ABSTRACT
Labour's narrative of the launching of the Oslo process not only ignored the peace movement but in the same spirit almost no use was made of the peace activists' connections with the Palestinian side. The occasion undoubtedly brought much pride and satisfaction to the peace movement's members who, for years, had called for Israel to undertake a direct dialogue with the Palestinians. The first was its stress on the centrality of power politics, according to which the Israeli-Palestinian relationship was interpreted as a basically zero-sum, life-and-death struggle of two peoples over the same piece of land. The peace movement's narrative therefore stressed that its most significant accomplishment was 'to influence public opinion by broadening the scope of public debate. The narrative developed by the rightist opponents of the process, on the other hand, indeed recognized the peace movement's role: it blamed the movement for propelling the Labour government into making dangerous moves and taking overly high risks in this process.
