Lebanon

Lebanon serves as a setting for two distinct consequences of regional conflict in the account: Palestinians are deported there from Israel, and a later Israeli assault in Southern Lebanon drives refugees toward Beirut. In retrospect, Terje Rød-Larsen also cites the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon as an outcome he associates with the Oslo process.

Deportation to Southern Lebanon

After an Israeli border guard is murdered, Israel retaliates by deporting 400 Palestinians accused of terrorist links to a hilltop in Southern Lebanon. Mona recounts that they are left there without blankets, food, or water. The episode makes Lebanon the destination of a mass expulsion, while the opposing diplomats’ statements onstage frame the deportation as a further escalation between Israelis and Palestinians.

The 1993 assault and displacement

In a later sequence, Israel launches a full-scale assault against Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon. Mona reports that 200,000 refugees move toward Beirut, casualties number in the hundreds, and retaliatory rockets kill Israeli civilians. The account thus places Lebanon within a widening cycle of military action and reprisal, with displacement extending beyond the immediate area of fighting.

Withdrawal in Larsen’s retrospective

Near the end, Terje Rød-Larsen argues that without the Oslo Channel there would have been no peace between Israel and Jordan and no withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon. He presents the withdrawal as part of the Oslo process’s consequences, while his subsequent admission that he is still struggling to judge whether the work was right leaves that retrospective claim under a shadow of uncertainty rather than settled triumph.