‘Ik stopte de Oslo-akkoorden’

GeenCommentaar heeft ruimte voor gastloggers. Vandaag is dat Johanna Nouri met een stuk over het mislukken van de Oslo-akkoorden.

‘Ik stopte de Oslo-akkoorden.’ Was getekend Binyamin Netanyahu, de vredestichter. De Bibi-tapes bevestigen wat de meesten van ons al lang wisten. Nadat we jarenlang te horen kregen dat het de schuld is van de Palestijnen dat de Oslo-akkoorden mislukten, horen we nu eindelijk de waarheid uit de eerste hand.

Het Israëlische televisiekanaal Channel 10 wist de hand te leggen op een homevideo uit 2001, waarin Binyamin Netanyahu een condoleancebezoek brengt aan een gezin in de nederzetting Ofra.

Hij vertelt hoe hij in 1997 als voorwaarde voor de ondertekening van het Akkoord van Hebron stelt dat de Amerikanen ermee instemmen dat Israël geen gebieden ontruimt die zijn gedefinieerd als militair gebied. Slechts één iemand kon bepalen welke gebieden dat betrof: Netanyahu. Zijn gedachten gingen daarbij bijvoorbeeld uit naar de hele Jordaanvallei.

De uitzending was in het Hebreeuws, maar gelukkig plaatste Richard Silverstein het volgende transcript op zijn blog:

Bibi:?The Arabs are currently focusing on a war of terror and they think it will break us. The main thing, first of all, is to hit them. Not just one blow, but blows that are so painful that the price will be too heavy to be borne. The price is not too heavy to be borne, now. A broad attack on the Palestinian Authority. To bring them to the point of being afraid that everything is collapsing?


Woman: Wait a moment, but then the world will say ?how come you?re conquering again??


Netanyahu: the world won?t say a thing. The world will say we?re defending.


Woman: Aren?t you afraid of the world, Bibi?


Netanyahu: Especially today, with America. I know what America is. America is something that can easily be moved. Moved to the right direction.


Child: They say they?re for us, but, it?s like?


Netanyahu: They won?t get in our way. They won?t get in our way.


Child: On the other hand, if we do some something, then they?


Netanyahu: So let?s say they say something. So they said it! They said it! 80% of the Americans support us. It?s absurd. We have that kind of support and we say ?what will we do with the?? Look. That administration [Clinton] was extremely pro-Palestinian. I wasn?t afraid to maneuver there. I was not afraid to clash with Clinton. I was not afraid to clash with the United Nations. I was paying the price anyway, I preferred to receive the value. Value for the price.

In het volgende fragment schept Netanyahu op hoe hij de Oslo-akkoorden ontdeed van hun betekenis door de woorden een geheel nieuwe betekenis te geven:

Woman: The Oslo Accords are a disaster.


Netanyahu: Yes. You know that and I knew that?The people [nation] has to know?


What were the Oslo Accords? The Oslo Accords, which the Knesset signed, I was asked, before the elections: ?Will you act according to them?? and I answered: ?yes, subject to mutuality and limiting the retreats.? ?But how do you intend to limit the retreats?? ?I?ll give such interpretation to the Accords that will make it possible for me to stop this galloping to the ?67 [armistice] lines. How did we do it?


Narrator: The Oslo Accords stated at the time that Israel would gradually hand over territories to the Palestinians in three different pulses, unless the territories in question had settlements or military sites. This is where Netanyahu found a loophole.


Netanyahu: No one said what defined military sites. Defined military sites, I said, were security zones. As far as I?m concerned, the Jordan Valley is a defined military site.


Woman: Right [laughs]?The Beit She?an Valley.


Netanyahu: How can you tell. How can you tell? But then the question came up of just who would define what Defined Military Sites were. I received a letter ? to my and to Arafat, at the same time ? which said that Israel, and only Israel, would be the one to define what those are, the location of those military sites and their size. Now, they did not want to give me that letter, so I did not give the Hebron Agreement. I stopped the government meeting, I said: ?I?m not signing.? Only when the letter came, in the course of the meeting, to my and to Arafat, only then did I sign the Hebron Agreement. Or rather, ratify it, it had already been signed. Why does this matter? Because at that moment I actually stopped the Oslo Accord.


Woman: And despite that, one of our own people, excuse me, who knew it was a swindle, and that we were going to commit suicide with the Oslo Accord, gives them ? for example ? Hebron?


Netanyahu: Indeed, Hebron hurts. It hurts. It?s the thing that hurts. One of the famous rabbis, whom I very much respect, a rabbi of Eretz Yisrael, he said to me: ?What would your father say?? I went to my father. Do you know a little about my father?s position?


?He?s not exactly a lily-white dove, as they say. So my father heard the question and said: ?Tell the rabbi that your grandfather, Rabbi Natan Milikowski, was a smart Jew. Tell him it would be better to give two percent than to give a hundred percent. And that?s the choice here. You gave two percent and in that way you stopped the withdrawal. Instead of a hundred percent.? The trick is not to be there and be broken. The trick is to be there and pay a minimal price.

Gideon Levy zei er in een opiniestuk in de Israëlische krant Haaretz het volgende over:

These remarks are profoundly depressing. They bear out all of our fears and suspicions: that the government of Israel is led by a man who doesn’t believe the Palestinians and doesn’t believe in the chance of an agreement with them, who thinks that Washington is in his pocket and that he can pull the wool over its eyes. There’s no point in talking about Netanyahu’s impossible rightist coalition as an obstacle to progress. From now on, just say that Netanyahu doesn’t want it.

Ik vrees dat de vrede nog wel even op zich laat wachten.