The Oslo Syndrome

It has long been obvious to all but the incurably or willfully blind that the 1993 agreement signed in Oslo between the government of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization was a horrendous blunder on Israel?s part. Rarely in history has a country so foolishly opened its gates to a Trojan horse as Israel did when it welcomed Yasir Arafat and his PLO brigades, handed over to them most of the Gaza Strip and much of the West Bank, and gave them the arms to impose their rule on the local inhabitants. How could such a mistake have been made by experienced political and military leaders, statesmen and generals whose careers had spanned a half-century of managing Israel?s bitter conflict with the Arabs?

A year afterward, when the Oslo agreement was already headed toward its eventual collapse, I found myself musing about this question with a good friend of mine, the Harvard professor of Yiddish literature and fellow Commentary contributor Ruth Wisse. Whereas she had been strongly against the Oslo agreement from the start, I had initially been less certain about it. It had deeply troubled and scared me; but although I did not take part in the delirium of applause that greeted the Rabin-Arafat handshake on the White House lawn, neither did I immediately join the critics. Surely, I thought, Israel?s leaders must have some idea of what they were doing. I would wait and see?and hope for the best.

Now I said to Ruth:

?Tell me something. You and I have had our share of political disagreements in the past. You?ve always said that Israeli concessions to the Palestinians would result in a disastrous cave-in, and I?ve always said that concessions had to be made. Now they have been made?and you were right and I was wrong. How did you, who live in America, understand what I, who live in Israel, failed to see??

?It?s because I know my Yiddish literature,? Ruth replied.

At first I thought she was joking. Then I realized she had said something profound?profound enough, in any case, to merit 600 pages of exegesis in Kenneth Levin?s well-researched and strenuously argued new work of psychohistory, The Oslo Syndrome.