Address by Sir Richard Dalton at MEMO’s ‘Oslo at 25: A Legacy of Broken Promises’ conference held in London on September 29, 2018.
Sir Richard John Dalton was a senior member of the British Diplomatic Service until he retired in 2006. From 1993 to 1997, Dalton was Consul-General in Jerusalem effectively becoming Ambassador to the Palestinian Authority during the early years of the Middle East peace process.He was appointed Head of Personnel in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in 1998, and was sent as Britain’s Ambassador to Libya in 1999, when diplomatic relations were resumed after a 17-year break. Between 2003 and 2006, Dalton was ambassador to Iran.He is currently an Associate Fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.
PANEL: Oslo and the Negation of International Law
Although the process was based on the formula of ‘land for peace’, it was clear Israel was not prepared to withdraw from the territories occupied in 1967. Because none of the documents referred to Israel as the occupying power, or the applicability of the international humanitarian law to the territories, Oslo’s approach to the permanent status issues were based on Israeli imperatives.