Al Jazeera - The Price of Oslo Documentary (2013)

Speaker 1: أصله لم يتضمن لا كلمة إنهاء الاحتلال، إنهاء الاستيطان ولا كلمة دولة فلسطينية مستقلة.

Ron Pundik: Paris wanted to see a Palestinian state in Gaza and an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian condominium in the West Bank.

Speaker 3: It is not possible for a small country like Norway to play an It has to be a role according to Israel's rules of the game.

Speaker 4: Present at the signing ceremony was former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, chief architect of the peace between Egypt and Israel. Kissinger's approach was to make only small demands and to build from there. Arafat picked up on this step-by-step strategy, and as early as 1974, his Palestinian Liberation Organization, PLO, approved a plan to aim for a foothold in the region, administered by a Palestinian Authority, rather than historic Palestine. In the same year, the Arab League summit officially designated the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.

Speaker 1: حق منظمة التحرير في أن تقود النظام الشعب الفلسطيني. نقترب أكثر من نهج الواقعية، وهذا حتى أكون أمين للتاريخ كان نهج ياسر عرفات اللي كانوا يسموه وقتها يعني يعطوه كل الألقاب مرة يسموه انتهازي مرة يسموه براجماتي أكثر من اللازم.

Speaker 4: In 1974, Arafat, known to his colleagues as Abu Amar, addressed. For the Palestinians, and for the PLO, the event represented recognition for the Palestinian struggle. إنها لمناسبة هامة أن يعود بحث قضية فلسطين إلى هيئة الأمم المتحدة. The PLO gained stature at the UN, but it continued to reject Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. The resolutions demanded that Israel withdraw within what was called secure and recognized borders. But they did not precisely require Israel to withdraw to all land it occupied before the Six-Day War in 1967.

Speaker 1: As far as the United States is concerned, any peace negotiations must be based on Security Council resolutions 242 and 338. We would strongly oppose any attempt to change.

Speaker 4: These two resolutions were the framework for the 1978 Camp David Accords. The Accords called not for a Palestinian state, but for what was termed Palestinian autonomy.

Yasser Arafat: بعهد بيجن عام 1977 اللي اقترح حكم ذاتي للفلسطينيين وعاصمة الحكم الذاتي بيت لحم وقوة شرطية تسليحة.

Speaker 6: أدرك الإسرائيليون منذ ذلك الوقت أنه قد يأتي اليوم الذي سوف يتفاوض فيه الإسرائيليون مع الفلسطينيين لإقامة حكم ذاتي.

Speaker 4: From its stronghold in South Lebanon in 1977, the PLO decided to explore the possibility of talks with Israel.

Speaker 1: أخذنا أول مرة قرارات بأنه نبدأ حوار ولقاءات.

Speaker 4: مع أطراف إسرائيلية حقيقة كان أبو عمار بسانت هذا التوجه بقوة وكان في آخرين في قيادة المنظمة بأيدوا مثل هذا التوجه بقوة محمود عباس says in his book The Secret Channels that this dialogue was with the Israeli forces that supported peace and with the Sephardic Jews. In March 1978, Israel invaded South Lebanon. The United Nations responded by deploying a peacekeeping force into South Lebanon.

Jan Egeland: Known as UNIFIL, part of this force was I had visited for the first time as part— as a Norwegian soldier, visiting the UNIFIL forces in Lebanon. I came with friends through Israel.

Speaker 4: The Norwegian battalion chief took some days later the rest of the force to Israel. Grupper av palestinske gerillasoldater har forsøkt å trenge gjennom de norske FN-stillingene, hittil uten særlig held.

Speaker 8: Norge har bidratt med ca. 1000 soldater. Og selvfølgelig var sikkerheten for disse soldaterne en veldig viktig bekymring for oss. Vi var en av de første vestlige landene som etablerte det vi beskrev på den tiden som arbeidskontakter. With the PLO, in that context, Mr. Knut Frydenlund, who was the minister for affairs— Thorvald Stoltenberg was the deputy minister, state secretary— he followed the situation very closely at the time.

Thorvald Stoltenberg: No one is afraid of Norway, and that's the gift. What makes us weak in the traditional meaning is our strength.

Speaker 10: When it comes to serve the peace, كانت النرويج بلد صهيوني بامتياز بدليل إنه من داخل البرلمان بهذاك الوقت كان أعضاء البرلمان مية سبعة وخمسين عضو سبعة وثمانين عضو منهم كانوا بجمعية اسمها جمعية تصدقاء إسرائيل النرويج صدقيني كان أصعب دولة في العالم أصعب من أمريكا لاستقبال الفلسطينيين كان في شخصيات موجودة في الحكومة. وفي الجيش وفي الأجهزة الأمنية مستعدة أن تخدم إسرائيل لا لشيء فقط خدمة لإسرائيل يعني بدون أي مقابل.

Speaker 3: Norway was more supportive of Israel than many of the others, and I think that than any of the other European states. There are several reasons reasons, but one of the most important was that. The Norwegian Labour Party and the Norwegian Trade Union, they saw this State of Israel as a socialist experiment, almost a kind of social democratic social state like the one we have in Norway.

Speaker 4: In the late 1970s, there was a common bond of socialist ideology. between Norway's Labour Party and its namesake in Israel. One of the key players in this special relationship was a prominent Labour Party member of Norway's parliament, Johan Jørgen Holst.

Speaker 8: Mr. Holst was the first person at the political level to meet Mr. Arafat. He was deputy minister and state secretary in Of the Ministry of Defense. He came to Beirut and traveled on to Israel in July, I think it was, in '79. He met with Yasser Arafat, and Yasser Arafat invited the whole group to a very pleasant dinner. Mr. Holst had very close contact with the Israelis. And that that aspect of Mr. Hoffs made him even more interesting to Mr. Arafat. As Mr. Arafats interest in Norway was really over contacts with Israel.

Yasser Arafat: Også ved at det har fått veltet innover seg hele konflikten i Midtøsten, så før man har fått en mer almindelig løsning på Midtøsten-konflikten, er det vanskelig å se at man skal få en endelig og varig løsning.

Speaker 11: Besøkte vi Hoffs kontakttok en. نائب وزير دفاع وجاء إلى بيروت وزارة مؤسسة صامد التي كنت أنا مسؤول عنها حينما زار قواتهم الموجودة في جنوب لبنان.

Speaker 4: In 1979, the Shah of Iran fled into exile. Israel lost an ally and a major oil supplier. The United States asked Norway to guarantee to sell its Concerned about repercussions for its UN troops in Lebanon, Norway sent its diplomat, Hans Longva, to seek assurances from Arafat.

Speaker 8: Mr. Arafat, after reflecting only for a few split seconds, he said, I will have no objection to such a Norwegian guarantee to Israel. On one condition: when I need a secret back channel to Israel, you provide it.

Speaker 4: Yasser Arafat wanted the Norwegians to act as intermediary between himself and Israel.

Speaker 3: Norwegians and the Norwegian government were just shocked to hear the message coming back from Arafat. So from 1979. And every year from there onwards, the Norwegians tried to set up a secret back channel between the PLO and Israel. But Israel were absolutely not willing at all to listen to anything that a Norwegian could come up with from Arafat and the PLO.

Speaker 4: In 1982, The PLO lost its base in Lebanon. Palestinian fighters were forced to depart following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon 3 months earlier.

Speaker 8: Get down! Get down!

Speaker 4: A U.S.-brokered deal led to Arafat and his entourage moving to Tunisia.

Thorvald Stoltenberg: It was actually an invitation from Arafat to my predecessor as foreign minister, Knut Fridolin. And myself, I had been defense minister. And we went in 1982— Oh, I see. —for New Year's Eve. With Arafat in Tunis at that time. Arafat asked us directly if we could help him getting a direct contact between PLO and the Israeli Labor Party. And I was, at that time, a member of the assembly of the Socialist International. And it turned out to be a strong interest in the Socialist International for trying to contribute to normalisation of the relationship between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

Speaker 4: To help with his charm offensive, Arafat turned to senior PLO member Issam Sattawi, to act as his main go-between.

