LESSONS FROM THE OSLO CATASTROPHE

Last week, Charles Krauthammer gave a brilliant speech, condemning the secular messianism that led to the Oslo agreement. From Krauthammer's perspective, Oslo was doomed from the start - and in retrospect the selection of Arafat as peace partner seems to have been fatal. But, as Saul Singer points out in this incisive column, whatever chance Oslo had of succeeding was doomed by the Peace Camp's messianic attitude towards its implementation.

If the Labor Party not just Oslo's critics had cried foul when Yasser Arafat started smuggling terrorists and weaponry in his car, when he failed to curb incitement, and when he failed to lift a finger against Hamas, the situation could be different. It was Oslo's defenders who howled that Binyamin Netanyahu was killing the agreement by demanding "reciprocity" also known as implementation. Those who really doomed Oslo were not its opponents but its champions. Like those who let Germany violate the Versailles Treaty out of laziness or misplaced magnanimity, Oslo's defenders invited war, not peace.

This is a lesson we will need for the future, whenever we end up attempting further peace agreements. The underlying fallacy that beguiled those behind Oslo was that peace is produced by fulfilling perceived Arab grievances. Oslo's proponents believed fervently that the Arab desire to destroy Israel either was no longer meaningful or could be slaked. The peace processors are fond of saying, in response to Arab intransigence, that peace is made with enemies, not with friends. But in the case of other sworn enemies, such as France and Germany, peace was made possible by the utter defeat and transformation of the aggressive party. The insanity of Oslo was not so much that it attempted to make peace without such a transformation, but that there was not any vigilance to make sure such a transformation was taking place.

The best hope for peace with the Muslim world is a transformation of its most radical states, Iran and Iraq, into pro-Western democracies. Now that the United States has realized that such a transformation may be required for its security, it is hardly unthinkable. Israel need not wait until then to pursue peace, but cannot repeat the mistake of assuming that Israeli concessions can take the place of making Arab regimes accountable to their own people.

While most Israelis have been cured of this mistake, the view that Israeli concessions are the critical element to an Arab-Israeli peace maintains a stubborn hold over the mindset of Europeans, the State Department and the liberal elite. Until they change their position, they will continue to be obstruct rather than aid the achievement of a real peace in the Middle East.