Israel seriously considering voiding the Oslo accords

Ramallah: Israel threatened the Palestinians on Monday to revoke the Oslo Accord should the Palestinians go ahead with their plan attaining UN statehood recognition, which the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) quickly dismissed. 

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that the Advisor of Israeli National Security is heading a team and is currently discussing alternatives ahead of September, where those alternatives include calling off the Oslo Accord will shortly be presented to the Israeli leadership to take the necessary decision.  

Ya’akov Amidror and his team have started discussions with representatives from the foreign, defense, finance, industry and trade, and justice ministers as well as from the Israeli Forces Planning Bureau and the Military Advocate General’s Department of International Law. Those government departments were asked to consider the implications of Israel announcing that it considers the Oslo Accord void.  

“The Jewish state is loosing its patience and acting erratically regarding the Palestinian plan to gain UN statehood recognition,” a top PNA official told Gulf News.  

“Dissolving the PNA is a Palestinian option, not an Israeli one. Several top Palestinian officials have threatened as an alternative to dissolve the PNA as the peace talks with the Israelis have reached an impasse,” he said.  

“If the Israelis decide to have a bi-national state, they are welcome. Let them have it,” he said. “The Israelis cannot and will not touch the Oslo Accord. But they are currently acting against political reason. They should admit that they have already lost the political confrontation with the PNA which has been gaining political and diplomatic gains daily in the international arena,” he said.  

The Palestinian official does not believe that Israel voiding the Oslo Accord necessarily means the collapse of the PNA. “The PNA is the government of the Palestinian people and Israel will never be able to collapse and dissolve it,” the official said. 

The Haaretz said that Israeli revoking of the Oslo Accord would require reexamining key issues, primarily the status of the PNA in the West Bank. 

Israeli officials believe that the Palestinians will avoid the UN Security Council and will appeal to the General Assembly to avoid an almost certain US Veto. A Palestinian independent state is expected to gain the support of more than 140 countries of UN members.  

The PNA is tirelessly working on the preparations ahead of the UN meeting in September, where a meeting on the final draft of the UN resolution would be held in Doha of Qatar on August 4.

“We are in the final stages of discussion on the best possible mechanism. We will evaluate appealing directly to the UN or going to the UN Security Council even with the possibility of UN Veto,” he said. “The Palestinian plan would call on the world body to recognize an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders,” he said.

Palestinian diplomats have been given strict instructions to launch a major campaign even among the international Jewish communities to explain to them the significance of the Palestinian UN move, whereas Israel is working hard to rally support from states to oppose the Palestinian UN move.

Haratez said that Israel is making preparations for the “day after.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed Amidror to start drafting day-after plans which include a potential Israeli political response.

On June 17th and during a joint press conference with European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman publicly threatened to void the Oslo Accords should the Palestinians go ahead with their UN statehood recognition plan.

Commenting on the Israeli plans to void the Oslo Accords, Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad Al Malki said “if Israel even thinks of voiding the Oslo Accord, the entire world would answer such a move.”