Why They Won't Talk About The Oslo Accords

Media pundits spend a lot of time "explaining" to the rest of us why some political or social development just occurred. Last week, The New York Times presented what it claimed are the real reasons behind the controversy over Israeli judicial reform. 

The recent election results, which brought Israel a new government--and the judicial reform plan--are part of a "rightward drift" that goes back a number of years, according to the Times' Jerusalem Bureau Chief Patrick Kingsley.

"The failure of peace negotiations with the Palestinians in the 1990s led some Israelis to lose faith in the centrist and leftist leaders who had championed the process," Kingsley said.

Think about that. Kingsley and the Times described the most widely-acclaimed Mideast peace agreement of the 20th century as "the failure of peace negotiations with the Palestinians."

The signing of Oslo I on the White House lawn, with a dramatic handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat and the Oslo II agreement, with Israel's withdrawal from the territories where 98% of the Palestinian Arabs live--both are, in the eyes of the Times, "the failure of peace negotiations with the Palestinians." READ MORE