Israel Matzav

Netanyahu: Israel not legally obligated to honor Oslo Accords

Prime Minister Netanyahu said that Israel is not legally obligated to honor the Oslo Accords. There's only one problem: He said it in 1996.

On November 28, IMRA asked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, after a press conference in Tel Aviv, the following question:

"Are you saying that Israel is legally obligated to honor the Oslo Accords despite the Palestinian violations?"

Netanyahu replied: "No. Israel is only obligated if the Palestinians honor the agreement."

And it wasn't just Netanyahu who said so. The Leftists who 'negotiated' the Oslo Accords said it too. That's how they got then-Prime Minister Rabin and the Knesset to sign off on them.

Netanyahu's position is consistent with the position taken by former Foreign Ministry legal adviser Yoel Singer, during a briefing of the Knesset law committee on December 14, 1993. Singer said then that even after signing, the agreement is reversible. If the Palestinians declare a state, for example, the agreement will be nullified. "If one side violates the agreement in a substantial way, it is clear that the other side does not have to fulfill its part," he explained (The Jerusalem Post December 15, 1993).

During the same briefing, Savir, who was the member of the Israeli team negotiating with the PLO in Cairo responsible for drafting the agreement to implement the Israeli-PLO Declaration of Principles, explained that the IDF will be able to go anywhere in the Palestinian autonomous area to defend Jewish lives. "There are no restrictions on the IDF," Singer told the committee. "The army's responsibility to protect Israelis is not restricted in time or space."

Liars all of them.

By the way, Singer has since moved to the United States. Something tells me it wasn't out of pride in the Oslo Accords' result.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:58 PM