The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After
Edward Said

Pantheon Books,2000
pp.345
Available at the Educational
Bookshop,Salah ed-Deen St., Jerusalem
NIS130 (hard cover)

In this important collection of fifty pieces, Edward Said, a renowned thinker, questions the very foundation of the Oslo accords. Signed in September 1993 on the White House lawn by Israel and the PLO, the accords were immediately hailed as a success and a break through for peace in the Middle East, but Said realized that the imbalance of power between the signees would set up a problematic dynamic, bringing only an illusory stability. The later interim agreements of Taba, Hebron and the Wye Plantation would already limit the next phase the final-status negotiations set to conclude this year, when the future condition of refugees, Jerusalem, borders, water and compensation must be decided. Incisively, cutting through the hyperbole in the press surrounding the accords, these pieces document the historic context but also give otherwise unreported accounts of what has really gone on in the occupied territory since the signing. The continuing expansion of Israeli settlements, the repressive leadership and inflated bureaucracy of Yasir Arafat, Said's own return to Jerusalem after 45 years, the subsequent banning of his books by the Palestinian Authority and Oslo's inability to recognize Palestine's self-determination are among the issues of peace and justice he discusses.

Together these essays are an eloquent and courageous statement for peaceful coexistence and equality between two peoples, and for an end to the separation of Jews and non-Jews-the only hope for a lasting solution in the Middle East.