Yair Hirschfeld, and the historian and former Haaretz journalist Ron Pundak. Three PLO officials were there, led by Arafat’s closest economic aide, Abu Ala’a. Though both of the Israelis were friends of Yossi Beilin, a protégé of Peres and our deputy foreign minister, even Peres didn’t know about the meeting until Yossi told him the following day. Rabin knew an hour later. I first learned of it from Uni Saguy, after Unit 8200 intercepted Arabic-language traffic concerning a briefing the Norwegians had given their Arab contacts. At first, even Peres was skeptical that the paper agreed at the “seminar” — calling for international aid to the West Bank and Gaza on the scale of the Marshall Plan, and an initial Israeli withdrawal limited to Gaza — would lead to serious negotiations. But Rabin authorized follow-up sessions in mid-February, late March and again in April. Our intelligence teams continued to provide detail, and occasional color. Uri Saguy and I even began to use the Arabic shorthand, from the intelligence reports, for the two Israeli academics. The burly, bearded Yair Hirschfeld was “the bear”. The slighter Ron Pundak was “the mouse”. Yet the main political impetus in driving the process forward came from two men who were not there: on our side, Yossi Beilin, and for the Palestinians, Arafat’s trusted diplomatic adviser, and eventual successor, Mahmoud Abbas, or Abu Mazen.
Since Rabin knew I was following the ostensibly secret talks, we discussed them often. For quite a while, he remained dismissive. He believed the chances of a breakthrough were remote. He was also suspicious of the involvement of Peres and Beilin, whom he called “Shimon’s poodle’. And he deeply distrusted Arafat. The PLO had been founded with the aim of “liberating” every inch of Palestine. The fact that Arafat had agreed to the Bush Administration’s demand to accept the principle of land-for-peace struck Rabin as mere sleight-of-hand.
By the third Oslo meeting, it was clear that the Palestinians were open to an agreement that would fall well short of “liberating Palestine”. Still, Rabin was leery. He tried briefly to return the focus to the stalemated Madrid-track talks with the Palestinians. Yet when, with obvious PLO encouragement, the Palestinian negotiators stood their ground there, he seemed almost resigned to supporting Oslo. When we discussed it, he used a battlefield metaphor. “When you have to break through, you don’t necessarily know where you’ll succeed. You try several places along the enemy’s lines. In the sector of the front where you do succeed, you send in your other forces.” It was a matter of “reinforcing success.”
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