Should the Oslo Accords be considered a success or a failure?
Explain why, using appropriate supporting evidence.
2750words
The Oslo Accords were an interim agreement regarding the start of a peace process, and was premised on building mutual trust and understanding.
Oslo I, the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (DOP), was ratified on 13 September 1993.
Oslo II was ratified on 28 September 1995, and divided the West Bank into three areas, each under varying degrees of Palestinian or Israeli control (Roy, 2002: 16)
The DOP facilitated the creation of a Palestinian interim self-government, the Palestinian Authority (PA), and called for the withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces from Gaza and Jericho. The Accords were a ‘land for peace’ deal,
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Unlike interstate conflicts, in intergroup conflicts, actors are not sovereign or territorially defined, and this means: group leaders do not have a monopoly over the use of force or adequate guarantees that they can win the support of or successfully control their constituencies, and groups don’t have the international protection that states receive. Therefore, intergroup conflicts are highly antagonistic and indiscriminate; they evoke maximalist notions of security and identity, and difference between combatants and civilians are constantly blurred, and are prone to intragroup oppositions .
There was a basic conceptual divide in the main aims of both parties: Israel wanted limited transfer of powers while retaining overall responsibility for security in the occupied territories . Many Israelis were not in a hurry to get to address the final status issues – they just wanted the terrorism to stop . Meanwhile, the Palestinians wanted extensive transfer of power to enable them to lay foundations for an independent state, and end the Israeli occupation to make steps towards sovereignty