On May 29, Israeli and Palestinian security officials held their first publicly acknowledged meeting since April. The encounter, conducted under CIA supervision, was arranged by William Burns, recently appointed US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, after a series of discussions with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Indeed, the rather brief document has rightfully been termed a road map for putting Oslo back on track. Yet, by refusing to deviate from Oslo's conceptual framework and political assumptions, and seeking to reinforce them instead, the Mitchell report has set the stage for its own failure.
Future historians are likely to consider it Oslo's last gasp.
The Mitchell Committee was established pursuant to the October 2000 summit, hastily convened by Bill Clinton in the Egyptian resort of Sharm al-Sheikh. The summit ended in abject failure, since the US and Israel refused to budge on the issues which precipitated the Palestinian uprising. Despite its mandate, one thing the Mitchell Committee did not do was find facts. One searches the report in vain for relevant information on casualties, weaponry, the forces using them, the division of the territories in question, the applicable conventions or even the Israeli-Palestinian agreements that are in dispute. Israel's harassment of the Committee, repeated appeals to Washington to disband it and formal suspension of cooperation are simply not mentioned.