Victim of peace - Definition and Overview

The expression victim of peace was a euphemism used by some of the Israeli left-wing politicians to refer to victims of Palestinian terrorist attacks in the period between the signing of September 1993 Oslo Peace Accords between Palestinians and Israel and the Al-Aqsa Intifada sparked in September 2000. At Oslo, the Palestine Liberation Organization committed to curbing violence against Israelis in exchange for phased withdrawal of Israeli forces from parts of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and Palestinian self-government within those areas through the creation of the Palestinian Authority. However, in the period between September 1993 and September 2000, 256 Israeli civilians and soldiers were killed by Palestinian violence (Source: Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+before+2000/Fatal+Terrorist+Attacks+in+Israel+Since+the+DOP+-S.htm)).

Allegedly, the phrase was coined by Shimon Peres. The phrase implied that such deaths were a price worth paying for the peace process.

Benjamin Netanyahu, elected to the post of Prime minister in 1996 after Peres on the promise to restore safety for Israelis by conditioning every step in the peace process on Israel's assessment of the Palestinian Authority's fulfillment of its obligations in curbing violence, officially rejected this terminology: [1] (http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Facts+About+Israel/State/Benjamin+Netanyahu.htm)

See also

• Israeli-Palestinian conflict

External links

• Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Policy: 1983-1999 (http://www.ict.org.il/articles/articledet.cfm?articleid=447) by Dr. Boaz Ganor, International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) Executive Director
• Apocalyptic Fears Now; Unforseen Risks Tomorrow (http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp449.htm) by Manfred Gerstenfeld
• Oslo: A Roadmap to Nowhere (http://www.standforisrael.org/oslo1.asp) by Michael Oren
• A Tale of Two Realities (http://www.think-israel.org/glickgilad.html) by Caroline Glick
• Media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (http://cgi1.usatoday.com/mchat/20030501004/auto_tscript.htm) by Raphael Shore
• A conversation with Amnon Sela (http://www.cipmo.org/pdf/costo_non_pace/2NONPEAC.pdf), Professor of International Relations, Hebrew University (PDF)