Israeli Government

The Israeli Government is the political authority whose involvement in the secret Oslo Channel is both denied and sought: the meetings begin outside official authorization, yet their progress eventually prompts an offer to make the channel official. The play gives that change dramatic force by showing how the boundary between private initiative and state policy is contested at every stage, from the ban on Israeli officials contacting the Palestine Liberation Organization to the final disputes over territory and security.

Authority and the Secret Channel

The channel begins as a deliberate alternative to formal government-to-government declarations. Terje Rød-Larsen proposes intimate discussions between individuals, held in an isolated place where Israeli and Palestinian representatives can meet alone. The arrangement is designed to let contact happen beyond the visible framework of official diplomacy; its prospective connection to the Israeli Government is present from the outset, but it is not yet the same as government authorization.

Yossi Beilin makes the legal constraint explicit: it is illegal for an Israeli official to speak to the Palestine Liberation Organization. In his account, even a possible future arrangement depends on an election and on Shimon Peres becoming Foreign Minister, with Beilin as his Deputy. The solution he considers is an unofficial participant chosen by him and Peres. The secret channel therefore occupies a carefully limited space: it is politically consequential, but its Israeli participants cannot initially claim to represent the state.

That limit is stated plainly when Beilin insists that Israel is not involved in the discussions and that Yair Hirschfeld and Ron Pundak speak only for themselves. Their separation from the Israeli Government is not a minor technicality. It is the condition that permits the meetings to proceed, while also leaving their authority vulnerable to challenge when the Palestinians expect a substantive response from Israel.

Representation and the Demand for an Upgrade

As the talks make progress, the question of who has authority to negotiate becomes harder to evade. Terje Rød-Larsen reports that the Palestinians wish to return after a two-day meeting and urges Beilin to upgrade the Israeli delegation to official status. Beilin rejects the premise: Israel has no delegation to upgrade, and doing so would be illegal. The exchange exposes the channel’s central contradiction—its work is advancing, but the state’s formal standing remains disavowed.

Beilin also insists that the Israeli participants have performed their assigned task: Hirschfeld and Pundak are there to listen and report back. Rød-Larsen objects that the people they face are ministers of the Palestine Liberation Organization risking their lives. Beilin counters that their risk is not his concern as Deputy Foreign Minister of the State of Israel, and says that any further meeting in Oslo will still be with Hirschfeld and Pundak. His response marks a sharp distinction between the human stakes of the participants and the narrow authority his office recognizes.

The dispute turns on substance as well as status. Ahmed Qurie asks where the direct reply is to the Palestinians’ concrete offer to take control of the Gaza Strip. Hirschfeld points instead to the draft Declaration of Principles, but Qurie calls its proposals eloquent generalities. Later, Beilin tells Terje Rød-Larsen that the Israeli side—not the representatives from across the sea—decides whom it sends, and that a request for an upgraded delegation will be considered only when something substantive is put on the table. Qurie responds that the offer concerning the Gaza Strip is already substantive and demands an upgrade in return. In these exchanges, recognition of the other side’s authority and the content of a proposal become linked bargaining questions.

Negotiating the Terms

Once Uri Savir is negotiating with Ahmed Qurie, the dispute moves directly onto the terms that an Israeli representative is willing to discuss. Savir says that much of the Declaration of Principles can be discussed, but demands first be removed if they are, in his view, impossible. He draws a firm boundary around Jerusalem, stating that Israel will not negotiate over the city’s sovereignty, whether in the room or in a document. The scene presents a limit on what the Israeli side will place within the negotiating agenda, not simply a disagreement over wording.

At the same time, Savir offers to relinquish control of the Gaza Strip. Qurie answers that the Palestinians will accept that offer on condition that control of Jericho be relinquished at the same time. The exchange shows the negotiations working through linked claims and reciprocal terms rather than through abstract declarations alone. A further bargaining moment pairs Qurie’s willingness to drop the demand for third-party international arbitration over outstanding disputes with Savir’s willingness to negotiate the transfer of the Gaza Strip and Jericho. Savir then describes a deliberately staged response: each man will go home reporting an insult, after which Terje Rød-Larsen will call in two days to say they accept the demands. The play makes room for tactical performance alongside the actual exchange of positions.

Beilin’s assessment underscores how quickly the political horizon has shifted without suggesting that agreement is secure. He says that four months earlier the parties could not even conceive of meeting, while the document now before them represents a marked change. Savir, drawing on months of rounds with the Palestinian negotiators, tells Joel Singer that he believes they want an agreement as much as the Israelis do. Singer redirects attention to what Yasser Arafat will do. The episode distinguishes confidence built through direct negotiation from the unresolved question of whether leaders will support the result.

From Back Channel to Official Offer

The clearest change in the Israeli Government’s relationship to the channel comes when Joel Singer, speaking on behalf of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the State of Israel, offers to make the back channel the official channel. The offer does not erase the earlier insistence that Israel was not involved; it dramatizes the transition from contacts conducted under a denial of official representation to a proposed channel carrying explicit state authority. Ahmed Qurie immediately asks what will happen to the Washington-sponsored talks, leaving the relationship between the new offer and the existing process unresolved in that exchange.

The shift is therefore presented as consequential but not as a completed settlement. The offer establishes that the work of the secret channel has become important enough for an Israeli representative to propose official status. The question of how that status will coexist with other negotiations, and what commitments it can sustain, remains live.

Political Stakes and Unfinished Bargaining

Shimon Peres frames the broader political stake in terms of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s survival. He argues that without a deal the organization could be hollowed out and deprived of victories until it ceased to exist, and says that Israel needs it to remain in existence because of the alternatives. His reasoning portrays the channel not only as a means of negotiating particular terms but as a way to preserve a political interlocutor. He also points to Yasser Arafat’s desire for home, bringing the question of a leader’s personal attachment to place into the discussion of what an agreement might mean.

The later dispute over border security and checkpoints shows how far the negotiations remain from an uncomplicated resolution. Ahmed Qurie is prepared to accept Israeli forces managing border security, but insists on joint control of all checkpoints. Peres rejects that condition, insisting that the checkpoints and soldiers remain Israeli, while Qurie answers with a threat to burn the document and wage war until the end of time, immediately adding that the Palestinians remain open to a counterproposal. The exchange holds threat and continued bargaining together. Across the play, the Israeli Government’s role is defined by that unresolved movement: from legal exclusion of official contact, through indirect influence and arguments over representation, to an offer of formal participation whose practical terms are still contested.