed up the document this way: "It was just a piece of paper. I signed it to get out of there. In practise it means nothing. There is no peace, only terror."

Secret Diplomacy:

June l995:

The Jordanian newspaper Taot A-Shaab reported that Hamas leader Dr. Musa Abu Marzuk, flew to Washington for secret negotiations with the US. In the report, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak confirmed the secret channel adding that the Americans are also conducting secret negotiations with the Moslem Brotherhood, believing that the Americans want to cover their bets in case either Arafat or Mubarak are overthrown.

Year 4, 1996
Palestinian Affairs:

May 1996:

The Saudi newspaper Al Hayat reported that Arafat had cut a deal with Hamas in March. The terms were that if the organization stopped terrorist activities until after the Israeli elections, he would release hundreds of Hamas prisoners from his jails. Once the election were over, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Mustapha Mashor, said that Arafat told him he would be releasing hundreds of Islamic Jihad and Hamas prisoners to open a new terror front against Israel.


August 1996:

Israel TV commentator Ehud Yaari notes that corruption and violence have become so intolerable that Arab leaders in Hebron have appealed to the IDF not to withdraw from the city. Khalad Abu-Tuoma, an Arab reporter for the weekly Jerusalem newspaper, Yerushalayim, writes that "PLO policemen are torturing Palestinians with dual Israeli citizenship. Kol Ha'air reported on Zakhi Nakhas, deputy mayor of Albira, who had been held and tortured for three weeks by the PLO's intelligence force for the crime of being appointed by the Israeli-established municipal council.


December l996:

Eitan Rabin of Haaretz reports that cooperation between Israeli and PLO intelligence forces have broken down in the wake of the discovery by the Israelis of a secret and most sensitive operation. Called Operation Thorn Field, it was devised by officers of the Palestinian policy force as a plan to entice Israeli soldiers into a shooting war: Rabin writes: "Israel will be forced to reenter Palestinian cities, and when she does, Jordanian and Egyptian forces will enter the fray."

Security Affairs:

May l996:

The Director of the CIA, George Tenet, appoints former CIAdirector, John Deutsch, to be his liaison between Israel and the PLO. Then Prime Minister Shimon Peres assented to the PLO sending 40 "policemen" for an advanced CIA marksmanship course in Virginia. The CIA-trained hit squad's mission was to eliminate Jewish leaders of Judea, Samaria and Gaza and spreading mass demoralization as a prelude to removing the residents of these areas from their homes. PLO Security Chief Jibril Rajoub was in charge of the operation. The official reason for the creation of the Palestinian sniper squad was to eliminate Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists. John Deutsch and George Tenet are both members of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Secret Diplomacy:

February l996:

A delegation from the Vatican met with PLO Religious Affairs Minister Hassan Tahbob in Jerusalem. Head of the Vatican delegates, Father Serge Sebastian, Secretary General of the Vatican, announced that the Holy See recognizes PLO sovereignty over East Jerusalem. During that same month after Shimon Peres had replaced Yitzhak Rabin as Israel's prime minister, Internal Security Minister Moshe Shachal refused to allow a Palestinian Authority meeting at the Vatican's Notre Dame Hospice in Jerusalem. According to Shachal, the Palestinians were planning to "use the Vatican to circumvent the Oslo Accords."


March l996:

The Israeli daily business newspaper, Globes, reports in a four part series of articles proving Israel has legal title to 20,000 acres of Syrian land much of it in the Golan. The land was legally purchased by Baron Rothschild in the 1890s and less then legally confiscated by the Syrian government in 1942. The Baron transferred the deeds to the Jewish National Fund in l957.

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