Oslo Accords
1993 - 2000

Historical context on the agreement that was presented as a solution for the “conflict” to move forward, which was doubted by many from the start. In the short term, there were some benefits to it for artists.

Leading Locally vs. From Exile
The efforts of the first Intifada were spearheaded by the freshly-formed Unified National Leadership of the Uprising (UNLU), whose communiqués led political, social, economic, and cultural strategies and messages. There were also popular committees established in villages, camps, and city neighborhoods.

The UNLU was a coalition which included representatives of PLO-affiliated groups – mainly Fatah, PFLP, DFLP, and Palestine Communist/People’s Party.

There was also Palestinian Islamic Jihad, founded earlier in the 1980s, who “organized itself around the principle that defeat of Israeli occupation and subjugation could only be achieved through armed struggle, and it sought to merge the secular and Islamist strands of the Palestinian political landscape,” as Jeremy Scahill later wrote for Drop Site News.

At the same time, 1987 saw the formation of Hamas (an Arabic acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement). They were an offshoot wing of The Muslim Brotherhood – which had started in 1928 in Egypt. Hamas started to become involved during the First Intifada and had separate communiqués, too.

Over the course of this period, many leaders from all of these different groups were deported from Palestine.

There was also the PLO, already in exile, who was caught off-guard by the First Intifada’s start and rise. From abroad, at this time in Tunisia, they tried to stay involved and use the moment for their political purposes.

Kalil al-Wazir (also known as Abu Jihad) – a Co-Founder, top member of Fatah, and close aid of Yasser Arafat – dealt directly with UNLU and strengthened PLO connection between them. However, he was assassinated by Israel in April 1988 at his home in Tunisia.

A couple of months later in June 1988, the PLO gathered at that year’s Arab Summit.

As noted in The Interactive Encyclopedia of The Palestine Question:

“Building on the political assets provided by the Intifada, and on the reactivation of diplomatic efforts to find a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the 19th Palestine National Congress adopts two texts.

The first is the Declaration of Independence, legitimized internationally by UN General Assembly Resolution 181 and by the Palestinian right to self-determination.

The second text is a political communiqué in which the PNC states its acceptance of UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 as the basis of the international peace conference, and enumerates the principles that were put forward by the Arab Summit, Algiers, 1988.”

Others like Hamas and Islamic Jihad did not align with this decision as they saw the PLO accepting the UN resolutions as concessions that gave in to Israel, ignoring the loss of land since 1948 and only focusing on what was taken in 1967. In their eyes, freedom from occupation did not only mean the West Bank and Gaza.

In 1990 during the Gulf War, Iraq invaded Kuwait and promised to evacuate on condition that Israel evacuate the occupied territories, receiving support from the PLO in the process. However, after an Iraqi defeat, it left the PLO more powerless –despite the momentum Palestinians in the homeland had built in the Intifada.

International pressure for “peace talks” built, taking more shape in 1991 at the Madrid Conference, which was organized by the US and Soviet Union. However, it wasn’t until a couple of years later that discussions grew deeper. Secret talks started in early 1993 between the PLO’s Yasser Arafat and then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin led to a next big step, with the United States acting as an eventual mediator.

In September 1993, the Oslo Accords agreement was reached. Overall, Israel recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinians (previously they had designated them as a terrorist organization). Meanwhile, the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace – like it had already established by recognizing UN Res. 242 – and they also renounced Palestinian “terrorism.” The agreement opened with the statement:

“The Government of the State of Israel and the PLO team (in the Jordanian-Palestinian delegation to the Middle East Peace Conference) (the ‘Palestinian Delegation’), representing the Palestinian people, agree that it is time to put an end to decades of confrontation and conflict, recognize their mutual legitimate and political rights, and strive to live in peaceful coexistence and mutual dignity and security and achieve a just, lasting and comprehensive peace settlement and historic reconciliation through the agreed political process.

The aim of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations within the current Middle East peace process is, among other things, to establish a Palestinian Interim Self-Government Authority, the elected Council (the ‘Council’), for the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, for a transitional period not exceeding five years, leading to a permanent settlement.”

A coalition of ten Palestinian groups – including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP, and DFLP – issued a statement after that the agreement “meant perpetuating the Israeli occupation, transforming the Palestinians into its instruments, and establishing a Palestinian police force to protect Israeli security and repress the Palestinian people.”

