Time Stands Still and Screams

September 2023 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the adoption of the Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles. In the September 1993 declaration, which later became known as the Oslo I Accord, Israel acknowledged the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the representative of the Palestinians, while the PLO in turn formally recognized the State of Israel.

An agreement was reached on both the establishment of an autonomous Palestinian government and the gradual withdrawal of Israel from the occupied Palestinian territories, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, intended to take no longer than five years. During this transitional period, particularly contentious issues such as the demarcation of the border between Israel and the Palestinian states, the refugee question, the status of Jerusalem, the future of the settlements, and questions of security were to be clarified and a final status on the basis of UN resolution 242/338 was to be determined.[1] Despite the scepticism, these were hopeful times; a free Palestine and the end of the military occupation, which, in violation of international law, had lasted since 1967, seemed within reach.

As we know, the five-year transition period passed without the “final status issues” being resolved. As of the most recent and unsuccessful round of negotiations at Camp David in 2000, the Oslo process must be considered a failure. Various causes among the participants contributed to the failure of negotiations, with some aspects so grave as to render all subsequent attempts to resume negotiations or to find other approaches to conflict resolution absurd: despite the accord, Israel has blocked and ignored agreements and agreed-upon timelines for years, choosing instead to systematically establish and expand settlements, road networks, and borders on Palestinian territory.

Thus, from inception, central principles of the Oslo Accord, requiring that the status of the area under negotiation not change during the negotiation process, were violated.[2] Conditions were created that made the development of a Palestinian polity impossible and the possibility of a two-state solution increasingly unrealistic. Furthermore, an important design flaw of the Oslo Accord was that it did not take the balance of power in an occupation context into account (or did so insufficiently). No monitoring or valid sanction mechanisms were put into place in the event that timetables were not adhered to, or agreements torpedoed. This failure actively ignored the reality that negotiations in asymmetrical conflict situations, between an occupying power and a population living under military occupation, cannot function without these mechanisms in place.

Thirty years on, the occupation continues, and Palestinians still live in a situation of utter precarity. Millions of Palestinian refugees and their families living in the diaspora lack any future prospects. Furthermore, the legitimate claims of Palestinians under both international and human rights law are marginalized internationally. In some contexts, especially in Germany, Palestinians are confronted with xenophobia and racism that profoundly affect their social and political participation, professional development, and everyday lives.

Developments in Palestine after the failure of the Oslo Accord are well documented. The situation in the occupied territories today is as follows:

Occupation in violation of international law * The fragmentation of Palestinian territories and society * A system of apartheid [3] * The disregard for human rights * The annexation of land * The destruction and expropriation of houses and infrastructure * Violence perpetrated by militant settlers * Alienation between Palestinian leadership and the population * The escalation of violence and counter-violence * The de-legitimization and criminalization of critical civil-society groups * Double standards in the international political assessment of the situation * No self-determination * No justice * No peace.

The future looks dystopian for Palestine, with a high risk of escalating violence.

The “Oslo system” continues to exert influence and has had far reaching consequences for Palestine socially, politically, and economically. As a result of the agreements, the Palestinian territories are divided into different zones, of which only a small part — primarily the larger cities in the West Bank — are entirely under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

However, incursions by the Israeli military and security forces are still part of everyday life in these zones. The remaining territories are mostly or completely under the control of occupying forces. The PA is completely dependent on Israel and international donors; its own authority is limited to an essentially administrative role. The PA can neither guarantee the security of its citizens nor manage its national budget independently, let alone control its external borders. It is further burdened by a lack of democratic legitimacy and increasingly authoritarian behaviour towards its own population, especially critics.

A complex system of fragmentation and dependency has been created since the Oslo Accord, allowing for small windows of normality, and providing specific groups with access to resources and privileges. These are accessible, for example, to those who belong to the PA network: the thousands of families in the West Bank who benefit directly or indirectly from the PA. The Oslo Accords also force the PA to cooperate closely with Israeli security forces, which means the PA plays a supporting role regardless of how well it performs.

Additionally, this system of fragmentation and dependency is related to the aid sector, which has supported the creation of a Palestinian nation since the early 1990s by providing billions of dollars for international cooperation and development. This aid has changed the socio-economic structure of the Palestinian population; a new class has emerged that benefits from the resources and opportunities it has access to as part of the international political scene. Concurrently, dependence on external funding is so high that local efforts and approaches are subordinated by the interests and guidelines of foreign donor organizations. Without these payments, a large sector of Palestinian civil society would come to a standstill. However, for the vast majority of people, a post-Oslo Accord Palestine offers no liveable future.

In 2013, on the twentieth anniversary of the Oslo I Agreement, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s Palestine Office in Ramallah asked artists and filmmakers from Palestine and the Palestinian diaspora what “Oslo” meant to them, inviting them to capture their responses in short video clips. How could this disturbing situation be expressed in images? The passing of time; dreams and hopes; hopelessness. How could images act as historical references to the Oslo process? The result is the film project Suspended Time, produced by Idioms Film. Suspended time is a time in which things happen and at the same time everything seems to stand still.

The project is composed of nine short films, a montage of very different impressions, reflections, and imaginings. Twenty Handshakes for Peace by Mahdi Fleifel features historical footage and interviews in continuous loops, and Long War by Asma Ghanem features endless repetitions, ending in images pixelated beyond recognition. In Oslo Syndrome by Ayman Azraq, personal memories recorded in letters reflect the hopes and also the disappointments associated with the Oslo Accord, and in Leaving Oslo by Yazan Khalili, we see stories of leaving and arriving, of returning and setting out once again. Appartment 10/14 by Tarazan and Arab Nasser focusses on fantasies of the gifts that a girlfriend will bring for a birthday, before she is detained at a checkpoint. In Interferences by Amin Nayfeh, we see images of being trapped in flats and situations, and in Message to Obama by Muhannad Salahat, the anger of children who want to inform the American president about their situation on Facebook. We hear screams from Ramallah in From Ramallah by Assem Nasser, and in Journey of a Sofa by Alaa Al Ali, a sofa is carried with great care and effort through the narrow alleys of a refugee camp, only for it to turn out in the end to be the wrong one.

This year, in September 2023, 30 years after the Oslo Accords, we are screening these clips once again. They have lost none of their meaning — on the contrary, as time continues to stand still, the screams grow louder.

Translated by Eve Richens and Anna Dinwoodie for Gegensatz Translation Collective.