They needed the United states to stimulate things. They have all needed an awful lot of assurance and hand-holding from the United States.
Two days later, the world learned of the full scope of the negotitations, and that they had been intitiated and carried out without the assistance of the world's most popular peace-brokers, the Americans. The New York Times ran on its front page that
Foreign Minister Johan Jorgen of Norway said on Monday that senior Israeli and P.L.O. officials held 14 secret meetings in Norway and 3 in another country this year before they initialed their secret blueprint on August 30.
Americans were surprised, along with the rest of the world, that the PLO and the standing Israeli government had completed negotiations on substantive matters. Shimon Peres later addressed the original lack of American influence in his book The New Middle East (Henry Holt Publishing, 1993).
To everyone's amazement-and even though the Americans weren't involved-the multilateral negotiations began as scheduled. Here at last we had a venue far from the microphones and cameras of Washington, D.C.- a communications channel that would enable negotiations to take place descreetly and allow us, finally, to get down to details.
According the Peres, the decision to locate the talks in Norway was by no means unintentional.
The setting was ideal. In Norway, no one was looking for scoops. Even on my last trip to Oslo, not one newspaper reporter requested to accompany me. Yet because the Oslo negotiations, unlike those in Washington, were far from the eyes and ears of the media, we were able to keep the talks going for months.Norway is a magnificent country--beautiful scenery, extraordinary people. A close-knit group of top government people made itself available for passing messages between ourselves and the PLO. The group included Foreign Minister Johann Jurgen Holst and his wife, Marianne, and the head of the Political Research Institure, Terry Larsen, and his wife, Mona. The acted with absolute discretion. When discussions began to intensify, they spared no logistical or other effort to keep the momentum goin and to sheild us from the curious.
So, the negotiations began far away from the flash of cameras and the shouts of reporters.
Of course, the dialogue began slowly, step-by-step. It seemed strange at first, almost impossible to achieve our goals, but as time passed we could discern for the first time some small signs of flexibility among the Palestinians.
Substantively, the PLO and Israeli teams had much to talk about. Israel's short history had produced little goodwill on which to base an lasting agreement with the Palestinians. Peres summed up the the primary topics discussed at Oslo.
The bilateral negotiations focused on reconciliation of past differences--borders, territories, water and land rights, security measures--and on a five year interim government. The delegates agreed to postpone discussion of a permanent peace until the third year of autonomy,. with talks that would conclude by the end of the fifth year of autonomy.
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Jonas Morgan Walker