As with the famous September 13, 1993 handshake on the White House lawn, and as with every other symbolic passage in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations since, the quick-firing impresarios of the electronic media have referred to the Wye Memorandum as a peace agreement. Like its predecessors, however, it is only an agreement about peace that may, but does not necessarily, lead us closer to it. Wye's real significance, rather, lies in three other, related domains.
First, whether it paves the way to final status or breaks down during its twelve-week implementation period, Wye spells the end of the basic logic of the Oslo process.
Oslo was designed as a confidence-building device to bring Israelis and Palestinians to a point where resolving their core differences could at least be contemplated. As a way of testing whether the parties were ready for conciliation, Oslo, or something like it, has to be reckoned a necessary step for achieving peace. But the testing phase has now run its course, and the grade earned is not so good. With patience having worn paper thin on all sides, it is inconceivable that another twenty-one months--the period from Hebron to Wye--could elapse in interim limbo. Wye will either get the parties from the foothills of interim measures to the summit of final status or, before very long, prove that the ascent is not yet possible. Unlike Oslo II of September 1995 and the Hebron accord of January 1997, Wye does not reprieve and repackage Oslo but, for better or worse, transcends it.
