Co-opting the PLO : A Critical Reconstruction of the Oslo Accords, 1993-1995

Co-opting the PLO analyzes the Oslo Accords, the interim self-government agreements signed between the government of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), during the period 1993-1995. Author Peter Weinberger makes an argument that initially appears counterintuitive: that the Oslo Accords did not signal a change in Israeli attitudes towards the Palestinians but rather a continuation of old attitudes through a new politics of co-optation and control. In contrast to preceding analyses of Oslo, this study argues that the circumstances which developed out of the Oslo Accords cannot be wholly interpreted in Realist terms, as an instance of traditional power politics or an act of shrewd statecraft. It is undeniably true that the key Israeli leaders at the time, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, were manipulating the Oslo Accords to their own ends, but this deliberative process cannot be fully explained at the level of agency. It must instead be understood as reflecting a new logic of rule that has been explicated in the works of the theorists Gilles Deleuze and Michael Hardt. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict occupies a substantial share of academic and, indeed, of the general public interest in international affairs.Co-opting the PLO will appeal to academic audiences with interests in Conflict Resolution, Middle East Studies, Critical Theory, Post-Colonial Studies and Philosophy.