RAMAT GAN, ISRAEL–The term “irony” does not do justice to the contrast between the Palestinian terror attacks that killed three Americans in Gaza Wednesday, and the hype surrounding the latest Mideast peace plan, known as the Geneva document.

The landmine that killed the Americans was very similar to explosives used against buses carrying children in Gaza. These attacks highlight the ongoing damage from the Oslo “peace” process, which was hatched by the same cast of characters as the Geneva document. At the same time, in the nearby Rafah section of Gaza, under the cover provided by Oslo, Arafat and the PLO obtained weapons and explosives for a three-year war that has so far killed almost 900 Israelis. Arafat transported weapons by sea–as in the case of the Karine-A–by land, and by air. A network of tunnels under Rafah, located on border between Gaza and Egypt, were used to smuggle weapons, explosives, and terrorists from Egypt.

The imports from the tunnels included facilities and materials for making Kassam rockets, which have been fired at nearby Israeli settlements and at towns and cities outside Gaza. The explosives that were used to attack the U.S. convoy in Gaza were also probably taken through the tunnels from Egypt. Shutting down this network will make the Palestinian attacks against the Israeli population and U.S. government personal much more difficult.

While the battles around the Rafah tunnels continue, and Israelis around the country are on alert for more terror attacks, the next Oslo-type program is being prepared for signing in Geneva. This time, we are told, all the bugs have been resolved and peace is guaranteed. These self-appointed negotiators have succeeded where all others have failed, using their considerable creative talents to resolve the difficult questions of refugee claims, Jerusalem, and boundaries.

If we learned anything from the Oslo calamity, however, it was the difficulty of translating noble words into deeds. On countless occasions since 1988, Arafat and his deputies have pledged to end terror and have consistently failed to deliver on any of these promises. There is no reason to expect the Geneva project to be any different.

Once again, we are told, the Palestinian State will be demilitarized under international supervision. This is precisely the language used to justify the creation of the Palestinian Authority in the Oslo process. In the Gaza-Jericho pact and other interim agreements, pages of carefully negotiated text were devoted to a detailed specification of the size of the Palestinian police force created to prevent terror, as well as the number and type of weapons that they were to be allowed to carry (with serial numbers recorded by the Israeli government to trace any abuse of these weapons). Other sections detailed inspection procedures for ground crossings and for the airport in Gaza, to insure that no weapons or explosives were being smuggled in.

In reality, all of these paper provisions were violated from the beginning. When Yasser Arafat made his grand return from Tunis to Gaza in 1994, his profile was higher than usual, and not because of his greatly increased stature. He was practically on the lap of a wanted Palestinian terrorist whose entry into Israel was prohibited, under the terms negotiated in the agreements. In this and thousands of other motorcades, as well as in the aircraft flying into the Gaza airport (funded generously by the Europeans), and through the tunnels from Egypt, the PLO, Hamas, and other factions have been able to assemble an arsenal of illegal weapons and explosives.

Three years ago, Israel finally shut down the airport and closed the overland arms links, leaving the Rafah tunnels as the primary active route. These have survived largely due to the presence of the Palestinian families which have been strategically placed in the buildings above the tunnels to serve as human shields, making any IDF attack very difficult. Now, as the IDF has finally been sent to destroy the tunnels, some civilians have been killed and injured, and their houses destroyed. And, as Arafat recognized, this has produced one-sided condemnations from the U.N., the Europeans, the NGO community, and others who falsely claim to act in the name of human rights.

The blatantly illegal construction and use of these tunnels to obtain weapons from Egypt, as well as the placement of civilians above to protect them, is entirely ignored by the deeply hostile and morally blind international community charged with ensuring Palestinian demilitarization.

The bottom line is that, ten years after presiding over the Oslo catastrophe, the amateur Israeli peacemakers, led by Yosi Beilin (a former ally of Shimon Peres) and his partners, have not learned anything. But the Israeli public has learned a great deal, and as a result, the Geneva version of the Oslo agreements is destined to quick oblivion.

In embracing Oslo ten years ago, Israelis paid a huge price. They now know better. They know that real peace will begin with actions rather than words, in the form of the dismantling of terrorist networks. This will not require complex negotiations, wordy agreements, and highly publicized signing ceremonies. When it finally happens, we will all know it.

–Gerald M. Steinberg is director of the program on conflict management and negotiation at Bar Ilan University.