[Salon] The Oslo Accords Are Alive and Well and Perpetuating the Israeli Occupation



https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025-09-30/ty-article-opinion/.premium/the-oslo-accords-are-alive-and-well-and-perpetuating-the-israeli-occupation/00000199-9744-d4f2-a3b9-d765dd6b0000

The Oslo Accords Are Alive and Well and Perpetuating the Israeli Occupation - Opinion - Haaretz.com

Amira HassSep 30, 2025 

The Oslo Accords are alive and well, and our people continue to benefit daily from their pure logic. All the right's crocodile tears won't erase the fact that this is one of the greatest achievements ever attained by the Jewish entity that exists between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

When it so chooses, Israel decides that the agreement is in force and that the other side is violating it, so it has to be punished – for instance, through the systematic theft of all the Palestinian Authority's income from customs duties on merchandise imported from abroad. 

And when it so chooses, Israel decides that the agreement has vanished from the earth – therefore, it has the right to alter land arrangements through another trick that enables Jews to take over lands, or to close the only border crossing available to Palestinians in the West Bank.

But when you peel away from the agreement the years that have passed, the lip service paid to peace and the lawyerly detail of its provisions and mechanisms of implementation, the basic principles that remain valid in the West Bank to this day stand out.

■ Israel will continue to rule the Palestinians as an occupying power and control their natural resources, freedom of movement, economy and so forth. But it will receive an international exemption from its obligation to provide for the occupied nation's welfare. Responsibility for solving the economic and health problems this hostile foreign rule creates will be assigned fully to the Palestinians and their representatives, along with European taxpayers and, in the past, American ones as well.

■ Israel will agree to withdraw its army gradually, with no sacred dates and no defined borders, and in exchange, the Palestinians will immediately stop resisting the occupation and its dictates. But even without bases in the heart of Palestinian cities, the army controls everything. 

Israel and its collaborators from right-wing organizations have drummed it into the public that all Palestinian resistance is terrorism and every means of resistance is an illegitimate, actually antisemitic, weapon. It's not just bombs and rocks that constitute terror, but also diplomacy and popular protests, lawsuits in international courts, agriculture, hooking up a water line, building a tent, expanding a school, adding a balcony, speeches and mere words.

■ The Palestinians are forbidden to defend themselves, either from armed Israelis in army uniforms or from armed Jewish civilians. This ironclad rule applies to both ordinary people and the Palestinian Authority's security agencies. 

Yes, thanks to Oslo, we have set records that are broken every day – for attacks perpetrated by content, kosher Jews who have expelled and are still expelling entire communities. And the soldiers protect the assailants. The weapons are diverse – from pepper spray and rifles to sheep, tractors and minors sent to abuse women in their tents. And no agreement, international force or spiritual authority deters them or the judges who release them if they are arrested.

An armed settler stands near Israeli troops during a weekly settlers' tour in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, August 23, 2025.

An armed settler stands near Israeli troops during a weekly settlers' tour in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, August 23, 2025.Credit: Mussa Qawasma/REUTERS

Soon, these gangs of armed Jews will enter the hearts of Palestinian cities, and Israeli soldiers will follow to protect them from the "dangerous," "hate-filled" Palestinian public. This scenario has been moving toward its logical conclusion for 20 years now. 

What will the Palestinian security forces do then? If they uphold the agreement and hide in their offices, they and the Palestinian Authority that employs them will lose the last shreds of their honor and their dubious right to be called a leadership. But if they lift a finger to defend their people, then the armed Israelis, with their superior skills, will kill them. And if they or courageous civilians wound or kill any of the invaders, they will be arrested and tried as terrorists – because they violated Oslo. 

And then Israel will have another pretext for destroying neighborhoods and expelling the indigenous population.



This archive was generated by a fusion of Pipermail (Mailman edition) and MHonArc.