Palestinian Politics and the Middle East Peace Process

Consensus and Competition in the Palestinian Negotiating Team

Ghassan Khatib

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135180683
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Eight years after the second Palestinian uprising, the Oslo accords signed in 1993 seem to have failed. The reasons for the failure continue to fascinate students, politicians, researchers and policymakers alike. This book explores one of the major aspects of the bilateral peace process – the composition and behaviour of the Palestinian negotiating team, which deeply impacted the outcome of the negotiations between 1991 and 1997. It focuses on the dynamics between the PLO leadership outside the occupied Palestinian territories and the grassroots leadership within the areas under Israeli control that led to conflicts of interest at the time of the final agreement. As the author was a part of the Palestinian leadership in the occupied territories, and was present during the negotiations process in Madrid and Washington DC, the book contains original, unpublished accounts, including those of the Washington bilateral negotiations and crucial internal Palestinian meetings. It is an excellent resource to gain an understanding of Palestinian behavior during peace talks, deterioration in peace-making efforts, the resulting radicalization, and the growing tendency towards violence.

Table of contents

• Durham Modern Middle East and Islamic World Series
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Acronyms
• Chronology
• Introduction and methodology
• 1 The literature survey
• 2 The emergence and nature of the Palestinian leadership
• 3 Palestinian participation in the peace process
• 4 The Oslo Agreement – 1993
• 5 The negotiations over the implementation of the Declaration of Principles
• 6 Palestinian leadership and Palestinian authority
• Conclusions
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index