http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/20/20086358-20-years-after-historic-oslo-peace-deal-few-signs-of-hope-for-new-mideast-generation?lite&ocid=msnhp&pos=28/20/13
20 years after historic Oslo peace deal, few signs of hope for new Mideast generationTEL AVIV – It was a historic handshake that heralded a moment of genuine hope that the decades of violence in the Middle East might finally come to an end.
The Oslo peace accord – agreed in secret 20 years ago on Tuesday – triggered the White House photo-op a month later between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat as a smiling Bill Clinton patted both men on the back.
The Oslo generation should have lived in a very different world from their parents.
But despite peace talks recently revived with help from Secretary of State John Kerry, there is little sign of optimism for today's 20-somethings, while their parents have seen it all before.
For Nihad Ilian, 50, mother of five daughters and two sons, Gaza has become “a closed cemetery, a big prison” with movement outside restricted by the Israelis.
But in 1993 she was optimistic that her newborn daughter Alaa, now an "ambitious and talented" 20-year-old, would have a “good future.”
“The situation before Oslo was bad and we hoped to have a better life, and that Alaa … will not hear of wars,” Ilian said.
“Following Oslo, we lived for a brief period in stability, expecting Gaza to become like Singapore.”
As the years passed by, hope faded.
“Alaa grew up and nothing changed," Ilian said. “This is the fate of the new generation that came after Oslo. We feel overpowered and subdued. We wish to live like other people.”
Ilian, who lives in in Jabalyah refugee camp in Gaza City, added, “You keep promising your children that this will be the last war … but five years later there is another war. Wars became the routine after Oslo.”
Alaa Ilian, who studied English at Al-Azhar University, has never left Gaza.
“Since I was young, I can remember wars and intifadas,” she said. “Oslo solved the conflict for only a limited period.”
“I’m a girl who wants to study, travel abroad and live my life,” she added. “I have studied but cannot find a job. I feel estranged while living in my homeland … The situation is bad."
Alaa had little hope for the new peace talks.
“Negotiations should be for the good of both sides, but all the rights will go for the stronger side,” she said.
In the Oslo accord, Israeli and Palestinian representatives agreed “it is time to put an end to decades of confrontation and conflict … and strive to live in peaceful coexistence and mutual dignity and security and achieve a just, lasting and comprehensive peace settlement and historic reconciliation.”
It laid out a plan for Palestinian democracy and a future state based on borders from before the 1967 Six-Day War.
Clinton declared “the peace of the brave is within our reach;” Rabin, Arafat and Shimon Peres, then Israeli’s foreign minister and now president, received Nobel Peace Prizes.
Two years later, Rabin was assassinated by Israeli extremist Yigal Amir; then came the second Palestinian “intifada” uprising in 2000 that shattered Israeli relations with Arafat; the Second Lebanon War in 2006; and a major Israeli military operation prompted by rocket attacks in Gaza in 2008.
Palestinian democracy took a blow in 2007 with the Battle of Gaza between the Fatah and Hamas movements. While Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah retain power in the West Bank, outright control of Gaza was taken by Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the United States.
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