Opinions

The Repeated Agenda of Fiasco

Dr. Musa Shihadeh

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One cannot analyze the miserable status-quo in Palestine without attributing the present devastating failures on the 1993 infamous Oslo accords.

 

The agreement then was engineered by the present PA president; Mr. Mahmud Abbas, the greatest philanthropist in history, when he relinquished 78% of Palestine to the Zionist enemy. In return the PLO would be allowed to get a foot in Palestine while all the remaining major issues that pertain to the partial national aspirations of the Palestinian people would be left for future final status negotiations. Of course, as we all witnessed, these final negotiations never took place, which rendered the Oslo accords as nothing but a travesty that ended up with the entrapment of the PA on its own soil.

 

Thus the late Arafat was fooled and was punished for insisting on the implementation of the Oslo agreement and finally was disposed off when he could not engage in any further concessions on behalf of the Palestinian people.

 

Taking advantage of the pre-planned vague terminology of the Oslo accords, Israel continued its onslaught on Palestine where new settlements were built, more protestors were jailed and more new checkpoints were established to further devastate any future hopes of an independent Palestinian state.

 

Oslo was a trap to control the PLO under Israeli direct hegemony and when it succeeded Mr. Sharon declared time after time that the Oslo accords have died, and the Palestinian dreams should be confined to the dictates of Israeli cruel occupation.

 

The time and space do not allow us to elaborate on the causes that ended up with the death of Oslo, but suffice it to say that the main ingredients for a possible peace were totally compromised as issues of borders, Jerusalem, the right of return (ROR) and the settlements.

 

Instead of admitting such lethal mistakes, the PA is still engaging in a new peace plan conjured by Israel and the US called the “Road Map”. In theory, this new plan was supposed to lead the Palestinians to a state of their own, if implemented in good faith. Since withdrawal from occupied Palestine was not on the Israeli agenda, despite their declarations to the contrary, the Zionist entity needed a new excuse to justify its  rejection of any further withdrawal in the West Bank and it conjured a pre-requisite for further withdrawal; namely the obliteration of all armed struggle factions in occupied Palestine. Israel and the US both know very well that such a step would lead to a civil war which would render even the victor so weak, which would become an easy prey to Israel’s future control.

 

Concurring with Israel’s demands, Mr. Abbas has done his homework when he stressed the need for what he called a “cooling period”, where resisting occupation became prohibited, even under self-defense. What appeared to be strange, such a step was not reciprocated by Israel, and on the contrary Israel response to such step was more raids and assassinations. Mr. Sharon declared time after time that none of the Palestinian demands for sovereignty such as the 1967 border, Jerusalem, the ROR and the Palestinian refugees, would be accepted and therefore he closed the door permanently against any possibility of future peace. The expected normal response by the Palestinian leadership is to unify all factions under one strategy of continued armed struggle. Instead the PA solicited an illusory strategy to achieve independence through “peaceful” means that would lead nowhere under Israeli obstinate positions.

 

The PA is hoping that the US would exert pressure on Israel to actuate the spirit of the “Road Map”. Such a move might be credible if the long history of the US blind and total support of Israel right or wrong, could ever change in the light of the long history of the US total bias against the interests of the Palestinian people.

 

On 20 October 2005 no one was surprised when Mr. Bush in a joint news conference with the visiting Mr. Abbas reiterated the US position of demanding from the Palestinian leader to do his best to dismantle the armed factions again. Even if Mr. Abbas would implement such an outrageous step, the US was very careful not to give any promises for a future Palestinian state. In the light of the above developments it would be very naďve if the Palestinians would not start another Intifada and prepare themselves for a long armed struggle.

 

 

 

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