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Ha'aretz, September 28, 1998
When the Terror Really Began
By Danny Rubinstein
Ever since the ceremony marking the fifth
anniversary of the signing of the Oslo
agreement, the Prime Minister's Office has
been publicizing depressing figures on the
number of victims of Palestinian terror.
According to these figures, 279 Israelis have
been killed in terrorist incidents since
September 13, 1993, the day on which the
agreement was signed, as opposed to 254 who
were killed in such incidents during the 15
years preceding the agreement.These grim
statistics indicate that, since Oslo, the
number of terror victims in Israel has
increased by several hundred percentage points
in contrast to the pre-Oslo period. These
figures give the impression that it is the
Oslo agreement that has led to the increase in
Palestinian terror and to the sharp rise in
the number of its victims. In other words, the
individuals who signed the Oslo agreement are
being accused of having made a grave error
that has brought about disastrous results.
Obviously, one cannot argue with solid facts.
Nonetheless, the compilers of these statistics
in the PMO have admitted that they decided to
exclude victims of terrorist attacks that were
carried out by terrorists who "came from
abroad," primarily Lebanon. Thus, for example,
the victims of the coastal-road bus attack and
other such incidents have not been included.
That decision does skew the figures somewhat,
but not enough to conceal the clear fact that,
during the five years since the signing of the
Oslo agreement, there has been a very sharp
increase in the number of Israeli victims of
terrorism.
Can the Oslo agreement really be regarded as a
turning point in terms of terrorism? Can it be
seen as a sort of watershed event, marking the
advent of an unprecedented wave of deadly
attacks?
One could attempt to look for a different
"landmark" date such as, for example, the day
in 1994 on which Baruch Goldstein carried out
the mass murder of 29 Moslem worshippers in
the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Six
months separate the signing of the Oslo
agreement and the massacre in the Tomb of the
Patriarchs. Although this is a relatively
brief period, a close look at terrorist
activities during those six months leads to
the unavoidable conclusion that the Oslo
agreement did not directly produce a
significant rise in the number of terror
victims. In the six-month period following the
signing of the agreement, 16 Israelis were
killed in attacks launched by Palestinian
terrorists. Nearly the identical number of
Israelis - 15 to be precise - were killed by
Palestinians in the six months that preceded
Oslo.
In other words, in the six-month period
preceding Oslo and in the six-month period
following Oslo, the security situation was
almost identical. Most of the victims of these
two periods were Israeli soldiers serving in
the territories. The prominent elements in the
immediate pre-Oslo period were knifings and
the murder of Israeli vegetable merchants in
Gaza. The most prominent element in the
immediate post-Oslo period was the murder of
the Lapid family near Kiryat Arba, which
surpassed in its severity any previous
terrorist attack on Israeli civilians. [It was
also the event that apparently triggered
Goldstein's rampage.]
In light of the above, one can safely conclude
that the true watershed in the pattern of
Palestinian terrorism was not the Oslo
agreement, but the massacre in the Tomb of the
Patriarchs. In addition to the worshippers
gunned down by Goldstein, another 20
Palestinians were killed during that period in
incidents in Hebron and in other communities.
The mass murder in the Tomb is the event that
directly and immediately created the chain of
suicide bombings and the appalling upward
spiral composed of Israeli responses and
Palestinian counter-responses, a spiral in
which the number of Israeli victims has
reached unprecedented "heights."
Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and extreme leftist
Palestinian groups opposed to Oslo carried out
a number of attacks after the agreement was
signed in order to sabotage it. However, the
impact of these attacks on the peace process
was negligible. In contrast, the terrorist
attack that had the most serious implications
for the Oslo agreement was actually launched
by an Israeli - Baruch Goldstein - who, before
carrying out the massacre, told his friends
and associates that he was going to commit an
act that would entirely change the situation
in the Middle East.
He succeeded.
We will never know what would have been the
face of Palestinian terror if the Goldstein
massacre had never taken place. Nonetheless,
it is crystal-clear that the horrific wave of
terror we have witnessed in recent years was
generated not by the Oslo agreement but rather
by Goldstein, who tried to sabotage that
agreement. The mass murder he carried out has
been the real turning-point in the pattern of
Palestinian terrorism.
The statistics issued by the PMO are
manipulative. To all those who wish to imply
that the signers and supporters of the Oslo
agreement are responsible for the massive
escalation of Palestinian terror, the
following reply should be given: It is the
opponents of Oslo - Goldstein and his cohorts
- who have created this ghastly chain of
terror.
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