Amos Oz Quotes
It's possible a Palestinian state will be installed over the heads of the Palestinians. It could be part of an agreement between the Israeli government and moderate Arab states, but not one between Israel and the Palestinians.
Oz, Amos. Dear Zealots: Letters from a Divided Land. Translated by Jessica Cohen, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018.
Jerusalem has been disputed by the Israelis and the Arab nations surrounding the city. Both want it as their capital, and both have historic and religious claims on it. When Jerusalem was under Arab control. However no Jew was allowed in the City, even to pray at the holiest of Jewish places, the Western Wall. When Israil gained control, there has been not only free access for Muslims, but they gave the Muslims control over the Temple Mount--holy to both religions. So for Rabin, if Israell does not control the city, Jews will not have access as has been shown by recent history, and the United Nations has deminstrated so often, they will not use force to maintain their committments to protect people or assure access to areas.
The Palestinians were split between supporters of Hamas and Fatah. The former was a terrorist organization which refused to recognize the right of Israel to exist and whose charter called for the killing of all Jews. The latter, accepted the right of Israel to exist and was committed to peace and coexistence with the Jewish state. They had fought a civil war and Hamas controlled Gaza with well over 1 million people which they seized for force and killed of forced out Fatah Representatives. Fatah was the elected ruling party of the West Bank, the larger and more populous of the Palestinian territories. There was little chance of any peace given that split. However, Israel which had undergone over 7000 rockets fired upon them by Hamas, stated that they refused to negotiate with the Palestinians as long as the Hamas terrorists were a part of the control of the potential Palestinian state. They would only discuss a 2 state solution if Hamas agreed that they accepted the right of Israel to exist in their general territory as a Jewish State, Hamas would accept and follow previous agreements made with the Palestinians, and Hamas would give up terrorism and the objective of killing Jews. So either Hamas would have to change its policies or Israel would negotiate with an organization that claimed it would never accept the existence of that country as a Jewish state. Al-Masri thought that the agreement he had mediated, was a necessary first step and was constructive for all the parties.
This resolution has never been rescinded. Some Arab states have abandoned this resolution and negotiated peace and recognition such as Egypt. The majority of the Arab States did and do not want peace with Israel. They did and do not want to recognize Israel and they did and do not want to negotiate. But they often blame Israel for being intransigent in the peace process. Many Arabs want a peace treaty and want to negotiate but the extreme rejectionists generally dominate Arab politics.
At that time the Israelis had been rebuffed after offing several major peace proposals and most were convinced that the Palestinians were so fractionated that no one would dare sign a peace even giving Palestinians their own state and sharing Jerusalem as the capital. So they just organized around security needs and walling Israel off from terrorist attacks while maintaining the occupation until something radially changes amongst the Palestinians. The Palestinians and the other Arabs did not want to negotiate either as they felt so weak that they believed they could never get decent terms, and they hoped for some military or terrorist victories where the Israelis would make large concessions to a strong opponent. At the same time there were a few ultra-orthodox Jews who did not want a peace and wanted to do what conquering nations had done throughout history—annex more conquered territory. There were a number of Arab groups, in addition to some Palestinians who did not want a peace at all, as for them there was no satisfactory solution so long as there was a Jewish state in their midst. See {632822} for more on the Israeli attitude then.
“Oslo” was a peace conference where the Israelis agreed to give the Palestinians more control over West Bank land in exchange for Palestinian renouncing of terrorism and violence. The Palestinian government was either too weak to expel or arrest the terrorists or unwilling to do so. In either case, Israel had a much harder time coping with terrorism which took Israeli lives and sense of security. A similar thing happened when the Israelis withdrew from the West Bank. Many Israelis thereafter did not want to consider allowing the Palestinians to control any more land, making a two state solution virtually untenable.
Amos Oz was an Israeli writer, novelist, journalist, and intellectual. He was also a professor of Hebrew literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. From 1967 onwards, Oz was a prominent advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