They weren’t alone. Well-known Palestinian academic and philosopher Edward Said wrote a detailed reflection, The Morning After, where he called Oslo “an instrument of Palestinian surrender” and essentially described it as a slap in the face.

Amir-Hussein Radjy later wrote an article for the publication Foreign Policy, Edward Said Saw the Future of Israel and Palestine, where he spoke about Said’s research, work, and legacy. When describing his reaction to the agreement, Radjy writes:

“Said described the protests, strikes, and boycotts of the First Intifada in the late 1980s as ‘surely the most impressive and disciplined anti-colonial insurrection in this century.’ Instead of building on it, he felt Arafat signed away any gains in the nationalist cause for the U.S. government’s flimsy promises of being an honest broker. It was, he repeated over the next few years, the only time an occupied people had agreed to negotiate with their occupiers before a withdrawal had happened or been agreed on.”

Physical Spaces for Art
To look at the initial impact of the Oslo Accords on visual art, the conversation starts just before it was actually signed. In Palestinian Art, Kamal Boullata writes:

“The 1990s ushered in a new era in the visual arts. With peace talks that seemed to hold out new promise for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, the cultural scene was infused with a new energy. For the first time since 1967, new institutions devoted to the promotion of the visual arts provided proper exhibition space.”

Multiple spaces opened in East Jerusalem, continuing its history as an art hub.

One of these was the Al-Wasiti Art Centre in East Jerusalem, founded by Sliman Mansour and other Rabita artists in 1992. It hosted solo and group exhibitions of local artists and offered courses to young kids. It also started a photography archive to document locally-produced art.

The other was Gallery Anadiel, founded the same year by artist and curator Jack Persekian, along with his brother-in-law, who had been born in Al Quds / Jerusalem. While they also exhibited local artists, they also invited diaspora Palestinian artists to visit – several who had never been to their homeland before, such as multimedia and installation artist Mona Hatoum.

After the signing of the Oslo Accords and influx of international donations for cultural projects, many NGOs for visual arts were founded to solicit grants for Palestinian artists from an increase of international and diaspora contributions. This included NGOs organized by artists themselves.

The majority of cultural spaces instead shifted towards Ramallah – where the newly-established Palestinian Authority had their West Bank headquarters.

In Ramallah, one of the main openings at this time was the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center in 1996 – initially as a branch of the Palestinian Ministry of Culture. The first director was Adila Laïdi-Hanieh, who oversaw its transition to become an NGO.

Laïdi-Hanieh also developed programs across the visual arts field to host exhbitions for artists across the West Bank and Gaza, including a focus on young artists in particular.

Along with exhibitions, the venue also hosted other events such as lectures, screenings, concerts, and more. It became a key cultural hub in the West Bank. There were also literature programs and the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish even had an office there.

An important institution that opened in 1998 was the A. M. Qattan Foundation that operated through a family endowment and helped to fund other cultural institutions and programs throughout Palestine, in addition to creating its own programs.

Universities & Art Programs
There had been no art schools available to study at prior, so Palestinians who were interested in studying the craft had to go to neighboring countries – such as Egypt, Iraq, and Syria – if they were even permitted or able to travel.

Not until the early 1990s were art programs and student exhibition venues able to pop up more at schools like Al Najeh University and Al Quds University, though it would be another decade before the first art academy would be established. This would be the start of an increasing amount of such university arrangements over time.

These schools also assisted in the larger art field development. Tina Sherwell wrote in an article for IEMed:

“(Universities) took on different roles, hosting solo shows for artists, documenting Palestinian art, creating websites, producing publications, promoting contemporary and avant-garde practices, creating bridges between Palestinian artists inside the green line and in diaspora, creating links between international artists and Palestine, organizing international exhibitions of Palestinian art, hosting international artists, creating residency programs, and facilitating the work of international curators.

In time, these institutions have become cultural mediators and set the agenda for cultural activities through their strategies and programs.”

Breaking Recent Traditions
After such a long stretch of art that often tied to political contexts and nationalist symbols, the 1990s saw a shift to exploring more personal themes. They still were rooted in the history and informed by the political context, “but did not revert to the use of the established visual iconography and popular symbolism of identity representations of previous decades” as Tina Sherwell wrote for IEMed.

