On abolishing Oslo and dismantling the Palestinian Authority

By: Omar Shaban

The demand of many Palestinians to annul the Oslo accords, signed in 1993 between the Palestine Liberation Organization, as representative of the Palestinian people, and the Israeli government, has never ceased. The intent of this accord was to end the state of enmity between the PLO and Israel and proclaim a new era of peacemaking; but it has since turned into an endless process that has led neither to the end of enmity nor to a coherent framework for peace. In my view, an accord more than 25 years old, which has produced a reality and facts on the ground that cannot be undone, cannot be annulled:

• The Oslo accord led to radical changes on the ground and produced a new reality that cannot be ignored. More than 25 years after its signing, the Palestinian political and economic situation has changed, and Palestinian–Israeli relations have changed radically and irreversibly.
• Under this accord, the Israeli army withdrew from 20% of the West Bank's lands and the whole of the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Authority took the Israeli army's place in bearing responsibility for the welfare of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and providing them the basic services — health, education, development, relief, and police services. The Palestinian Authority established an enormous government service sector of 170,000 employees; dismantling the Authority means discharging this enormous mass of employees, creating an economic tragedy in which unemployment and poverty rates reach astronomical levels.
• There is no consensus among Palestinians on annulling Oslo: many still believe this accord created a Palestinian national authority that represents the Palestinian people in the 1967 territories and serves and cares for them. The Palestinian prime minister, Dr Mohammad Shtayyeh, declared two weeks ago, affirming: we will not dissolve the Palestinian Authority, for it is the product of the Palestinian people's struggle.
• Under this accord, the Palestinian Authority, on behalf of the PLO, was able to sign a number of agreements with various international parties in every field; dozens of states opened diplomatic representations in Gaza first and in Ramallah later. Ending the Oslo accords and dismantling the Palestinian Authority would drive the foreign diplomatic representatives out of Ramallah, end international funding, and void the economic agreements between the Palestinian Authority and many other countries and UN institutions around the world.
• The Palestinian Authority and private-sector companies signed many agreements with the Israeli side in all economic fields — energy, cement, electricity, telecommunications, and much else. Annulling the accord would inevitably freeze all the joint economic projects between the Palestinian and Israeli private sectors, producing economic losses of no less than hundreds of millions of dollars.
• Annulling the accord means the end of security coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority — meaning the Israeli army's return to the West Bank, especially Area A. This would certainly lead to another intifada. The events of a new intifada would likely erupt, possibly accompanied by violence, especially given the dense settler presence in the West Bank's lands.
• The Palestinian side's annulment of the peace agreements could anger many international parties that support the Palestinian position; the Palestinian Authority would find itself in the dock. This in no way negates the facts on the ground and the position of most of the international community — that it is the Israeli side that has breached this accord's terms.
• The costs of annulling the Oslo accords are far greater than the Palestinian Authority or Palestinian society could bear, and the Palestinian leadership knows this truth well. The repeated threats to annul Oslo can therefore be read as aiming to draw the international community's attention and stir its fears about the relative stability of the status quo these accords created.
• Dismantling the Authority and annulling the Oslo accord are intertwined and interlinked, like the relation of father and son. The Palestinian Authority is the legitimate child of the Oslo accord, which is the Authority's legitimate father. Dismantling the Authority means annulling the accord that brought it forth; likewise retreating from or annulling the accord means dismantling the Authority born under it. No Palestinian Authority without Oslo, and no Oslo without an Authority. This poses a logical question: should the accord be annulled or the Authority dismantled — what are the alternatives for filling the political, administrative, service, and legal void and continuing to provide services? Either 1) the return of the civil administration and the Israeli army to the West Bank governorates as before the accord; or 2) the emergence, or bringing forth, of a local leadership that accepts taking the Authority's place; or 3) a mixture of these two possibilities.
• Palestinians must think seriously about what the situation in the West Bank would be on the day after the Authority's dismantling, and what strategy could be adopted to continue the project of Palestinian struggle in the new circumstances that annulling the Authority and Oslo would create.
• What would become of the Palestinian diplomatic missions spread across the world? Could their reference be returned to the PLO? Is that possible amid the sharp deterioration in the PLO's financial, legal, and moral condition? Certainly, restoring the PLO's standing and respect as representative of the whole Palestinian people, at home and in the diaspora, is a required matter, and work toward accomplishing it must continue without pause. The question is whether it is better to dissolve the Authority first and then begin restoring the PLO's standing, or to work on reforming the PLO at the same time as working on reforming the Authority, and under it.
• Another matter to think on: what is the future of the Gaza Strip after the dismantling of Oslo and the Authority? Certainly the Israeli army would not return to the Gaza Strip as it might in the West Bank. Talk of dismantling the Authority and/or Oslo is therefore confined to the West Bank, not the Gaza Strip.
• In light of the foregoing, what is required and possible is not annulling Oslo but reviving, strengthening, and developing it — what might be called Oslo 2. The Palestinian Authority must rally the international community to call for an international peace conference aimed at building on the earlier agreements and developing them; demand the entry of new international partners from the rising powers such as China, Brazil, India, and Turkey, while insisting on a more active role for the European Union; and finally impose a timetable for implementing the new agreement, leading in the end to an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 territories. Before that, and to guarantee success on the amendment track, work is needed on three fundamental pillars: 1) achieving national reconciliation and restoring national unity, with the entry of the forces of political Islam into the representation of the Palestinian people guaranteed; 2) introducing radical reforms into the official Palestinian institution and the syndicates; 3) activating the role of Palestinians in the diaspora and beginning immediately to restore trust and effectiveness to the Palestine Liberation Organization.