Peace Historiography and the Competing Narratives of the 1993 Oslo Channel

Abstract

This Policy Brief uses the case of Oslo as a platform to discuss “history wars” in a peace process, and in particular the dispute over the roles of different channels and initiatives, whether official “Track One” or unofficial “Track Two,” and actors, domestic or external, in the historiography and collective memory of peace agreements. It reviews the competing narratives surrounding the initiation of the Oslo channel, the internal historiographic disputes on each side (Israel and the PLO), the debate over the role of the Norwegians in Oslo, the way this role is reflected in the play and the film, and the Oslo narrative that developed within the Track Two community. The Policy Brief seeks to draw a connection between the field of peace studies in general, and Track Two diplomacy in particular, and the field of historiography and memory studies.