Thorvald Stoltenberg: Arafat appointed Dr. Sartawi, and he came here, visited me, because I should take care of this from the Norwegian side. And I had a very good impression of him.

Speaker 11: I believe that the PLO has been the greatest achievement of our suffering people.

Thorvald Stoltenberg: I believe that the PLO is the most And then we should meet in Albufeira. There was— the Socialist International had its assembly meeting in Albufeira, in Portugal. And then there was some shooting, suddenly. And we rushed out in the lobby. And there was— there was Sartori, Dr. Sartori, killed. And then you went to the funeral?

Speaker 4: Isam Sartawi lay where he'd been killed by a lone gunman who pumped 5 shots into his chest. It has never been clearly verified who ordered the assassination of Sartawi, but the motive appears to be because he was talking to the Israelis on Arafat's behalf.

Yasser Arafat: Dr. Sartawi took his own position. He did swim against the stream.

Jan Egeland: in face of great objection and danger.

Speaker 4: Arafat continued a double game. On the one hand, seeking discreet diplomatic channels to Israel via the Norwegians, while on the other hand, publicly maintaining a revolutionary rhetoric.

Speaker 10: قال لي هذه فاتحة خير يا عمر بديك بهدوء تشتغل مع ستولتنبرغ تحديداً بهدوء إلى أن يعني لكن بدك تكون عارف أنه الشغلة ليست سهلة لأنه ستولتنبرغ ما زال عنده مواقف داعمة لإسرائيل حزب العمال ما زال حزبًا داعمة لإسرائيل لكن نحن يعني هدفنا أن نبدأ بأن نجعلهم أصدقائنا أيضاً وبعدين بطلوا على معلوماتنا نحن نحن المهم نعطيهم معلومات رئيس أبو عمار كان يعطيني معلومات باستمرار وكنت أوصلها للخارجية بعدما استلم ستولتنبرغ.

Speaker 4: Twenty years on, Thorvald Stoltenberg will not betray the secrecy of conversations between the PLO and Israel. We tried to prepare.

Thorvald Stoltenberg: for contact and negotiations between the PLO authorities and the Israeli Labor Party. We started there. And we would very much like to try to follow up.

Speaker 12: Whom were the people from the Israeli Labor Party that you were contacting, Mr.

Thorvald Stoltenberg: Shimon Peres or other people? No, I promised never to tell anyone. I have not told anyone. And I'm not even telling you. No, I, I did— part of my success in life is not coming from what I say, but from all the things I didn't say.

Speaker 4: In the mid-'80s, the Labour Party in Israel formed a coalition government with Yitzhak Shamir's Likud Party. Shamir gave a nod and a wink for Likud member Moshe Amarav to hold secret talks with Palestinian politician Faisal al-Husseini in Jerusalem. Discussion centered on PLO recognition of Israel, autonomy on the West Bank, and a federal relationship with Jordan. The so-called Amir al-Husseini Plan became a model for the subsequent Oslo Accords years later. But all that was soon dwarfed by the outbreak of the First Intifada, A Palestinian uprising which took both Israel and the PLO by surprise.

Yasser Arafat: Stop the riots and let's talk. باختصار الانتفاضة الشعبية الأولى جعلت الاحتلال يدخل في مرحلة أنه بدأ يخسر، وإسرائيل لا تتحمل خسارة لا الاقتصادية ولا البشرية.

Speaker 4: وعندما يشعر الإسرائيلي أن هناك من يحتل موقع الضحية بدلا منه يفقد صوابه. Palestinian boys throwing stones against Israeli tanks. This David and Goliath contest put the Israelis under great pressure. Time was now of the essence. In an exclusive In an exclusive for Al Jazeera, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry has released highly confidential documents that include a 1988 hand-delivered letter from Foreign Minister Stoltenberg to Israeli Foreign Minister Peres. Stoltenberg wrote that only by relieving itself of the burden of the occupied territories can Israel succeed and prosper.

Yasser Arafat: I am ready to talk with any Palestinian that will renounce terror, that will accept 242 and 338, and recognize Israel. Come and negotiate with us. Then you can claim whatever you want.

Speaker 6: ثمانية وثمانين القيادة الفلسطينية عملت زف مستنعة لكن في الواقع كان ياسر عرفات يريد أن يقول نحن نوافق على القرار مئتين واثنين وأربعين، بس كيف بدي يغلفها؟ إنه بصير عنا دولة، فعمل دولة في الهوى.

Yasser Arafat: قيام دولة فلسطين، أوطار بنا الفلسطينية، أوطار بنا الفلسطينية وعاصمتها القدس الشريف.

Speaker 4: حين توافق.

Speaker 6: سيادة منظمة التحرير على الميتين واثنين وأربعين الذي استطلت تحاربه منذ صدوره في نوفمبر سبعة وستين في الواقع شطب كل شيء في القضية الفلسطينية.

Ron Pundik: Except all United Nations resolutions including two four two and thirty eight, and I accept the international legality.

Yasser Arafat: Who is against international legality?

Speaker 4: فبدأ الاقتراب من المجتمع الدولي الذي كان مقاطعا ومواجها لمنظمة التحرير كمنظمة إرهابية بدأ التعامل يختلف. In 1988, Sweden mediated between the PLO and the United States. A public meeting was held in Stockholm.

Yasser Arafat: PLO Parliament, the Palestinian Parliament, the PNC had accepted. Two states: Palestine State and Jewish State between brackets Israel.

Speaker 4: In his speech to the UN General Assembly in Geneva in 1988, Arafat formally condemned terrorism.

Speaker 1: أبو عمار بخطاب جنيف حكى بشكل مغمخ ما عجبش الأمريكا إنه ما قالش بصراحة أنا أنبذ الإرهاب. فقالوله بتعمل مؤتمر صحفي تاني يوم بجنيف وكان هذا أظن بأربعتاش أتناش تمانية وتمانية وبتقول فيه الكلام الصريح أنا باسم المنظمة تحوير أعلن عن نفذ الإرهاب بالإنجليزي حتى فبالمؤتمر الصحفي بلش أبو عمار مش عارف كيف بدو يقولها، فصار يقول أول إشي I announce terrorism. فهبوا عليه الصحفيين لا مش هيك.

Yasser Arafat: As for terrorism, I announced it yesterday in no uncertain terms. And yet, I repeat for the record, I repeat for the record, that we totally and absolutely renounce all forms of terrorism, all forms of terrorism, including individual—

Speaker 4: Arafat had accepted the Israeli terms to start negotiations.

Yasser Arafat: I repeat, for the record—

Speaker 4: In December 1988, PLO leader Yasser Arafat, known to his colleagues as Abu Ammar, publicly renounced violence.

Yasser Arafat: I renounce all forms of terrorism.

Speaker 4: Over the years, Norway had discreetly been talking to the PLO. With Arafat renouncing violence, Norway was now ready to pay him an official visit at the PLO headquarters in Tunis.

Thorvald Stoltenberg: Tradisjon med et langt og godt forhold til Israel, og i det arbeidet stilte vi to krav til PLO: at de skulle anerkjenne Israel og at de skulle ta avstand fra terrorisme. Det gjorde Arafat. Det var første gang en norsk utenriksminister besøkte PLO. Det var definitivt en suksessfull besøk, for det var en brytning for offisielle kontakter.

Speaker 3: Den samme utenriksministeren, Thorvald Stoltenberg, faderen til Norges premierminister i dag, gikk på en misjon til Arafat. in Tunis in 1989. And at that meeting, they had a secret part that no one knew about.

Speaker 4: The Norwegians worked with Arafat on creating a channel of communication between the PLO and Israel, far from public scrutiny.

