TIME: Almanac 1995

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ TIME: Almanac 1995 / TIME Almanac 1995.iso / time / 091393 / 0913unk.002 < prev

Wrap

Text File | 1994-03-25 | 8.4 KB | 166 lines

<text id=93TT2232> <title> Sep. 13, 1993: Swimming The Oslo Channel </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993 Sep. 13, 1993 Leap Of Faith </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> COVER, Page 50 Swimming The Oslo Channel </hdr> <body> How free-lance peacemakers made history by breaking new ground in the Middle East peace negotiations By KEVIN FEDARKO--With reporting by J.F.O. McAllister/Washington, Ulla Plon/Copenhagen and Robert Slater/Jerusalem In December 1992 a secret meeting took place at a hotel in central London. Six months in the arranging, it lasted only a few hours, and at the time neither of the participants thought much of what had been accomplished. Yair Hirschfeld, a Middle East history professor, was breaking Israeli law by talking to Ahmed Kriah, head of the P.L.O.'s economics department. But other Israeli free-lance peacemakers had worked their Palestinian connections before in private attempts to jump-start the peace process. None had succeeded. In the hotel Kriah said he was interested in broad bilateral talks with Israeli officials. So was Hirschfeld. That was exciting--but hardly promising. Recalls Hirschfeld's partner Ron Pundak, a history research fellow: "Nobody believed that out of this funny meeting in London, involving an academic and someone who is not a high-ranking politician, something big would happen." But it did. That one meeting in London would lead to more than a dozen secretive sessions in Norway that would not only surprise Washington but produce the biggest breakthrough in Middle East negotiations since Anwar Sadat made peace with Menachem Begin in 1979. Only about two dozen people were aware of the proceedings. Within the Israeli Cabinet, just two people knew; among the Palestinians, even the P.L.O.'s foreign minister, Farouk Kaddoumi, was kept in the dark. Nearly two years after the start of official peace talks, first in Madrid and later in Washington, deadlocked negotiations lent special urgency to the back-channel talks. Immediately after meeting Kriah, Hirschfeld called a high-ranking friend, Yossi Beilin, Deputy Foreign Minister and an aggressive dove. Beilin was interested but noncommittal. Nevertheless, he extended what Pundak describes as a "very long leash"--in effect, carte blanche to explore all possibilities and report back at every stage of the contacts. Ever since the Labor Party regained power last year, Israel had begun opening the process. In fact, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres had already tentatively explored the possibility of opening back-channel talks with the P.L.O. with the help of Thorvald Stoltenberg, then Norway's Foreign Minister. The Norway link would prove fortunate. As it turns out, Kriah, Hirschfeld and Pundak were acquainted with members of the Norwegian Institute for Applied Social Science, which had sociologists and scientists studying living conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Hirschfeld contacted Terje Roed Larsen, head of the institute, who pressed his government contacts at home and came back with encouraging news. "If you need our support," Larsen told Hirschfeld, "we'll get the Norwegian government to give you all the facilities you need." The negotiators jumped at the chance. Hirschfeld and Pundak, together with the Palestinians led by Kriah, headed for Oslo in January. During the next eight months, they met 14 times in sessions lasting two to three days. Ushered through on separate flights so they would not be recognized, the delegates were escorted at high speed by the Norwegian police to rendezvous points in and outside the capital. In January it was a wood-paneled 19th century rural estate, later a hotel near one of the capital's busiest intersections, a rural farmhouse and even the private residence of Foreign Minister Johan Jorgen Holst. Holst's wife Marianne Heiberg was the leader of the Norwegian project study of the occupied territories and, along with her husband, became a key figure in the talks. Larsen and his wife Mona Juul, a Norwegian Foreign Ministry official, were also deeply involved. The Israelis made it clear that they did not officially represent their government but were simply "exploring issues." Still, they kept in constant contact with Beilin--and through him Foreign Minister Peres, who touched base with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. At first, a crucial question for the Israelis was whether the P.L.O. figures were speaking for Yasser Arafat. As the negotiations went on, however, the Israelis came to believe that they were. Says Pundak: "We saw their reaction when they came away from the phone. It was clear that the Old Man ((Arafat)) was part of the deal." In the next few meetings, positions converged. "We knew the official position of our government," Pundak says. "We assessed what our government could change in its views; we knew the Palestinian side very well through our meetings in the territories with the local leadership; we learned about the ideas of the P.L.O. based in Tunis [Arafat's headquarters]. We tried to think of ways to instruct each side about the other." Rabin, who was also entertaining feelers from the Palestinians by way of Egypt, remained cautious about the talks. But by March, Rabin authorized Peres to keep close but still unofficial tabs on what was being called the "Oslo Channel." By then, the Knesset had repealed the law prohibiting Israelis from meeting with the P.L.O. Meanwhile, the work of hammering out a draft proposal was wearing down animosities. The Norwegians enhanced the chances for a breakthrough by keeping the atmosphere intimate. Thus, after plowing through reams of documents, the Israelis and the Palestinians shared plates of Norwegian salmon and wandered together in nearby woods. "To say the atmosphere was friendly," recalls Pundak, "is an understatement." The enemies drank wine and brandy together, watched the news and video movies on television and, when meeting at the Holsts' home, got down on the floor to play with their hosts' four-year-old son, Edvard. (Arafat met the boy when Holst spent 10 days in Tunisia in June during an unofficial visit. Fond of children, the P.L.O. leader would perch Edvard on his lap during breaks in his talks with the Norwegians.) By May both sides had produced a draft that Pundak describes as "very interesting stuff." Interesting enough to entice two Israeli Foreign Ministry officials, Uri Savir and Yoel Singer, to travel to Norway soon thereafter for a firsthand look and to join the negotiations. At this point, Arafat in Tunis and Rabin in Jerusalem had been fully persuaded that the channel was more fact than fantasy, and both leaders were closely monitoring the drafting of a declaration of principles in which every nuance was fought over. After countless revisions that kept the negotiators haggling for uninterrupted stretches of 24 and even 36 hours (neighbors who wondered at the late-burning lights were told that two professors were working on a book), the document was finally ready. Says Pundak: "We drafted, drafted and redrafted. But even at the worst times, personal relations did not change. We always found a way to continue in good spirit." On Aug. 20, Peres witnessed the initialing of the declaration of principles in Oslo. Kriah and a P.L.O. colleague signed for the Palestinian delegation, while Savir and Singer initialed for the Israelis. On Aug. 27, Peres and Holst flew to the Naval Air Station at Point Mugu, California, to brief Secretary of State Warren Christopher. He was amazed and swiftly telephoned the President, who expressed immediate support. Washington had been aware since the outset that secret talks were taking place, but had little idea of the pace and scope. "We gave them some inkling, but that's all," said a senior Israeli diplomat. The U.S. knew about four secret channels that the Israelis were operating with the P.L.O. and believed Israeli diplomats who said, in the words of a senior U.S. official, that nothing "had particularly jelled." What the Clinton Administration did not count on was the persistence of both sides in seeking a deal--and the depths of Norwegian hospitality. </body> </article> </text>