Oslo, The Oslo Accords - The Peace FAQ

Oslo, The Oslo Accords

Frequently Asked Questions:

● Why did the Oslo Accords fail to stop violence and create the desired
peace?
● But with Oslo, haven't the Palestinians agreed to end the violence,
limit guns to police, and allow free access to holy places, amend their
covenant, etc...?

Why did the Oslo Accords fail to stop violence and create the
desired peace?

● "There is no better illustration of the comical one-sidedness of the

peace process: Israel's demand for Palestinian compliance with its
own written obligations is deemed a form of sabotage."

- Commentator Charles Krauthammer (Washington Post, Jan 16,

1998)

● "All Oslo's basic assumptions have failed to withstand the test of

time: that European democracy would sweep across the Middle East;
that Gaza would become the new Singapore; that Saddam Hussein
was finished in 1991; that Arafat and the secular Arab states would
join Israel in the fight against Iranian fundamentalism; that Arafat
wanted to make peace and could deliver; that we would give them
guns and territory and they would fight terror. The Middle East is
only new in one sense: It is more dangerous than ever."

- Uzi Landau, Likud Knesset member, The Jerusalem Report, Sept

28, 1998

● "No Palestinian will ever be extradited to Israel. A decision has been

made to this effect, and it is inconceivable to think that such a thing
would ever happen."

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- PA "moderate" Hanan Ashwari, confirming the PA's intention to

violate a key Oslo obligation (Voice of Palestine, quoted by Arutz 7,
Aug 14)

● SERIOUS FLAWS IN THE OSLO AGREEMENT

1. The most fundamental flaw is the renunciation of Jewish

claims to Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. The right of the Jewish
people to the Land of Israel cannot be renounced by a
transitory Israeli government. The present government has no
right to deprive future generations of Jews and Israelis of
their legal patrimony.
2. Yasir Arafat's PLO is incapable of providing Israelis with the
cessation of violence they so dearly crave. There are ten
rejectionist PLO factions plus Hamas and other Islamic
fundamentalist factions that will continue to kill Jews.
3. Without the presence of Israel's internal security force (Shin
Bet) inside Judea, Samaria and Gaza, it will be impossible to
halt terrorism or even keep it within present levels. The Israel
Defense Forces maintain tremendous power but are of little
importance in day-to-day terrorism.
4. Arafat's signature on the agreement and the PLO acceptance
is of no consequence as Arafat is a documented liar. Muslims
are permitted to lie to to non-Muslims and break agreements
with them under the Koranic law of HUDAIBIYA. Treaties and
contracts with them are worthless.
5. By virtue of this agreement, the Israeli government has
validated Arab claims to the Land of Israel. Decades of
fighting Arab propaganda and distortions of history are
trivialized and discounted.
6. This agreement puts the status of Jerusalem on the
negotiating table. Every previous government of Israel
steadfastly stood by the principle of Jerusalem being non-
negotiable.
7. All of Israel's military and civilian communications will now be
easily monitored from the hills of Judea and Samaria.
8. While Israeli radar and military installations are not affected
by this current agreement, the future is less certain.
Eventually the Arab population will force the Israelis out.
9. Whether they admit it publicly or not, Israeli leaders know
that this is the first step to a Palestinian state.
10. The "Palestinian right of return" has been acknowledged for
the first time by the Israelis and could result in a flood of
Arabs to Judea and Samaria.
11. The inevitable increase in Arab population will result in
tremendous pressure on Israel's water supply. As Arab wells
are dug in the Judean and Samarian hills, the natural

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mountain aquifer that supplies much of Tel Aviv and the

coastal plain with water will be serious depleted. Such
depletion will cause the salt water of the Mediterranean Sea to
penetrate Israel's coastal strip, thus destroying all water
supplies. This process can be witnessed in California, where
sea water has already penetrated five miles into the coast.
12. Some 70% of Israel's population and industry is concentrated
in a small strip of coast and greater Tel Aviv. That population
will be immediately threatened by Kaytusha rockets. Fired
singly from the hills of Judea and Samaria, and set with
timers they will be virtually impossible to stop. The Israeli
government plan to coordinate with the Palestinian police is
akin to working with the fox to guard the henhouse. The
Palestinian police are being recruited from among the
terrorists who delight especially in murder and mutilation of
bodies. Will they arrest and turn over a terrorist who kills
Israelis and then escapes to Gaza?
13. The Jewish residents of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza will no
doubt be victims of ethnic cleansing. The Arabs will insist on a
Jew-free country like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. The
government has already begun confiscating the weapons of
Jews, which could cause them to become vulnerable to
massacre like the Bosnians.
14. The air and seaports planned for Gaza will facilitate the entry
of weapons and terrorists, threatening the security of Israel.
15. The proposed "safe passages" for the PA will facilitate the
movement of terrorists and weapons from Gaza to Judea and
Samaria.