Sherwell also notes that the mediums changed:

“Painting and sculpture had been the dominant modes of expression but this began to shift with younger generation artists, who began to use photography, video and installation, and experiment with performance.

With a lessening of a direct political agenda in art practice over the mid-to-late 1990s, as well as of the need to create national representations, younger artists in particular began to engage with more complex investigations of questions of identity and location.”

Cinema Continuing To Grow
One medium that was seeing increasing popularity was filmmaking. After the PLO had been at the forefront of Palestinian cinema from the end of the 1960s through the start of the 1980s, with films often tied to national Palestinian organizations, this changed after the Lebanon invasion and withdrawal of the PLO from Beirut. Instead, it became more independent with individuals making their own work, while still often speaking to the Palestinian struggle.

One notable example was Wedding in Galilee (1987) – the first-ever fictional, feature-length movie that was made in Palestine by a Palestinian director. Directed by Michel Khleifi, the film won the International Critics Prize, or FIPRESCI, at the Cannes Film Festival in 1987.

From the new filmmakers who started to emerge during the ‘90s, one of them was Rashid Masharawi, who released حتى إشعار آخر (Curfew) in 1994. It was about Palestinians living in al Shati refugee camp in Gaza, the same camp he had been born and raised in.

Masharawi also established the Cinema Production and Distribution Center (CPC) in Ramallah in 1996. The goal was to organize workshops and present opportunities to learn, hands on, for young Palestinian filmmakers. The CPC also ran a Mobile Cinema, with screenings at refugee camps during an annual Kids Film Festival.

The first Palestinian movie to receive a national release in the United States came in 1996, with Elia Suleiman’s film (Chronicle of a Disappearance (سجل اختفاء).

The movie, starring Suleiman himself, also won the Best First Film Prize at the Venice Film Festival. It features vignettes that are meant to convey the reality of daily Palestinian life under Israeli occupation.

Suleiman himself had lived in New York City for a period but had moved back to Palestine in 1994 and taught at Birzeit University in the West Bank, here he worked on developing a Film and Media Department at the school.

The Agreement Unfolds
The first Oslo Accord, known as Oslo I, was signed in September 1993. As noted in an article from The Middle East Institute for Understanding:

“The Oslo Accords established the Palestinian Authority (PA) to govern Palestinians in pockets of the occupied West Bank and Gaza under the control of Israel’s occupying army.

The PA was supposed to be an ‘Interim Self-Government' and only last ‘for a transitional period not exceeding five years.’

The final status agreement was supposed to be based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which called for Israel to withdraw from the territories it occupied during the June 1967 war, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.

As a result, most Palestinians believed that the Oslo Accords would create an independent Palestinian state in the occupied territories alongside Israel, as part of the so-called ‘two-state solution’ in Palestine/Israel advocated by the international community.”

A second accord, Oslo II, was signed in September 1995. It included more details on steps for the process. Notably it divided the West Bank into three areas: Area A (complete PA authority), Area B (shared security agreement), and Area C (“Isreali” authority).

It had been agreed that a general election would happen for the West Bank and Gaza. In January 1996, the PA held elections and Arafat’s Fatah party won with 88% of the vote.

There had been a deadline of May 1999 for a permanent resolution of the Oslo matters to be reached.

However, by the end of the decade, no final peace treaty or semblance of peace was achieved. There was a large increase in settlements, with more than double in the West Bank.

In addition, other original aspects of the deal were not kept.

One notable element that also had consequences was the way the Palestinian Authority (PA) was run. As mentioned in the Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question:

“The PA also became increasingly authoritarian. It cracked down on opponents, especially from Hamas, and often ignored court rulings or resorted to special military courts.

In addition, with Arafat and Fatah focused on running the PA and continuing the process of negotiations with Israel, and with the Damascus-based groups seemingly permanently alienated, the PLO as representing also the diaspora Palestinians virtually ceased functioning. Many Palestinians, even refugees in Syria and Lebanon, who had initially supported the Oslo accords and welcomed the establishment of the PA as a step toward Palestinian independence saw little hope in the whole Oslo process.”

When the US invited both parties for a Camp David Summit in July 2000, Israel said it would not make any concessions about the return of refugees, nor any changes to the status of Jerusalem. The Oslo “peace process” was resulting in a failure for Palestinians.