"Handshakes on the White House lawn may be fine, but success or failure now lies in nailing down thousands of details" – wrote the New York Times about the beginning of a series of negotiations between the Israeli government of Yitzchak Rabin and Palestinian representatives led by Yasser Arafat some 20 years ago. The peace process (named after Oslo, the Norwegian capital, where the basics were secretly agreed) was planned for five years, in which time violence was to be stopped, aspirations harmonized, UN resolutions implemented, and occupied territories beginning with Gaza and Jericho gradually transferred to a Palestinian Authority. However, it turned out so hard to nail down the first details (like what the area of Jericho is) that the first agreed deadline in December 1993 was already missed by the parties.

After seven years of bargaining the Oslo process was brought to a halt by renewed bloodshed and the loss of popular support on both sides. Contrary to what diplomats suggest, there has not been any serious diplomatic attempts at a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace ever since. Instead, there are endless debates about the reasons of its fate. This is not in vain: finding the right causes is a prerequisite to think of what diplomatic steps to take from where we are now.

Some think the Oslo project was doomed for failure all along. The main aspirations of the two peoples – security for Israel, viable state for the Palestinians – might be mutually exclusive. Others believe a deal could have been struck if only the Clinton-administration was better prepared or showed more perseverance in mediating. Some observers claim that the process lasted too long, they postponed until too late dealing with final status questions. Others think it was indeed the raising of the final status questions, instead of managing the practical aspects of the conflict, which brought havoc.

However, the most important factor for the unhappy ending probably lies somewhere else. It is rather the fact that the parties had started the talks in bad faith. A comprehensive peace deal based on two states living peacefully side by side and Jerusalem shared could have been arrived at, and it would have served the interests of both peoples, but there was a classic game theory trap: both thought they can achieve an even better result by a final defection instead of signing the peace treaty at the end of the process.

The Israelis had been thinking all along that transferring the power to a Palestinian quasi-government would spare them from the burden of administering an enemy population and, in addition, they had also secretly hoped that Palestinians could be compelled to accept limited self-rule on a small area without East-Jerusalem if they perceived that to be the best possible deal. The Palestinians on the other hand had been happy to get territories without a commitment on the final borders, and they had also been staying ready to pressure for more by resorting to or threatening with violence.

While negotiating, both sides had been preparing for the last minute collapse. Israelis kept building settlements all along, Palestinians refused to fully reign in on terrorism. Thus, the bargaining turned ever more bitter and, instead of a win-win situation or at least a zero-sum game, the peace process developed in such a way that both peoples have started to feel loser at the same time. The popular feeling was similar on both sides: there appeared the map of diminishing Israel whose territory is gradually handed over to the Arabs and on the other side a Palestine disappearing from the map as Jews continue to build and settle on it. Many Israelis feared (and continue to do so) that the creation of a new Arab state would serve as the first stage of the elimination of their country – terrorism in Israel proper substantiated this claim. The Palestinians feared (and still do) they would end up living in unconnected territorial reserves – settlement construction clearly points to this.

Both fears were and are echoed in the West. European policy makers usually side with the Palestinians whom they see as a stateless people being denied of elementary human rights by a regional great power. Americans on the other hand tend to look at the bigger picture, for many of them the tiny David confronting the Goliath is indeed the Jewish state in the shadow of the Arab (Islam) nations. Besides or instead of the much quoted other factors (Jewish lobby in America, Muslim influence in Europe) this difference in perspectives may be the prime reason for the Trans-Atlantic clash in the Middle East policy discourse.

The Oslo process is generally considered to be a failure. This is reasonable if the immediate outcome is compared to the original 1993 promise of a comprehensive peace. Violence returned, UN resolutions were not implemented, Palestinians did not get their expected state, Israelis did not get security. And yet, regarding the cards which leading Israeli and Palestinian diplomats held 20 years ago the “game” actually reached its optimum result: even if the Palestinian Authority did not sign a treaty accepting a Jerusalem-less Swiss cheese state as final status but Israeli soldiers don’t need to patrol the streets of Arab towns either and there is relative calm in Israel proper. And although the second (Al-Aqsa) intifada could not force the Israelis to concede more territories the Palestinian autonomy still exists and is internationally recognized as a quasi-state.

And there is good news also to those who aren’t satisfied with this limited success. The thousands of details of coexistence to be discussed during the Oslo process have all been nailed down in unofficial Israeli-Palestinian peace plans since then. This became possible because the cards had been played out then. Both sides now know exactly where the other’s red lines lie: Palestinians (Mahmud Abbas included) will not relinquish their claim for East-Jerusalem and a viable state, Israelis (not only Benjamin Netanyahu) will only accept an arrangement that ensures their security. And American and European foreign policy makers also got an important lesson: peace can only be achieved if they press for and give powerful guarantees to an agreement that ensures both of these aspirations simultaneously, and if they can convince both sides that they cannot gain with defection more than a peace like this.

The author is an International Relations PhD, researcher of contemporary political history, section editor of HVG weekly