The Oslo Accords – How The Israeli Intelligence Community Failed

The failures of the Israeli intelligence community in the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and of the American intelligence community on September 11, 2001 have been widely discussed. But there was another failure on the part of the Israeli intelligence community that merits attention: For over two years after the Oslo Accords signed on September 13, 1993, its experts failed to detect he threat posed by the Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The political climate that prevailed in Israel during the early 1990s had a negative effect on the assessment of the situation by the Israeli intelligence community, and there is a general lesson to be learned from these events.

PLO leader Yasser Arafat's intentions were clear from the beginning. In Washington, D.C. on September 13, 1993, he signed the Declaration of Principles, known as the Oslo I Accord, while wearing a military uniform (he had also insisted on wearing his pistol but had to give up on this), and while the ceremony was still taking place, he had a Jordanian TV channel air a recorded speech of his in which he explained that the Accord is just a phase in the PLO's Phased Plan of 1974, which was a mild version of the PLO's Charter: "Oh, my beloved, do not forget that the Palestinian National Council passed the resolution in 1974 […]  This is the moment of return, the moment we raise our flag on the first plot of liberated Palestinian land… This is an important, critical, and basic phase. Long live Palestine – free and Arab!"

In Cairo on May 4, 1994, Arafat signed with Israel the Gaza-Jericho Agreement, which transferred control of Gaza and Jericho to the PLO. Six days later, in a speech in a mosque in Johannesburg, he explained: "I consider this agreement to be nothing more than the one signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the tribe of Quraysh." This agreement was signed by Muhammad in 628 A.D. at a time when he was militarily weak, but after he became strong, he violated it and killed the members of the Quraysh tribe. In 1993, being politically weak, Arafat made a written commitment that "the PLO abandons the use of terrorism and other violent activities," but later, like the Prophet, he violated his commitment.

The inciteful rhetoric of Arafat and the PLO leadership that followed the signing of the Accords proved that they were sticking to the original goals of the PLO (as defined in its charter) and to the use of terrorism against Israel – indirectly through Hamas, or sometimes even directly. For example, on January 1, 1995, the 30^th anniversary of the PLO's Fatah faction, Arafat said in Gaza: "We all seek the path of martyrdom, and in the name of the martyrs who are still alive, I say to the martyrs who have already given their lives: Our pledge remains, and we remain loyal to this pledge, to continue the revolution." This theme was echoed by Arafat on several occasions, so that Hamas top official in Gaza Mahmoud Al-Zahhar once addressed him admirably: "Mr. President, as you say in all your speeches, we all seek the path of martyrdom."

When it signed the Oslo Accords, the Israeli government assumed that the PLO would effectively combat Hamas and prevent terror attacks against Israelis. Nevertheless, a month before the PLO's entry to Gaza and Jericho, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin warned in a Knesset speech on April 18, 1994: "I wish to clarify that any arrangement or de-facto agreement made by the PLO with Hamas regarding the continuation of Hamas terrorism will prevent any agreement [with Israel], as well as its implementation." 

The ominous signs were clear early on, as soon as the PLO entered Gaza and Jericho. The May 1994 Gaza-Jericho Agreement stated: "Except for the Palestinian Police referred to in this Article and the Israeli military forces, no other armed forces shall be established or operate in the Gaza Strip or the Jericho Area." 

For a long time, the Israeli public went so far as to explain the PLO's radical behavior and affiliation with terrorism with the truistic slogan "Peace is made with enemies," and this served as an excuse for the fact that the PLO leadership had been constantly breaching its agreements with Israel. Pursuant to this logic, as evidence was piling up that Arafat and his group were grossly violating the Accords, the Israeli public was willing to accept the bizarre explanation that these violations were in fact necessary for the sake of peace: Israel signed an agreement with Arafat; in order to implement the agreement Arafat must politically survive among his people; to survive, he must violate the agreements. In other words, the agreement between Israel and the PLO could only be implemented by being violated.

At the time, this did not seem so crazy. For example, MK Nissim Zvilli, a member of the Knesset's Foreign and Security Affairs Committee, explained in an interview in 2002: "I remember delivering speeches in France and explaining that one must understand Arafat's doublespeak. This had been our thesis, and it was proven to be baseless. Arafat meant every word he said, and we were naïve and thought that he did this in order to overcome the opposition to the Accords within his public." (Melman, Ha'aretz, July 26, 2002)

It is important for intelligence agencies to recognize that this failure took place due to the social and political atmosphere of the time. This is particularly important in today's era of social networks in which public opinion can be swayed rather easily. The pro-peace "spirit of the time" dominated the universities, the press, the political arena, and retired high-echelon officers and civil service officials. In some circles, it even prevailed in day-to-day conversations between friends. It was difficult to speak out against it, and this had its effect on the small group of analysts within Israel's intelligence community that were dealing with this subject matter. Their personal views affected their professional interpretation unconsciously, and perhaps some of them also feared of undermining a historic governmental move. Such professional failures ought to be taught and studied at intelligence schools.

https://www.memri.org/reports/oslo-accords-%E2%80%93-how-israeli-intelligence-community-failed

[TBC: These human intelligence failures shall continue until “...it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn” (Zechariah 12: 9-10.]