Speaker 8: Mr. Arafat, first time, he explained how he saw contacts with Israel being established. And the idea of using a Norwegian research institution was the idea of Mr. Yasser Arafat, which he outlined during that meeting.

Speaker 3: They hadn't planned or decided which research institute in Norway, but they agreed that that would be a good cover. And they also agreed that the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs should pay for it all. That was also agreed in the document.

Speaker 4: FAFO was a think tank in Oslo founded by the trade unions and connected to Norway's Labour Party. It was chosen by the Norwegian foreign minister as the perfect host for secret talks between Israelis and Palestinians. Its director was Tariq Rod Larsen. He would go on to become a key figure in the negotiations that led to the Oslo Accords. With funding from the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, in 1989, FAFO started to undertake research in the Middle East. Its first study examined the living conditions in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Mona Juul: The living conditions in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, condition of young people growing up under the Intifada, what kind of effect on them, maybe more on the sort of mental, psychological effect of growing up in such sort of a violent environment.

Speaker 12: But then it was more a socioeconomic study.

Mona Juul: It turned out to— because that was sort of the specialty of FAFO. And so it turned out to be a little more on the sort of, yeah, more socioeconomic— I mean, unemployment, all these kinds of indicators of socioeconomic life.

Speaker 12: So who were the researchers that worked on this project from Norway?

Mona Juul: Yeah, there were many. One of them that sort of was heading that special service was Marie-Ann Haaberg, who was the wife of— he wasn't at the time, but he later became the Norwegian foreign minister, Johan Jørgen Holst. I was working in the sort of what we call the foreign minister's cabinet or the secretariat. My husband was with FAFO. Jan Egeland var statssekretär.

Jan Egeland: Mona Juhl och jag hade studerat politisk vetenskap vid universitetet. Vi hade varit på skidor tillsammans. Vi hade varit på universitetskampar tillsammans. Och hennes man, Tehered Larsen, kände jag också från hans arbete som akademiker och hans arbete i skapandet av FAFO, den fackliga unionen. Think tank. So these were my friends when I became already when I became the deputy of Torvald Stoltenberg in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Speaker 3: It's often difficult for foreigners to understand that Norway is a very, very small country, and the Labour Party has ruled Norway for the most of the post-war period. So You have connections. You are almost families married together within the Labour Party. Like, almost, we sometimes call it the Royal Labour Party, because they are like a dynasty.

Speaker 4: This dynasty was very tight-knit. Foreign Minister Stoltenberg appointed Jan Egeland as his deputy and Mona Juul as Egeland's secretary. He was married to Tarja Rod Larsen, the director of FAFO. Stoltenberg's sister-in-law was Marianne Heiberg, who worked in FAFO. She was married to Defense Minister Johan Jürgen Holst. This made Holst and the foreign minister, Stoltenberg, brothers-in-law. Holst himself later became foreign minister.

Speaker 14: This extended political family became the Norwegian team in the secret They could use that research institution as a front for diplomatic effort to facilitate peace talks between the 2 parties, and then do that in all secrecy.

Speaker 12: You are very critical about this. Why?

Speaker 14: I think researchers should not usually be in the diplomatic arena. They will take on 2 hats or be in double roles.

Speaker 4: In Tel Aviv, another research institute was also acting as a cover for communication between the Israelis and Palestinians. This was the Economic Cooperation Foundation, set up by Israeli Labour Party MP Yossi Beilin.

Ron Pundik: The NGO that we were leading, Hirschfeld and myself, An NGO which was created earlier by Beilin and Hirschfeld. We were able to go between the 2 sides in Jerusalem and pass messages and come with ideas, and even bring the 2 sides unofficially together under our umbrella of an NGO.

Yossi Beilin: I was involved with talking to the Palestinian side for many years in a very informal way, mainly with people like Hanan Ashrawi and Faisal Husseini. Husseini, from East Jerusalem, and with whom it was easy to talk.

Speaker 4: By 1989, with the Palestinian Intifada in its second year, there were few signs of hope for peace. Hundreds of Palestinians had been killed and thousands detained. When the two met last week, Mr. Bush— The United States, under President George Bush, started to increase the pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

Yasser Arafat: Composed of 2 stages. First stage will be an interim— interim conditions. And this will include the full autonomy, etc. The second stage will be direct negotiations, without any preconditions, between Israel, the Palestinian Arabs and some Arab countries, if they will join the negotiations. We are ready to embark immediately on peace talks. For that purpose, we are ready to hold elections in the administered territories that will produce a democratically chosen representative leadership of the Palestinians.

Speaker 4: Everything changed in the region when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. The United States led a coalition of nations that retaliated against Iraqi forces. Just 2 hours ago, Allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait. These attacks continue as I speak. Arafat rejected a military solution to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

Speaker 8: Before the Gulf War, PLO received big financial support from the Arab Gulf states. After the war, because of Yasser Arafat's support to Saddam Hussein, that financial support disappeared. They came out of the war with no money. That war very weakened. And I think, frankly, that was also one of the reasons why the Israelis were more interested in discussing with them after the Gulf War than before. We, of course, have close relations with the United States of America, with their They lied. They are a friend. And we made no secret of our contacts with the PLO, obviously. And we shared some of our assessment, based on our communications with PLO, with our American friends, yes.

Speaker 4: In the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, the United States and the Soviet Union co-hosted a peace conference in the Spanish capital of Madrid.

Yasser Arafat: We have an opportunity, I think a real opportunity, to see Arabs, Arab states sitting down face to face in direct negotiations with Israel.

Speaker 6: Madrid وكل الشروط التي وضعت وضعتها الحكومة الإسرائيلية بقيادة شامير أيامها إنه ممنوع.

Speaker 1: منظمة التحرير تكون ممثلة ويجب أن يكون الوفد هو من الأراضي الفلسطينية المحتلة أبو عمار ناوى بكل السبل ما نجحناش وكل العرب ياللي بده شيئنا دي يعزلنا ياللي بيقولنا اقبلوا وافقوا المهم انه توضعوا قدم في العملية السياسية إن وافق على المشاركة في مؤتمر مدريد من خلال وفد فلسطيني أو دني مشتاق من أجل الوصول إلى مؤتمر السلام لأن هذا هو الأمر الأول الذي يشغل بالنا.

Speaker 4: The Israelis laid out a fixed negotiating position.

Yasser Arafat: We are the only people. —who have lived in the land of Israel without interruption for nearly 4,000 years.

Speaker 4: Haider Abdushafi led the Palestinians within the joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation at the talks.

Haidar Abdushafi: Palestinian Jerusalem, the capital of our homeland and future state, defines Palestinian existence, past, present and future. The settlements must stop. Now, territory for peace is a travesty when territory for illegal settlement is official Israeli policy and practice.

Speaker 4: The 3-day conference ended with plans for further bilateral and multilateral negotiations between Israel and the Arabs. Documents released after the conference reveal that Shamir thought Madrid a success. And that James Baker said that the U.S. did not support an independent Palestinian state.

Speaker 6: إسرائيليين كانوا واضحين في سلوكهم وتصرفاتهم أنه سوف نتحدث ربما لعشرين عام لا يعنيهم الأمر كثيراً.

Yasser Arafat: Hu kata Adonai.

Speaker 4: Israelis who celebrated the end of Hanukkah in Washington arrived 5 days late, an attempt to make it clear to the United States that they're here on their own terms and won't respond to pressure. After Madrid, negotiations moved to Washington, D.C.

Yasser Arafat: We sincerely feel that our ideas are fully in conformity with the Framework of this process as it was laid ahead, and we speak with a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation.

Speaker 1: Hello.

Yasser Arafat: Good evening, everybody. We met like we met in the morning, the heads of delegations. We discussed the matter of procedures. And we could not reach yet an agreement.

