soluble ones (unlike the host of final-status issues—Jerusalem, sovereignty, borders—on which the two sides’ positions are hopelessly irreconcilable). A deal on these loose ends from Oslo would have been Netanyahu’s vindication—a way to show he could improve on Shimon Peres’s performance on security issues but also produce diplomatic results. It would have kept international pressures at bay for quite a while. But he stalled too long.
Now, in the wake of the Palestinian violence, he will inevitably be pushed into concessions on these issues that will appear to have been extracted by the violence and by international pressures —and he will get less in exchange for them, perhaps not even a return to the status quo ante in terms of Israel’s international standing. Certainly, he will delay a bit, to try to restore the psychological balance and to show that he is not surrendering to blackmail. But the reality will be that he lost control over events. This was a fundamental failure of Israeli strategy.
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