A senior Palestinian Authority official warned Saturday it may break previous accords for the “peace process” if Israel does not agree to its demands. However, the PA already has broken the agreements, that – among others – declare that Israel will be a Jewish state and that the PA will halt all incitement and will dismantle the terrorist infrastructure. The PLO also has not changed its charter denying the existence of Israel.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior official of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), told the London-based Arab newspaper Al Hayat, “One party can’t remain committed while the other party has violated the agreements. We can’t remain committed to the agreements that were signed with Israel forever.”
Ahmed Majdalani, another member of the leading PLO committee, told Chinese news agency Xinhua, "Most probably, we will abandon the Palestinian obligations that resulted from these accords because Israel is “denying all agreements and keeping violating them."
The 1993 agreement states, “The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security [and] commits itself to the Middle East peace process... all outstanding issues ... will be resolved through negotiations…
However, the PLO never deleted its denial of Israel, while the Palestinian Authority has escalated through its school curricula claims that the entire country of Israel is “Palestine.” The volent Second Intifada in which over 1000 Israeli civilians were murdered and cynically called the Oslo Accords War, erupted after the accords were signed and without any PA request for negotiations prior to its outbreak.
The Palestinian National Council voted in 1996 to amend the charter by “canceling the articles that are contrary to the letters exchanged between the PLO and the Government of Israel.” A legal committee was supposed to re-draft the charter, but it never did so.
Before the vote, Salim Za'noun, chairman of the meeting stated, "We must fulfill the commitment demanded of us [by Oslo Accords] at the lowest possible cost. Therefore, it was said, if we amend those articles [calling for Israel's destruction] whose amendment is demanded [by Oslo Accords] it will mean that we have paid a very high price. Putting forth a new proposal for the national charter is less damaging than the first thing [amending articles].”
His speech can be seen and heard in this video:
The PLP charter states, “The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal…The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.”
The background of the latest PA threat to cancel the Oslo Accords is its insistence that Israel renew the freeze on building new Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria. The unprecedented 10-month freeze, instituted to satisfy the PA condition for the resumption of direct talks with Israel, expired a month ago without resumption of the talks, except for a highly choreographed three-hour discussion in Washington on protocol.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has implied he might accept a “last chance” 60-days freeze but that Abbas must recognize Israel as a Jewish state, a demand that Rabbo calls “another Israel lie” as an excuse to “Judaize” Judea and Samaria and united Jerusalem.
The 1993 agreement states that “all outstanding issues ... will be resolved through negotiations.”
Further agreements, such as the American-inspired “Roadmap,” specifically call on the PA to halt all incitement. It also called on the PA and Israel to establish interim borders for a proposed PA state, but Israel agree then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s insistence to skip that clause and move to final status negotiations.
Subsequent developments have resulted in PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas stating that all of its demands, including borders and the status of foreign Arabs claiming ancestry in Israel, are incorporated in further agreements and there is nothing to be negotiated.
He also has stated there is no reason for the PA recognize Israel as a "Jewish" state, basically denying that the Jews are a peple in addition to a group with the same religion, but wishes to have a Palestinian state recognized. Former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin told the Knesset in 1995, “In the framework of the permanent solution, we aspire to reach, first and foremost, the State of Israel as a Jewish state, at least 80 percent of whose citizens will be, and are, Jews.”