Haidar Abdushafi: The Israeli government shifted unabashed to the intransigent and openly declared position of claiming all Palestinian territory, not conceding anything for the Palestinians, and refusing to recognize Their unity, the unity of the Palestinians inside and outside.

Speaker 6: الذي كان يسيطر على تفكير حيدر عبد الشافي ليلا نهارا وفي كل مرة اجتمعنا وناقشنا واسمعنا لأحاديث رسمية أو جانبية الذي كان يسيطر على تفكيره الاستيطان.

Speaker 3: And the Israelis, David, more and more angry. about these very old, calm, distinguished men talking about settlements. He said, how can we have back Palestine if it's settlements all over? So he had a much more— and the delegation there had a much more straightforward approach to peace.

Speaker 4: For the Palestinians, negotiator Haidar Abdushafi kept the focus of his agenda on one burning issue. The illegal Israeli settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories. By 1991, the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip exceeded 100,000.

Yasser Arafat: ما في شك المستوطنات هي قضية أساسية ومهمة جدا بالنسبة لمسيرة السلام واستمرار بناء المستوطنات أعتقد. أنه يعطي انطباع قوي أن إسرائيل فعلا لا تريد السلام لأن المستوطنات غير شرعية وغير قانونية وعندما فشل الوفد الإسرائيلي في دفع الفلسطينيين في الوفد الرسمي المفاوض إلى المواقف التي يريدها بدأوا يبحثوا عن طرق أخرى.

Ron Pundik: I would say one of the most important messages that we got in our almost daily contacts with Ashrawi and Hussaini and Usayba and Ziyad and all the Palestinian leaders, if PLO will not be involved, there won't be any progress. And more so, Ashrawi and Husseini told us very clear— Kanan Ashrawi and Faisal Husseini, they told us something very, very clear. If you would like to have an agreement with the Palestinians, partner who can make concessions, there's only one address, and this is the PLO.

Yasser Arafat: If the Israelis would like to negotiate with the Palestinians, so they must Negotiate with the representative of the Palestinians.

Speaker 4: The representative of the Palestinians is the PLO.

Yasser Arafat: If they disqualify the PLO, then they're not going to have any Palestinian to talk to.

Speaker 1: مفاوضات واشنطن بدأت تدوفي فراخ وصارت الاجتماعات في واشنطن وكأنها اجتماعات هوتينية تقليدية. وفد واشنطن راجع وفد واشنطن عايد مرة ثانية إلى واشنطن. وبدوه بنفس الكلام، وأيضاً فينا بمفاوضات سرية إنه ندخل بطريقة أكثر عملية وجدية مع الإسرائيليين، وبالنهاية إذا ما وصلنا لشيء ما في شيء بتسجل علينا يعني لأنه هذه مفاوضات سرية مش ملزمة.

Speaker 4: The PLO again approached Norway to open a new and secret channel with the Israelis. In February of 1992, senior PLO official Ahmed Karaya, known as Abu Ala, traveled to Oslo.

Speaker 10: Abu Ala كان بالسويده وجمن السويده لهون روحنا على الخارجية وشوفناهم في الخارجية وطبعا نفس سوجة النظر اللي بديها أبو عمار مع مين اجتمعتوا في الخارجية؟ في الخارجية اجتمعنا مع الوزير الخارجية مع ستوتنبرغ وكان موجود يعني أي كل أنت تذكر كان موجود يعني PLO starts to send signals to us here.

Jan Egeland: Abu Ala comes, that we, Norway, could become their link to Israel, if Israel was interested. Then came Bassam Abu Sharif, and he was even more explicit and said, I am talking directly, I have a message straight from the top, Yasser Arafat.

Thorvald Stoltenberg: Hmm.

Jan Egeland: Norway should try to do this, and it has to be directly linked with PLO Tunis leadership only.

Speaker 4: The minutes of their secret meeting in Oslo reveal that Bassam Abu Sharif told the Norwegians that if there were peace, the PLO would influence the Arab world to stop the boycott of Israel.

Jan Egeland: It takes two to tango. We did not have the Israeli side. I had met Yitzhak Rabin before he was elected, on one of my missions to Israel.

Speaker 12: On April 1992.

Jan Egeland: In April '92, we met Rabin. He came for breakfast in the Norwegian Embassy. And he— we asked him, what is your approach to the Palestinians? And he said, I am keen to see some kind of a negotiated settlement.

Speaker 4: In 1992, the Israeli Labor Party, led by Yitzhak Rabin, won the general election. Rabin continued Israel's policy of settlement building. In public, he spoke optimistically of progress. peace negotiations.

Thorvald Stoltenberg: It will be possible to reach an agreement with the Palestinian delegation about the establishment of autonomy.

Jan Egeland: What will be the first and most important task for a government, for you and your colleagues?

Yasser Arafat: To renew the peace process and to go straight ahead into the autonomy implementation.

Speaker 4: Shimon Peres was appointed foreign minister. Yossi Beilin, here on the left, was appointed his deputy, and Uri Sevir, on the right, their general manager. Beilin was given the green light to start the secret direct negotiations with the PLO in Norway.

Yossi Beilin: The point about Norway was, because Norway was out of the EU, it had Independent foreign policy.

Terje Rød-Larsen: We had meetings with Terje Lausen, with his people, and we had many, many, many meetings, but very little came out of it. But I then started to understand much better the mindset of both parties.

Ron Pundik: Berlin actually told the Norwegians that it's good that they will make contact with Hirschfeld. Later, I joined in order to facilitate, in order to. That, you know, that you'll have like 2 NGOs, 2 non-governmental dialogue. This was the— and we met— Hirsch had met Lawson before. I met him April and later. We found a brother, in a way, a man who thinks very similar to our way of thinking. His wife was the head of the office of the minister and his deputy. And second is, the minister and the deputy were very close friends. Right. Of Larson, all of them from the Labour Party, all old friends.

Yossi Beilin: Mr. Stoltenberg was the foreign minister. I knew him very well, and he was very, very enthusiastic about the process.

Speaker 8: Mr. Stoltenberg met Simon Peres, who was the minister for defense of Israel, in New York at the opening of the General Assembly in September. And in— on the basis of those contacts and follow-up contacts, the— Thoralf Solberg's assessment was that time was ripe to follow up the suggestion of Mr. Arafat.

Speaker 14: The PLO and Arafat were exactly weak enough. So this was exactly the time that the Israelis should choose to start negotiating with PLO outside.

Ron Pundik: PLO, before Oslo, was almost dead.

Speaker 3: Israel was the strong power. And Israel decided who to talk to, when to talk, the terms of the negotiations. They told Norway that Norway They could like it or dislike it. They could do as Israel said— say, or go home.

Speaker 4: A new and self-confident Israeli government, and a PLO still cast as outsiders by the world community. They were now on the secret road to the Oslo Accords. But much would need to happen before the diplomatic finale on the White House lawn. In September 1993, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, also known as Abu Ammar, shook hands on the White House lawn. The negotiations leading here were secret and mediated by Norwegian politicians. The talks were conducted through shadow organisations to maintain secrecy. The Oslo Trade Union think tank FAFO did a study in the early '90s on the living conditions of Palestinians in occupied territories. But it was a cover for these secret negotiations between the PLO and Israel.

Jan Egeland: As part of FAFO's Standards of Living survey that was undertaken in the Palestinian areas, I had authorized money for this project. These were the money that could also fund the talks in Oslo.

Ron Pundik: Oslo would have not started if, for example, FAFO would have not invited us to go to Norway. I presume that if FAFO would say, pay for yourself, Oslo would have not happened. I mean, this is, you know, funny things, but that's life.

Mona Juul: All what we did when it came to stationeries, all the papers were all sort of on FAFO paper, in order to leave no traces of any kind of official Norwegian involvement.

