The peace process: Who is to blame for its failure?

For many Palestinians, the Oslo Accords, which were signed between Israel and the PLO 25 years ago, are synonymous with failure, corruption and treason. Some see the accords as a “historic mistake” for which the Palestinians have paid a heavy price and made concessions to Israel in return for too little or nothing. Only a handful of Palestinians interviewed in Ramallah in the past two weeks had good things to say about the Oslo Accords.

In recent years, the Palestinian Authority and its representatives have repeatedly described the accords as a terminally ill patient waiting to die in the intensive care unit. Of course, they continue to hold Israel fully responsible for “sabotaging” and “violating” the Oslo Accords, especially through its policy of “settlement construction and expansion” in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Now, the Palestinians are saying that while Israel has done its utmost to eliminate the Oslo Accords, US President Donald Trump’s administration is close to issuing a death certificate for the agreements.

“As far as we’re concerned, the Oslo Accords are clinically dead,” said one of Abbas’s senior advisors. “Everyone knows that Israel has been violating these agreements from day one. We believe that the government of [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu does not want a two-state solution and considers the Oslo Accords a big mistake that needs to be corrected.”

The Oslo Accords, he said, “are falsely referred to as a peace process. This is a misconception because the agreements never brought real peace between Israelis and Palestinians. While we were hoping that the Oslo Accords would lead to a two-state solution, Israel saw them as a pretext to continue building settlements and creating irreversible facts on the ground. Today, it’s clear that Israel’s actions have destroyed both the two-state solution and the entire Oslo Accords.”

He and other Palestinian officials in Ramallah said that during the term of the Obama administration, they had hoped that the Oslo Accords would be brought back to life.

“[US president Barack] Obama had a chance to save the Oslo Accords, but he chose not to do so,” argued a PLO official who previously served as an adviser to Abbas. “But Obama was unable to resist pressure from the powerful Jewish lobby in the US. In the beginning, we thought he would stand up to Netanyahu and his government, but we quickly saw how weak and incompetent Obama was.”

The Trump administration’s policies and decisions regarding the Palestinians have strengthened the sense among them that the Oslo Accords are no longer relevant. Trump’s decisions to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, cut US funding to the PA and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, relocate the US Embassy to Jerusalem and close the PLO’s diplomatic mission in Washington are seen by officials in the Mukata presidential compound in Ramallah as the final nail in the coffin of the Oslo Accords.

They are convinced that Trump’s “Jewish staff” – US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and presidential envoys Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt – are acting as Netanyahu’s emissaries in the US administration. The three senior US officials, the Palestinians claim, are responsible for all the “anti-Palestinian” decisions taken by the Trump administration in recent months in order to “bury” the Oslo Accords and prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

THE POLICIES of the Netanyahu government, especially with regard to continued settlement construction, as well as Trump’s “anti-Palestinian” decisions, have increased pressure on Abbas and the PA leadership to announce the death of the Oslo Accords. Recently, various PLO and Fatah bodies have even recommended that the PA leadership “revise” all agreements signed with Israel, including the Oslo Accords.

Earlier this year, Abbas himself declared the Oslo Accords “dead” and blamed both Israel and the US for sabotaging the peace process. “Today is the day that the Oslo Accords end,” he said in a speech before the Palestinian Central Council in Ramallah in January. “Israel killed them. We are an authority without an authority, and an occupation without any cost. Any future negotiations will take place only within the context of the international community.”

Despite his fiery rhetoric, Abbas has thus far refrained from officially abrogating the Oslo Accords. He knows, more than anyone else, that such a drastic move would have disastrous repercussions on him, his PA and the Palestinians.

Annulling Oslo would mean he would have to dismantle the PA (which was established in accordance with the accords) and quit his job as president – something he does not seem eager to do. Dismantling the PA would plunge the Palestinian-controlled territories into anarchy and lawlessness and deprive nearly 200,000 PA civil servants of their salaries.

He also knows that such a move would cost him the political backing of many Western countries and donors, because he would be seen as completely abandoning the peace process with Israel.

