Time for Israel to end Oslo
Mudar Zahran, a Palestinian writer and academic from Jordan, who now resides in the UK as a political refugee, says it's time for Israel to end the Oslo Accords. For the past several decades, the PLO leadership seem to have been trying to grab whatever it could get in negotiations, using the "ceiling of the last negotiation as the floor of the next," and pocketing whatever concessions it could acquire while waiting for more. This approach is consistent with the Palestinian "Phased Plan" laid out by Arafat in 1974, which "adopted the political solution of establishing a National Authority over any territory from which the occupation withdraws" -- leading it to be referred to as the "Piece Plan" -- and which, as Arafat reaffirmed on September 1, 1993, still is incorporated into the Oslo Accords. This approach is also consistent with the PLO's charter, never rescinded, which calls for the annihilation of the "Zionist Entity."Read the whole thing. He's spot-on.
Back when the Oslo agreement was still fresh and that least theoretically being implemented, the London-based Palestinian Journalist Abdul Bari Atwan in an interview with the London-based Arab TV station, ANB, blamed Arafat for allegedly giving "too many concessions" to Israel. According to Atawn, Arafat's response was: "By Allah, perhaps not in my lifetime, maybe in yours, you will see the Israelis fleeing from Palestine, have a little patience."
In short, Arafat's philosophy revolved around creating chaos and unrest to drain Israel politically while at the same time enjoying the spoils that resulted from doing so. Many senior members of the Palestinian Authority, including its current leader, Mahmoud Abbas, are still enjoying a good life under the protection of the very country against which they are working: Israel.
Arafat's doctrine has come at a very dear cost to both the Israelis and the Palestinians. The Palestinians have lost their formerly open access to the Israeli job market -- with Israel as the only country in the world that allows them to work freely and be treated well – as people who, in the minds of their employers, have been hired as daily workers rather than "bought" as if they were slaves or property -- and be paid according to Western standards.
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What Hamas has done, and what the Palestinian Authority is pursuing today, are not random acts of irresponsibility, but -- among other hoped-for outcomes, such as being able more easily to tangle Israel up diplomatically and economically in international courts and the like – are rather carefully measured political bullying that results in prosperity to the leadership.
Khattab Abu Sittah, a former officer in Hamas's Ministry of Interior, who then left Hamas, and is now being persecuted by it, told this author that when Hamas took over Gaza, Hamas commanders became more able to control the needy Gazans, who spent most of their time trying to provide the basics for their families, while Hamas took control of the economic life of the Gaza strip. Hamas became the main importer of food through its tunnels with Egypt; got involved in smuggling not only household products but also whole cars -- in addition to weaponry -- and eventually Hamas leaders became rich landlords who had close-to-no suffering. Those men who were able to ease the grip on the Gazans a little for their own benefit are the ones opening businesses there today,, and even terrorizing anyone who tries to compete with them. Abu Sittah said: "I was with them at the beginning because I thought they were better than the nasty (Palestinian) Authority; they have proven to be worse and they are enjoying the current situation and want it to continue."
The model described by Abu Sittah was confirmed earlier in a report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, entitled: "Gaza's Economy: How Hamas Stays in Power," which asserts that Hamas has overseen the formation of a wealthy Palestinian class -- associated with Hamas.
This pattern is not new; the PLO has been sustaining this economic bonanza for its leadership since its establishment in 1968: The more trouble there is, the more foreign aid money the PLO, and later the Palestinian Authority, have been able to receive -- and the more Palestinian officials are able to mismanage the funds, and thrive, along with their families, while getting sympathy from the world against "the evil Zionists" of Israel. The PLO has played this show long before it arrived in Judea and Samaria; no wonder, most of the PLO leaders were already very rich men when they arrived in there from Tunis.
Labels: Hamas, Oslo accords, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian Authority corruption, two-state solution, Yasser Arafat
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:36 AM
2 Comments:
If I were Israel, I would not listen to to this man, even if he is at the moment crossways with his Hamas buddies. We've seen on PA TV the mickey mouse Israel and Jew hatred he spent his years ingesting.
The reason to keep Oslo and the quartet thing is that Step 1 in their 12 Steps to Recovery for the Palestinians is to stop killing Jews, stop killing Israelis, stop blowing up busses, stop shooting, stop the rockets... then get a life (the rest of their 12 Step Program).
Unless there is some other document (and not some UN BS) that says that up front, I would NEVER end these things that do say it in black and white, signed by a bunch of people... even NORWAY that hates Israel and Jews.
If Hamas, the PLO, etc. didn't have the Oslo bonanza to keep them in power, they would come up with some other way to stay in power. Israel should not give up these written requirements for the Palestinians to leave families sleeping peacefully in their houses rather than slaughtering them.
Where it's a Sunni thugocracy (PA, Saddam's Iraq, etc)or a Marxist-Shia theocracy (Iran), the end result is always the same: the money is all stolen by the regime, then the regime blames the West for the poverty of their people.
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