This most incisive piece misses a crucial detail. The PLO and PA never ratified the OSLO accords
As a subscriber the now defunct newspaper Al Hamishmar, published by Mapam, it is hard to forget their headline in October 1993, from special correspondent in Tunis, Pinhas Inbari.
Inbari provided an eyewitness account that Arafat and his PLO executive council would not ratify the DOP, the Declaration of Principles of the Oslo accords, which contained a commitment to recognize Israel and stop terror.
Then-Foreign Prime Minister Shimon Peres ignoring the scoop, dispatched Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin to fly to Tunis & thanked Arafat for ratifying an accord which the PLO never ratfified.
Colette Avital, then Israel consul in New York, also spread the word that the PLO had indeed ratified the DOP which it never did.
The Israel Government Press Office would not issue such a statement, which it knew to be false.
The headline of Al Mishmar of Arafat/PLO non approval of the DOP might have remained a secret.
However, I gave MK Hanan Porat a copy of Al HaMishmar with its banner headline.
Hanan proceeded to flash the headline from the rostrum of the Knesset.
Prime Minister Rabin disrupted Porat and asked him why he was reading Al HaMishmar
Inbari proceeded to write for many months about how Arafat and the PLO were proclaiming about Oslo, which for them meant the sanctification of their claims to lands lost in 1948,& the right of return
After Al HaMishman ceased publication, Inbari went on to become the top research analyst for Peace Watch, which tried to keep the peace process honest.
The Peace Watch reports are now posted at:
Peace Watch no longer functions.
Inbari’s Tunis PLO non ratification scoop has been ignored.
The only news outlet to pick up on it was the Winnipeg Jewish Review, edited by Rhonda Spivak, co-founder of Canadians for Peace Now.