Speaker 8: Thorvald Stoltenberg had decided to use the Norwegian Research Institute, FAFO. Herre Rød Larsen was the head of FAFO at the time. So he also asked me to ask Mr. Arafat to receive Terje Larsen in Tunis.

Terje Rød-Larsen: The parties didn't want to do it directly with the Foreign Ministry, because they wanted to have what they phrased deniability. So, in December 1992, I flew to Tunis and met Arafat.

Speaker 10: سألوا لأبو عمار أسئلة يعني مو بس يعني عن مستقبل القضية الفلسطينية سألوا عن علاقاته مع القيادات العربية وغير العربية يعني كيف بتشوف موقف فلان كيف بتشوف موقف فلان من القضية الفلسطينية كيف بتشوف موقف إيران من القضية الفلسطينية كل بالتفاصيل شو موقف الحركات الإسلامية في العالم يعني وبدأ اللقاء الساعة تسعة مساءً وانتهت التين ونص صباحاً. أبعمر ما بيخل عليه ولا بشواب.

Speaker 4: In this house, 100 kilometers from Oslo near the Swedish border, two Israelis, three Palestinians, and four Norwegians met three times in early 1993. These gatherings led to what later became known as the Oslo Accords.

Ron Pundik: The Oslo negotiations. Actually started with two Israelis. One of them is me; the other is Dr. Yair Hirschfeld. We were two academicians with huge knowledge about the history of the conflict. We will always play as if we are representing Berlin and Paris. I had also my contacts within the Labour Party. I knew Yossi Berlin. I knew Shimon Peres. Shimon Peres was a friend of my parents. So I knew him very well.

Speaker 11: هم كانوا يحاولون أن يقدموا أنفسهم في البداية على أنهم هم أكاديميين لا علاقة لهم في القرار السياسي لكن هم لهم صداقات في مؤسسة الحكم الإسرائيلية. كان الحديث أنه هذا الوفد هو وفد ممثل لمنظمة التحذير الفلسطيني.

Ron Pundik: أبو ألا came with two people that the Norwegians didn't know and thought that they were his bodyguards. But there were— one is Hassan Asfour, who was from the office of Abu Mazen. And second is Maher El-Kurd, Dr. Maher El-Kurd, who was from the economic— was an economic expert from the office of Abu Ammar, of Arafat.

Speaker 12: The whole negotiations language was in English. Yeah.

Ron Pundik: And whenever the Palestinians felt that they need to say something which is more accurate in Arabic, they talked in Arabic and was translated To English by my record, and we both of us we know a bit Arabic, so we could also assist.

Speaker 1: وفي اثنين ثلاثة يعني أبو مازن أبو عمار وأنا هم الذين يعرفون عن هذه المفاوضات في تونس.

Thorvald Stoltenberg: In the Norwegian government, it must have been three or four people: the Prime Minister, myself, and the Defense Minister. But that was all.

Speaker 8: We had a meeting with Thorvald Stoltenberg in his office. He said, nobody present, none of you will be involved at all.

Speaker 3: Who were you?

Speaker 8: Well, we were 4 people from our ministry. I will not name the others, but I was one of them. And this was, again, a matter of deniability.

Ron Pundik: The Norwegian team, which was based mainly on the deputy minister of foreign affairs, Jan Egeland, his right hand, Mona Jul, the wife of Tariq Larsen, and Tariq Larsen.

Terje Rød-Larsen: We started talking about very private things— families, sons, how they grew up, their wives, their kids. And in order to have them to relate to each other as human beings, they had to live in the same house, have breakfast, lunch, dinner together. And not leave the premises for the time that they were there.

Speaker 11: بتوفير الأجواء، بتوفير المكان، بتوفير متطلبات يعني نجاح مفاوضات وتسهيل الدخول والخروج بشكل أولاً لائق وبشكل غير يعني بعيد عن كل وسائل الإعلام. فبالتالي النروج لعبت هذا الدور حقيقة أعتقد بكفاءة. I briefed and cleared.

Jan Egeland: with my boss, Thorvald Stoltenberg, that we could do this. And I kept him updated throughout the talks, but he did not participate in any of the talks.

Mona Juul: When they went back, we were very active, both on the phone, in order then— because they didn't— obviously didn't speak to each other then, so we were sort of— the messages Going through— to the two of them went sort of through us. And, of course, we also then tested out sort of, I mean, certain things, either for the Palestinians to the Israelis and vice versa. Maybe, do you think you could accept if we did like this, or we do like this? And, I mean, these kind of things.

Ron Pundik: They were able to play, these very senior 3 people, the role Of a soldier and of a general, meaning if we needed coffee, the deputy minister for us would have come with coffee. If we needed an idea, he would come with idea. If we needed that somebody would speak with Foreign Minister Christopher State Department, so the same man who brought us coffee was also able to speak with Christopher, which is from our point of view was a classical environment allowing us to. dictate what should be their role. And it was perfect. It was the best.

Speaker 4: In his book, The New Middle East, Shimon Peres wrote, the Norwegians were a gift from heaven. After the first round of talks, the Israelis began drafting what they called a declaration of principles.

Ron Pundik: The second meeting, which took place some 3 or 4 weeks later, was, from my point of view, the most crucial meeting to make this meeting of 2 sides into a channel. And what happened then was that we came with a paper.

Speaker 12: This paper was discussed with Beilin?

Ron Pundik: Beilin saw the paper and endorsed it.

Terje Rød-Larsen: The logic of Oslo is that you started with the easiest, and then you postponed the most difficult, hoping that the Parties would find a way as they walked that road to resolve the more difficult issues.

Speaker 3: All the difficult questions—security, Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, borders—you name it—all of them were taken out, and they should not be discussed.

Speaker 11: Deal. Vi hinner. وهذه تم المناقشة يعني بعم حولها إنه هذه القضايا طرحها سوف لن يترك مجالا للتوافق.

Speaker 3: What should then be discussed? It was self-rule for the Palestinians in Gaza and in the small, small city of Jericho, and it was self-rule on certain, I think five specific. Areas as education tourism health and so on.

Speaker 11: فعلا هذا ما قلنا إنه إذا هذا هو اللي بدكم إياه إذن أنتوا بدكم تبقوا على الاحتلال وتغيروا الشكل الفاقع إنه كمحتال إلى دور إنه فيه يعني موجودين فلسطينيين يديروا شؤونهم الداخلية تحت سيادة هذا الاحتلال يعني طبعا وبهذا و هذا هذا حقيقة ما كانوا يفاوضوا على أساسه.

Yasser Arafat: We are ready to let the Palestinians run their own life in their own environment, have a self-government.

Yossi Beilin: To solve in Oslo the problems that we had in the negotiations in Washington, which led us to nowhere.

Jan Egeland: My My counterpart, Yossi Beilin, whom I kept contact with, saw that enormous progress was made in the talks with Abu Allah, who, who was a real leader on the PLO side and would not have made his concessions without Yasser Arafat knowing and clearing it. Abu Mazen was also involved throughout.

Speaker 4: The talks continued in Sarpsborg, near Oslo, 2 days a month. Meanwhile, the official public negotiations in Washington, D.C. came to an abrupt halt when Israel expelled 400 Palestinians to Majah Zuhur in southern Lebanon.

Speaker 1: كان أبو عمار يعني يطلب منا دائماً إنه نذهب لمصر لوضع المصريين وخاصة دكتور أسام البازي اللي كان مستشار. ل رئيس مبارك أيامها.

Speaker 4: الباز sent word to Tel Aviv that Arafat approved Israel's first proposal that the PLO could have a foothold in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.

Yasser Arafat: Specifically, the message related to the peace process. I will not go beyond that.

Ron Pundik: What we reached in the first four months. was a document which we called the Salzburg Document, which was, from our point of view, a pre-negotiation document. We never thought that this document could be signed. The Palestinians thought it may be.

