ABSTRACT
The Middle East has been the burial ground for several reconciliation and peace attempts in the past 100 years. The fate of the latest attempt, the Oslo Process, is probably the most tragic in the exhaustingly long list of missed opportunities. The Oslo Process, or the collection of security, political and economic agreements signed between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel during the period 1993-2000, triggered great hopes and received unprecedented support, both locally and internationally, in its early stages. Yet, the process did not only fail in realizing its ends, it has also deepened the mistrust and bitterness between the two nations. A great deal has been and will be written, I am sure, on the roots of this failure. In this article I shall deal exclusively with the part of the Oslo accords which addressed the economic relations between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS). My aim is to investigate the principles upon which the trade agreement was based and to shed light on how the agreement was implemented and subsequently failed long before the total collapse of the political process. 1 shall try to use this case to draw some lessons for the future.