Abbas is caught between a rock and a hard place.

For him, this is also a personal matter. After all, it was Abbas who signed the Oslo Accords on behalf of the Palestinians at the White House in 1993. And it was the 83-year-old Abbas who spent the past 25 years trying to persuade the Palestinians that the Oslo Accords were the best thing that happened to them in modern history.

The cancellation of the agreements, which are also referred to as the Declaration of Principles, would almost certainly be viewed as an admission on the part of Abbas that he made a big and unforgivable mistake. Abbas does not want to go down in history as a leader who was associated with failed and “treacherous” agreements.

This is why some of Abbas’s senior officials have been making an effort to explain to the Palestinians that the Palestinian leadership did not make a mistake by signing the Oslo Accords; rather, it was Israel’s actions that rendered the agreements irrelevant.

However, PLO secretary-general and longtime chief negotiator Saeb Erekat admitted this week that the Palestinians did make one mistake when they signed the Oslo Accords.

“We should have insisted on mutual recognition between Israel and a Palestinian state on the basis of the 1967 borders,” Erekat said. “It was not a mistake to sign the Oslo Accords. The problem was and remains Israel’s practices which are aimed at replacing the twostate solution with a racist state. Then, we demanded Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state, but the Israelis refused. That was the basic mistake. Now we should revoke our recognition of Israel until it recognizes the Palestinian state.”

In a statement marking the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords, the PLO said that “a major part of Oslo’s failure was Israel’s impunity and lack of any accountability mechanisms. Several countries have tended to ignore their obligations under international law and UN resolutions for the sake of a nonexistent peace process. Instead of assuming their responsibility to see through the Oslo Accords and ensure goodfaith negotiations by Israel, most countries become complicit in permitting Israel’s impunity.”

The Palestinians’ official position remains that the blame for the failure of the Oslo Accords rests squarely on Israel. The Palestinian leadership sees no wrongdoing on the Palestinian side. The Oslo Accords could have succeeded, Palestinian leaders argue, had Israel fulfilled its obligations and refrained from “unilateral and provocative” measures, such as continued settlement construction.

IN REALITY, Palestinian leadership also bears responsibility for the “failure” of the Oslo Accords.

The agreements gave the Palestinians a government – the PA – which, under Yasser Arafat, turned out to be very corrupt and deprived its people of the financial aid provided by Western donors.

The Oslo Accords gave the Palestinians multiple security forces, which (also under Arafat) operated as militias and gangs.

The Oslo Accords gave the Palestinians the chance to hold free and fair elections, which, in 2006, brought Hamas to power and triggered a civil war that resulted in a split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Oslo Accords gave the Palestinians a chance to build proper government institutions and a democratic and free society. Instead, the Palestinians got two separate mini states – one in the West Bank and another in the Gaza Strip – where public freedoms are violated on a daily basis. The Oslo Accords gave the Palestinians a parliament – the Palestinian Legislative Council – which has been paralyzed for the past 11 years as a result of the power struggle between Fatah and Hamas.

True, the conditions of the Palestinians living under PA rule in the West Bank have improved in recent years, but this is largely attributed to the international donors’ insistence on transparency and accountability.

Despite the improved conditions, a public opinion poll published last month showed that 61% of Palestinians were now opposed to the Oslo Accords (up from 48% in 2013), compared to 24% who said they supported them. Another 45% of Palestinians said they were convinced that the Oslo Accords had harmed Palestinian national interests, as opposed to 33% in 2013.

“The Oslo Accords brought us many good things, but many Palestinians still believe they were bad,” explained Kamal Abu Salem, a businessman from Nablus. “We have our government and police and courts, and this is good for us. But most Palestinians are now convinced that the Oslo Accords will not bring us full freedom and independence.

“Israel does not want a Palestinian state, and the policies of the US administration are completely biased in favor of the Israeli government. The Palestinian side is weak and has no tools in its hand to exert pressure on anyone.

“Everyone knows that the Oslo Accords are dead, but no one wants to assume responsibility. Where do we go from here? Only Allah knows.” •