Jan Egeland: I asked the American Embassy in Oslo to fix me up with a secure line to State Department. So I went up there and had— updated them. 2, 3 times on progress towards the Sarpsborg— the initial draft agreement.

Speaker 12: That was February 1993.

Jan Egeland: It was February and March and April where we did these things. And Torvald Stoltenberg even gave the original draft first version of the Oslo Agreement, if you like, to Warren Christopher. And he was very interested in this.

Speaker 8: Hello. How are you?

Speaker 4: US Secretary of State Warren Christopher was monitoring both the secret Oslo and the official Washington negotiations. The Israelis decided after 18 months that the Washington talks were not going to reach agreement.

Yasser Arafat: The United States is prepared, along with our co-sponsors, We are always for anything that would make life easier, provided security and calm are sustained.

Haidar Abdushafi: You don't know how frustrated we are. We we came here with strong nerves, with to show our intention about peace. But certainly we cannot bear the responsibility of continuing with the peace process that's not promising anything.

Yasser Arafat: كان هناك إصرار على تمسك بالموقف الصارم الفلسطيني. و طبعا لم يكن أحد يعرف أن هناك مفاوضات أخرى تجري.

Ron Pundik: Nobody knew anything about the channel, and whenever there was some knowledge, we immediately jointly were able to quiet it.

Thorvald Stoltenberg: We were of course criticized for this secrecy, but without the secrecy, it would not have worked at all.

Speaker 4: The Norwegian Prime Minister announcing the departure of her Foreign Minister.

Thorvald Stoltenberg: I have many friends in former Yugoslavia. I hope that I shall be able to contribute to a peaceful solution. I didn't really want to go to the Balkans. And that was because I would like to see the Oslo process through, because I was then very optimistic.

Speaker 4: Stoltenberg's successor as foreign minister was his brother-in-law, former defense minister Johan Jürgen Holst. Holst had been a strong supporter of Israel since the early '70s.

Jan Egeland: Johan Jürgen Holst was very keen. He asked for us to do whatever we could to make progress. He had already had signals from Terje, Bert Larsen and Mona Juul, Who, of course, knew him well through Marianne Heyberg, his wife, who worked at FAFO.

Thorvald Stoltenberg: He knew enough. And I briefly informed him that I was also sending him messages when he asked. And I did some in the beginning. I sent it from Balkan. But he was by and large informed.

Speaker 8: This channel was upgraded in May. That was after Mr. Holst had become Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Speaker 4: The Israelis also introduced a new face at the Oslo talks, their general manager at the Foreign Ministry, Uri Sevir.

Uri Savir: When Foreign Minister Peres asked me to look at this document and then potentially participate in this channel, I was very glad. I think that something good had happened to the PLO. They finally began to see that the armed struggle will lead them nowhere, that actually their biggest enemy is their biggest ally and partner, Israel.

Mona Juul: They met for the first time up at a sort of small We stayed in a cottage up at Holmenkollen, which is the famous ski jump and the ski area in— just right outside Oslo. Abu al-As slept at Holmenkollen Park Hotel, which is a hotel next door.

Speaker 12: And Uri Saviru, where did he stay?

Mona Juul: I think he stayed in our flat that night. That's right.

Speaker 12: That's right, yeah.

Uri Savir: I'm a big believer in secret negotiations. So, at the end, the public knows the outcome and not the intermediary concessions. And therefore, we knew we had about 2, 3 months. And in 3 months, we did it.

Speaker 4: In this hotel near Oslo, Uri Sevir used his first meeting with the Palestinians to stress 3 deal-breaking Israeli conditions. First, no negotiations over Jerusalem or the return of refugees. Second, no UN involvement or international arbitration. And third, that the public-facing Washington talks continue in parallel with the secret negotiations. The Palestinians accepted all 3.

Yasser Arafat: بدأ سبير مرة أخرى يعصر في الجانب الفلسطيني ويحصل على مجموعة جديدة من التنازلات وعندما انتهى قالوا لهم ولكن إحنا من الخارجية وهذول الخارجية يتبعوا لشمعون بيرس لازم نجيب حد الآن من مكتب رابين فأرسلوا أشرس المفاوضين وهو شمويل زنجر.

Jan Egeland: Joel Singer contribution was to ask. Hundreds of questions on the other side to really understand what what this would mean, how PLO would treat this, what would be their them as a counterpart. They I think felt it was quite offensive in one way to be interrogated like that.

Yasser Arafat: من ضمنها أسئلة شكل أفخاخ مثل هل توافقوا على بقاء المستوطنين في المناطق التي ستديرونها وعندما حصل على جواب نعم يعني طار من الفرح لأنه هذا معناته قبول بوجود الاستيطان وفي النهاية زينقر نفسه كتب قال أنا لم أفاجأ بحصولي على مئة جواب على المئة سؤال ما فوجئت به أنني لم أتلقى مع المئة جواب ولا سؤال فلسطيني واحد.

Speaker 4: lawyer Joel Singer acted as a legal advisor to the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Following his first meeting with the Palestinians, he headed to Vienna to meet Peres.

Uri Savir: Shimon Peres came back from a dinner, and Yoel wakes up and he looks at him, and I say, Yoel. He said, Foreign Minister, if we don't make an immediate deal with these people, we are complete idiots.

Speaker 4: 5 months later, in July 1993, In the resort of Halversbol, Singer presented the amended Declaration of Principles document, setting out the details of Palestinian autonomy. It clearly stated that autonomy wouldn't include the settlements, military zones, or Jerusalem, and that Israel would remain in charge of security and the protection of settlers.

Ron Pundik: So what Yitzhak Singer did, he deconstructed it, made it into a document with legal aspect. The Palestinians, one should understand, were shocked, because suddenly all things that they were saying, but they were afraid to see them, were black and white. And it was a tough day for them.

Speaker 4: The Palestinian delegation saw the serious implications of Singer's document, and so returned to Tunis to confer with the PLO leadership.

Uri Savir: Arafat wanted to enlarge the Jericho area into the Jordan River, so he would have certain hold on his relationship with Jordan. And that was quite an argument. Then certain authorities of the council, etc. And like in every negotiations comes the endgame, and the endgame was conducted by Halls going to Tunis.

Yasser Arafat: Tunis, clocking four o'clock in Friday of the previous week.

Speaker 11: فهو جاء إلى تونس لمقابل ساخب عمار وأنا كنت في ذلك اللقاء ليطلع منه وخرج ليقول عرفات أكثر حرصا ودعما ل وصول إلى اتفاق حتى من أبو علاء ومن أبو مازن ومن الآخرين. بابتلي هو جاد جداً وأكد ذلك للإسرائيليين.

Mona Juul: was very very useful then to to to have the opportunity to discuss these issues also directly with Arafat and and we were then sort of also able to to to communicate that to the Israelis.

Speaker 3: After these meetings with Arafat, Kari Larsson and Ola Ull went back to Jerusalem, to the whole Israeli team, and told the Israelis everything that Arafat had said and done.

Speaker 12: And even a letter written by Holst himself?

Speaker 3: Not even a letter. A letter and, I think, 11 pages with minutes from the meeting, giving the letter and the minutes, word by word, of Arafat's opinions, where he thought he can have something or lose something. All of this was given to the Israelis.

Mona Juul: It was more sort of a judgment on where the Palestinians and And Arafat, in particular, were on sort of the whole idea of reaching an agreement. Johan Jürgen Holst was very much a writing man. He always wrote things, and he wrote almost everything himself. I mean, working for him was very difficult, and working with other ministers, because he— every time when he went to meetings, and the first thing on the plane, he sat down, and he wrote down his impression And so, so that was the way sort of he worked. So it was very much a personal letter.

Speaker 12: So this letter was handed to Mr. Peres at that time?

Mona Juul: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4: Extracts of these letters later appeared in personal memoirs, but no official record of their contents has ever been found in the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. In the secret negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel, Norway's role as mediator was key. But those involved were careful always to cover their tracks.

