We Tried Oslo. Now Let’s Try Reality
Thirty years after an interim agreement failed to deliver a final peace, it is time to consider a different architecture…a one sovereign Jewish state.
In 1993, Israelis were asked to take an extraordinary risk for peace.
The Oslo process was built on an idea that sounded somewhat reasonable…territorial compromise, Palestinian self-government and mutual commitments would create a pathway toward peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Israel took the risk.
More than three decades later, where is the peace?
Oslo was never supposed to become permanent. The framework created by Oslo II in 1995 divided Judea and Samaria, commonly called the West Bank, into Areas A, B and C as part of an interim arrangement. The permanent-status questions were supposed to be negotiated later.
They never were.
Instead, an interim agreement became a political reality that has survived for more than thirty years.
And Israelis did not receive the peace they were promised in return…in fact they received the worst Islamic terror imaginable.
The years following Oslo brought horrific terrorism, including the suicide-bombing campaigns that murdered Israelis on buses, in cafés and on city streets…and the. decades later came October 7.
At some point we have to be willing to ask the question that polite diplomacy has avoided:
How long does an interim peace process get to fail before we admit that it failed?
I believe Oslo has expired.
And I believe it is time to discuss an entirely different paradigm: Israeli sovereignty throughout Judea and Samaria and ultimately one sovereign Jewish state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
But sovereignty cannot simply mean changing the flag over a piece of territory.
If sovereignty is going to produce peace, it must change people’s lives.
That means dismantling a system in which generations of Palestinians have grown up amid political corruption, economic stagnation and incitement and replacing it with something radically more ambitious: opportunity.
Real schools. Real jobs. Infrastructure. Healthcare. Reliable utilities. Business enterprise. The ability to accumulate wealth and pass it to your children.
A future worth protecting.
There is already evidence of what economic integration can mean. Before October 7, according to World Bank data, Judea and Samaria Palestinians working in Israel or Israeli communities earned more than twice the average daily wage of Palestinians working in the local Judea and Samaria economy.
This is critical!
Because peace cannot be built exclusively in corrupt negotiating rooms. It has to be built in ordinary life, on the streets, and in the communities.
A father who can build a business, educate his children, buy a home and imagine grandchildren living better than he did has something enormously valuable to protect. He wouldn’t be inclined to compromise that no matter how much he hates people.
Prosperity alone will not erase terrorism or ideological hatred. Anyone pretending economics can magically cure extremism is ignoring history.
Security still matters. Education deeply matters. De-radicalization matters. Leadership matters.
And Israel must retain the ability to protect its citizens.
But after thirty years, perhaps it is time to stop assuming that separation automatically produces peace.
Maybe integration, sovereignty and prosperity deserve a serious hearing.
This would require enormous questions to be answered. What civil status would Palestinian residents receive? What political rights would they have? How would municipal government work? How would Israel guarantee equality before the law while preserving its Jewish national character? What happens to the Palestinian Authority? How would education and security transition?
Those questions should not frighten us away from the conversation. They are the conversation.
The Oslo framework was supposed to be temporary. Treating it as sacred three decades later, despite the absence of a final agreement, is not pragmatism .It is paralysis.
I want something much more ambitious for Israelis and Palestinians than another generation managing the same conflict.
I want Israeli children to grow up without bomb shelters being an ordinary part of childhood.
I want Palestinian children to grow up believing that becoming an engineer, physician, entrepreneur or teacher offers them more dignity than becoming a martyr.
I want families on both sides to have something worth protecting.
And I want us to finally recognize something that thirty years of failed peace processing should have taught us:
Peace is not created by drawing another line on a map.
Peace is created when security is undeniable, extremism becomes unacceptable and ordinary human beings have more to gain from building a life than destroying one.
Oslo offered separation as the road toward peace. Thirty years later, it is reasonable to ask whether sovereignty, integration and prosperity might offer another road.
The Oslo era has run its course. It is time to have the conversation, the critical conversation about what comes next.
We are ready.
