How to reverse engineer Israeli-Palestinian peace

Who said the Oslo Accord died and took the two-state solution with it to the grave? In the Norwegian capital on Feb. 8-9, peace envoys convened from the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, the so-called Quartet. At the end of their meeting, the representatives met with Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge Brende and Ambassador Tor Wennesland, Norway’s envoy for the Middle East peace process (yes, there is such a position, believe it or not). In an announcement to the press following the meeting, the Quartet condemned “all acts of terror and violence against civilians,” and “expressed concern about current trends on the ground that pose a threat to the two-state solution.” The statement also noted that these trends require concrete steps to resume the transition to peace envisioned in the Oslo agreement. The envoys signed the announcement in anticipation of the next meeting of Quartet officials (at the level of foreign ministers), to be held days later in Munich.

Aside from such diplomatic expeditions around the world, not much is left of the “peace process” that got underway in Oslo almost 23 years ago. President Bill Clinton had been in the first year of his first term of office when he hosted Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat at the signing ceremony of the Oslo Accord on the White House lawn in 1993. Since then, the United States has had two other presidents, and at the end of the year, the Clinton family might return to the White House if Hillary Clinton prevails over her Democratic and Republican rivals for the presidency.