Speaker 3: In the new books of, uh, Shimon Peres, foreign minister of Israel, Yossi Beilin, Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel, Uri Savir, a chief negotiator of Israel, and so on. There were many paragraphs quoting from secret Norwegian documents, letters that they, for instance, had received from the Norwegian Foreign Minister. But still, in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, no copies, nothing. From the period of 20th of January, when it started, until the end of August. It was nothing. It was no documents, no memos, just nothing from what had actually been going on in this secret Oslo Project. We found out that Terje Larsen, he has admitted that he has many of these secret documents himself. And he refuses to give them back to the Norwegian state.

Terje Rød-Larsen: To do secret negotiations through a ministry is very difficult. because there has to be written reports, lots of people would have to know about it. If you do it with a research institute, you can have just a tiny little group of people, and there's no duty to report in writing. So, and this is also how the secrecy was kept.

Speaker 4: The secret Holst-Perez conversations led them to believe that the time had come to finalize a deal. Perez headed to Stockholm to resolve the outstanding points on the phone.

Ron Pundik: At the castle in Sweden, we are opening, actually, a hotline. Who was the ambassador? Peres invites the Norwegian foreign minister, Enver Thage Larsen, and Muna Yousef to be the go-between. They are sitting in the room together with Joel Zinger. Arafat and his team are in Tunis.

Speaker 1: في ليلة الاتفاق على أوسلو بعام 93 دعانا أبو عمار بالليل أنه فوراً بدي ياكم أجانب شيء من أبو علاء ومن جماعة أوسلو احنا كنا وقتها متزعلين مع أبو عمار أبو مازن وأنا في زعل كان موارد المنظمة أصبحت شحيحة فأبو عمار وقف الصف على كل شيء بما في ذلك يعني أجوات بيوتنا وتليفوناتنا وانسينا كل الخلاف وذهبنا لعنده من كان حاضرا في تونس؟ كنا حاضرين في اللقاء ذاك أربعة أو خمسة أبو عمار أبو مازن بعلاء حسن عصفور كان في شخص لبناني وقرب لنا محسن إبراهيم كان قاعد مشارك فأبو عمار كان يحكي مع هولز.

Uri Savir: هولز was talking to Yasser Arafat and Paris could hear on the phone for the first time Arafat and his people and this is they solved. 6 out of 7 issues.

Speaker 4: All the outstanding issues from the 6 rounds of secret negotiations in June and July in Norway were resolved in this 7-hour phone call between Stockholm and Tunis. In his book, Mahmoud Abbas later recalled, a 7-hour phone call ended the conflict of the 20th century. The Palestinian people took their first steps towards freedom and emancipation. That call achieved what couldn't be done in twenty months of futile negotiations in Washington.

Speaker 1: فأصله لم يتضمن لا كلمة إنهاء الاحتلال، إنهاء الاستيطان ولا كلمة دولة فلسطينية مستقلة. ترك الباب مفتوح وكل هذا بحجة إنه يعني حتى يقدروا يمرروا. هذا المشروع على قياداتهم بما في رابين تحديداً طبعاً كل غموض حتى نكون يعني موضوعيين كل غموض هو في صالح الطرف الأقوى دائماً الطرف الأضعف هو الذي يسعى دائماً للوضوح.

Jan Egeland: If you have a strong and a weak party, the strong party is the strongest. And if then you have a strong party that is backed by the superpower of the world, the United States, it makes that strong party even stronger.

Speaker 4: In this government guesthouse in Oslo, and in absolute secrecy, the Declaration of Principles was initialed by both sides. The secret signing was filmed by Norwegian intelligence. And the footage later used in a documentary for public TV in Norway.

Jan Egeland: Abu Ala being much more emotional than we had thought. I mean, he felt this was astronomic, in a way, that he would be greeted by one of the, the leaders of official Israel.

Speaker 4: Utenriksråd av Vigil sammen med Uri Savir, forhandlingsleder og departementsråd i UD. Peres juridiske rådgiver Joel Singer, delegasjonsmedlemme Jair Hirschfeldt og professor Ron Pundik. Ceremonien bevåkes av Holsts hustru Marianne Heiberg.

Jan Egeland: After midnight, the negotiators come to the government guesthouse and then. Shimon Peres is a witness as the official initialing happens, with Uri Savir and Abu Ala signing this. Johan Jürgen Holst, Mona Tei and I stand there behind them.

Mona Juul: We had then our— what we called the secret police at the time, then doing sort of the filming or the video of it. And we had sort of prepared the little speeches.

Yasser Arafat: We feel proud that this happened in Norway. And we hope that now that you enter into a new period of cooperation, openness, of building down all barriers and building up new cooperative arrangements and structures, that you will remember that we are always there If you ever again will need our services. But the task is yours.

Speaker 4: On the first step of opening the doors of peace and on striving to achieve cooperation.

Speaker 8: Your people are lucky to have leaders like you. Mr.

Terje Rød-Larsen: Pérez, you're also lucky to have boys like this working with you. Sigmund Pérez and Mr. Holst and 2 of his staffers and Mona Jewell and myself, we flew secretly to a military base in August 1993 in Point Mugu in California.

Mona Juul: I mean, such a relief, because Warren Christopher sort of looked at it, and then he turned to Dennis Ross, and he said, Dennis, what do you think? And then Dennis said, I think this is great. And then I think sort of all of us sort of had a sigh of relief.

Speaker 4: The Declaration of Principles said that the goal of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations was to establish a Palestinian Authority for a transitional period of up to 5 years. It would begin with the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and Jericho. And Israeli forces were to be redeployed outside the populated areas. The final negotiations were to start in year three. Israel was to continue to be responsible for external security, the safety of settlements, and the overall safety of the Israelis.

Speaker 6: حين بفضح الأمر يعني زي صبيتي ما يبقى بعد على الوفد المفاوض ولا سيما المرحوم حيدر عبد الشافي.

Speaker 4: حيدر عبد الشافي asked the Palestinian negotiating team's legal adviser in Washington, Francis Boyle, to assess the declaration wording published in the newspapers. Boyle replied that it was the same declaration of principles that they'd rejected in Washington. It's a limited autonomy of the inhabitants, he said. without any control over the land. Abdushafi sent Boyle's comments to Arafat, but he never received a reply.

Speaker 14: This is a mixture of previous self-rule agreements that the Palestinian leadership in the Occupied Territories always refused signing. And I think Edward Said, said it in a couple of articles that he wrote in Arabic and English before the signing took place. And I think he was deeply shocked, having read the Declaration of Principles.

Speaker 4: In these articles, Edward Said wrote that the PLO had reduced itself from a national liberation movement To a small municipality, it was what he called the decay of the PLO leadership against the cunning of Israel.

Speaker 6: كل الذي صار باختصار شديد إنه الحاكم العسكر الإسرائيلي نقل صلاحيات الإدارة المدنية إلى الحكم الذاتي الفلسطيني بدل ما أنا أخاطب إسرائيلي على شباك الإدارة.

Yasser Arafat: أنا أخاطب فلسطيني، والفلسطيني يشكل حلقة وصل بيني وبين الإسرائيلي. اتفاق أوسلو كان أكبر فكرة عبقرية في تاريخ إسرائيل، لأنه ضمن استمرار الاحتلال دون أن تدفع إسرائيل تكاليف الاحتلال.

Speaker 4: After the news of the secret Oslo negotiations had been leaked, it was inevitable that the two sides would bring things into the public arena. Israel started to use the Norwegians. To demand further concessions.

Speaker 1: بعثوا صيغة هي صيغة غير عادلة وغير متوازنة إنه إحنا منعتف إسرائيل بس إسرائيل بتعتفش بفلسطين كدولة تعتف بالمنظم كممثل للشعب الفلسطيني.

