Alive? Dead? Dying? Flopping? Many doctors surround the bedside of the Oslo Accords and proffer their learned opinions. I can calm their fears. Oslo is alive -- alive and kicking.

The most important historical event which took place five years ago is not the Oslo Accord itself, but rather the letter exchange which preceded it. The Prime Minister of Israel had recognized the existence.

according to the PLO) this revolutionary breakthrough took place. It changed the world view of millions of people on both sides. Once created, it could not be undone. It exists.

The Accords created a new reality in the region. The Palestinian Authority was established on Palestinian soil. Its sovereign territory is minuscule (Region "A" is something like 3% of the territory), but the vast majority of the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank lives there. The Palestinian Authority has nearly all of the attributes of a sovereign state, according to the accepted international standards.

Despite the tremendous difficulties facing this state-in-the-making -- the kind of difficulties that no other entity in similar circumstances has been known to survive -- this state is developing. It has experienced democratic elections, not exercised by any other Arab state. Its institutions are functioning, which is a miracle, given the extreme hardships under which this is happening. It is undergoing fierce internal struggles for the character of its society and the nature and quality of its government, and this, too, is a healthy sign.

The Palestinian State is a fait accompli. There is not a single serious officer in the IDF who wishes to reconquer Gaza, Ramallah and Nablus, and even it this were to happen, the Palestinian state would go on as an occupied and fighting state. All the Israeli opinion polls indicate that there is a great majority consensus that no peace is possible without the establishment of a full-fledged Palestinian state side by side with Israel.

In this respect, Oslo is alive. But only in this respect.

Palestinians are the occupied, therefore they have little to give.

If the Accords had been fulfilled to the letter, the situation today would look as follows: Israel would have already withdrawn from the entire West Bank and the Gaza Strip, excluding "specific military locations"; the Palestinian Authority would be fully functioning in almost the entire West Bank and the Gaza Strip; there would have been free passage between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for people and goods; the port and airport in Gaza would have been long in use; the negotiations over the status of Jerusalem, the borders, refugees and the settlements would have been at its height, heading towards a resolution in May of 1999.

None of these have been implemented, and there is no point in arguing about the excuses and tricks. Instead, the Israeli-Palestinian war is going on in almost every area. As far as general attitude is concerned, the mentality of the conflict is back were it was, controlling the language of most of the leadership, the media and the public. In the occupied territories, there is a daily struggle for every acre of land in hundreds of sites. And the reality is fixed by one side through the spread of settlements, land confiscations, house demolitions, building of bypass roads, detaining of "security-risk prisoners", expulsion of Arabs from Jerusalem, the strangling of the Palestinian economy, enforcing curfews, etc., and by the other side through occasional acts of violence.

On the face of it, everything is dead. There are no real negotiations. Netanyahu's government has no intention to fulfill the accords, and it is free of any pressure. President Clinton and his government are abrogating their duties in a shameful manner.

But in our region, there is no such thing as a static situation. In the words of the Greek Heraklitos, "Everything flows." One can construct a dam on a river and create the illusion of still waters -- but the still waters gather energy and with time will destroy the dam and rush out in a big flood. Perhaps this will happen on May 4th, 1999, when the Palestinians officially declare their statehood, at the expiration of the Oslo Accords. Perhaps it will happen even sooner.

It seems that since Rabin's assassination we are moving backwards. But this is merely an optical illusion. Nothing moves backwards in history. Everything moves forward. Always.

Oslo opened a new chapter in the history of both peoples. It created a new reality. Anything that happens from now on will take place in this new reality. For better or for worse.