Speaker 4: To complete the mutual recognition, Israel stipulated that the PLO not only renounce terrorism but also commit to Prevent all forms of violence and terrorism, and it encouraged the Palestinians to have a normal relationship with Israel from now on. Arafat agreed, and Holst flew to Tunis to witness Arafat signing these letters.

Speaker 3: Can you tell us in English?

Yasser Arafat: Have you signed the letters, sir?

Speaker 8: Yes, we had signed it. Yes.

Ron Pundik: From my point of view, the exchange of letters are more important than the agreement itself, because the exchange of letters is doing the historical shift.

Speaker 4: The Norwegians celebrated with Peres and Savir in Israel. Rabin announced that based on the PLO's commitments, Israel now recognised the PLO and agreed to negotiate with them. the PLO established the Palestinian Authority, which would gradually become the umbrella organisation for the Palestinians. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Arafat, Chairman of the Executive Council of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, His Excellency Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel, the President of the United States.

Speaker 11: معنى إطلاقاً بعد هذا الاتفاق بدأت تتعامل والغرب كله بدأ يتعامل.

Jan Egeland: The doors are opening for Yasser Arafat at the U.S. State Department, champagne and laughter, swapping autographs with the Israelis and handshakes with Secretary of State Christopher.

Uri Savir: They understood that if they have an agreement with Israel, it will bring them closer to Washington, and we understood that if we make an agreement, it can be gradual. And it will open up relations to the Arab world. We'll have better relations with Egypt, with Jordan.

Ron Pundik: It was a strategic deal. We were accepted by the world. Relations between us and Arab world moved dramatically—interest officers, embassies, etc., etc. This immediately allowed the Jordanians to enter into serious negotiation with Israel, leading a year later into. We were accepted, with the Palestinians, to all sorts of forums and fora that we were not accepted before. Huge investments came to Israel. Mega companies— Intel, Chinese, Japanese— everybody came.

Speaker 4: Johan Jürgen Holst died fighting for peace.

Yasser Arafat: Johan Holst and Norway played an essential part in helping to turn the Middle East from a cauldron of hostility into a cradle of hope.

Speaker 4: Later in 1994, Arafat, Peres and Rabin were all awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. Muna Yul was moved to the Norwegian Embassy in Israel. and her husband, Tariq Rod Larsen, to the UN working for the Palestinians. Responsibility for monitoring the terms of Oslo therefore now passed to the Israeli army.

Ron Pundik: Not only were we not invited to negotiate, but I would say that also our advice at that time was just evaporating somewhere. Even Yossi Beilin was a bit pushed aside. Not only us, it was given more to the military, more to the army, more to the security services.

Yossi Beilin: The military leadership of Israel was for the first time exposed to Palestinians in negotiations.

Yasser Arafat: أنا ببساطة التنسيق الأمني أن يصبح الفلسطيني وكيلًا أمنياً لإسرائيل وهذا النص واضح إنه على السلطة الفلسطينية أن تلاحق الإرهاب والإرهابيين وأيضاً لا تسائل العملاء.

Speaker 1: والجواسيس ممنوع مساءلتهم أو طردهم من وظائفهم أو ما شابه ذلك اللي علينا عملناه اعتراف متبادل وعملناه وتنسيق أمن عملناه كل التزاماتنا طبقناها هو اللي عليه انه يعمل هو المحتل الطموح كان ان نصل الى اتفاق ينهي الاحتلال ويعيد الحقوق الوطنية الفلسطينية للشعب إذا لم يتحقق ذلك بلا شك إنه هذا اخفاق.

Speaker 8: Mr. Arafat, he maybe he gave too many concessions too easily. People got used to him giving up. By the end, he had nothing more to give, and they expected him to give more.

Speaker 11: Thank you very much.

Yasser Arafat: Let's meet again in the next round of negotiation. إنك بيلعرواها زو لبروز ولصيدور بيتحون درول. לישראל, ואם הפלסטינים יכירו בישראל כמדינת העם היהודי, נהיה מוכנים בהסדר שלום אמיתי להגיע לפתרון של מדינה פלסטינית מפורזת לצד המדינה היהודית.

Speaker 4: ولا بأي مرة من المرات دولة فلسطينية مستقلة ذات سيادة لأنه يعرف معنى ذلك وهو لا يقصد ذلك إطلاقا عندما يقول حل الدولتين والدولة منزوعة السلاح هو يقصد أنه سيتواجد في غور الأردن عسكريا وبالتالي لا يوجد سيادة. Illegal Israeli settlement of the West Bank has continued since 1993. Palestinians believe that the Oslo Accords ultimately benefited Israel more than themselves, and that this expansion on the ground is part of the price they have paid for Oslo. Dror Etkez is an Israeli expert on the settlements, and he tracks their development. The West Bank constitutes one-fifth the area of historic Palestine. Today, More than 300,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, not counting the 200,000 in East Jerusalem.

Dror Etkes: The Oslo Agreement is actually the best thing which happened to the Israeli settlers and the Israeli settlement enterprise, because it created exactly the basic conditions which this kind of project can bloom in. While the Palestinian population was supposedly taken care of by the PA, and there was supposedly some kind of a peace process conducted between the PLO and Israel. 60% of the West Bank remained open for Israeli development. This is exactly what you see here. It's a period which Israel had intensively and effectively used in order to over-triple the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and to change completely, completely, irreversibly, the West Bank landscape. Another good example is, of course, the bypass system, which is just under us. This whole bypass system was created after Oslo. There were the years between 1993 and 2000, which the Israeli population growth in the West Bank reached the fastest pace of growth ever. It was these years that the entire— almost the entire bypass system in the West Bank, the parallel road system, the parallel water system, the parallel electricity system, was built in the West Bank. They actually hardly have to see any Arabs today in their communities. on a daily commuting between West Elman and Jerusalem. One cannot underestimate how important the bypass system was for the development of this whole suburban reality which was created in the West Bank. And the bypass system— effective, modern, efficient transportation infrastructure— is the precondition For the development of this kind of communities.

Yasser Arafat: في فرق بين استيطاني يجري ضدك وتكافح ضد وبين استيطاني يجري ضدك وأنت جالس معهم على طاولة المفاوضات تعطيهم الغطاء.

Yossi Beilin: Jews should have the right to enter Israel and to become citizens. This is my view as a Zionist. Now, if there is a majority of Palestinians under our rule, this is the end of this.

Speaker 6: زعني استيديا إسرائيل واضح إنه بالنسبة إلها الضفة الغربية لن تتخلى عنها واضح كل اللي مط بهمها إنه هذا العدد السكاني حوالي مليونين إنها تتخلص منه كل الاستراتيجية الإسرائيلية تتمحضر حول هاتين النقطتين زيادة في الاستيطان.

Yasser Arafat: واستثناء في العنصر السكاني تبقى لمعايير القانون الدولي أي شعب يقع تحت الاحتلال وتلزم سلطة الاحتلال بالتوقيع على أي اتفاقيات تمس حقوقه فهي اتفاقية باطلة بطلانا مطلقا تبقى الاتفاقيات جنيف إسرائيل هي التي كسبت من أصلو أنا لا أوافق أبداً أن اتفاق أصلو فشل أو نجح أن فاشل أو ناجح واتفاق أسلو فاشل تماماً بالنسبة لأهداف الفلسطينيين ولكنه كان ناجحاً تماماً بالنسبة لأهداف الإسرائيليين الصحيح فيه فائدة واحدة جرت من أسلو وهي أنه رجوع أعداد من الفلسطينيين إلى الضف الغربي حوالي مئة ألف هذا إنجاز ولكن خسائرنا أكبر من ذلك بكثير خسرنا وحدتنا خسرنا المشروع الوطني الجامع خسرنا دور منظمة التحرير وحركة التحرير الوطني لصالح السلطة اللي كلها تحت الاحتلال وخسرنا زمن خسرنا عشرين عام