- Bernard J. Shapiro, Editor of the Freeman List

● "Five years ago, Yitzhak Rabin brought peace to Israel."

- Statement by organisers of a "Peace Now" rally in Tel Aviv (Sept

12, 1997), one day after the government issued a statement noting
that terrorists had killed more people in Israel since the 1993 signing
of the Oslo Accords than in the 15 years before that.

● "All Oslo's basic assumptions have failed to withstand the test of

time: that European democracy would sweep across the Middle East;
that Gaza would become the new Singapore; that Saddam Hussein
was finished in 1991; that Arafat and the secular Arab states would
join Israel in the fight against Iranian fundamentalism; that Arafat
wanted to make peace and could deliver; that we would give them
guns and territory and they would fight terror. The Middle East is
only new in one sense: It is more dangerous than ever."

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- Uzi Landau, Israeli Knesset member (The Jerusalem Report, Sept

28, 1997)

But with Oslo, haven't the Palestinians agreed to end the violence,
limit guns to police, and allow free access to holy places, amend
their covenant, etc...?

● On the Palestinian police force:

"As a Palestinian police officer, I will not hesitate to give my gun to

anyone who approaches me and tells me he is going to commit an
attack against the army or the settlers. I will even kiss the gun
before and after the operation."

- a P.L.O. recruit from Ramallah for the Palestinian police (Iton

Yerushalayim, 10 December 1993)

● On the right of Jews to visit holy places in Judea, Samaria and Gaza:

"We expect the Israelis to give us back these holy places... We

believe in freedom of religion. But Jews won't have rights there
because these are our places."

- Hasan Tahboub, head of the P.L.O.-backed Supreme Muslim

Council (The Jerusalem Report, 16 December 1993)

● On the continuation of the intifada:

"Reteach the enemy the lesson of the intifada."

- from a leaflet distributed in Ramallah by Fatah, Yasser Arafat's

faction of the P.L.O. (Iton Yerushalayim, 10 December 1993)

"The intifada will continue, as will the carrying of weapons in the

territories and outside of them."

- Farouk Qaddumi, head of the P.L.O.'s Political Department, in a

speech at a ceremony marking the closing of the P.L.O.'s radio
station in Algiers (Yediot Aharonot, 10 August 1994)

● On the ultimate goals:

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"Our enemy is a lowly enemy. The Palestinian people know there is a

state that was established through coercion and it must be
destroyed. This is the Palestinian way."

- Farouk Qaddumi, head of the P.L.O.'s Political Department, in a

speech at a ceremony marking the closing of the P.L.O.'s radio
station in Algiers (Reuters, 10 August 1994; Yediot Aharonot, 10
August 1994)

They will fight for Allah, and they will kill and be killed, and this is a
solemn oath. . . . Our blood is cheap compared with the cause which
has brought us together and which at moments separated us, but
shortly we will meet again in heaven. . . . Palestine is our land and
Jerusalem is our capital.

- Yasser Arafat, from Arafat and the Uses of Terror, by Jonathan

Torop, Commentary Magazine -- May 1997

"We will fight until a Palestinian state is established."

- Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the P.L.O., in a letter congratulating

Saddam Hussein on Iraqi Independence Day (Yediot Aharonot, 24
July 1994)

● "No Palestinian will ever be extradited to Israel. A decision has been

made to this effect, and it is inconceivable to think that such a thing
would ever happen."

- PA "moderate" Hanan Ashwari, confirming the PA's intention to

violate a key Oslo obligation (Voice of Palestine, quoted by Arutz 7,
Aug 14, 1997)

● Still Waiting for PA Compliance

...the Israeli cabinet agreed on its expectations of the Palestinian

Authority, prerequisites for a further Israeli withdrawal from areas of
Judea-Samaria.The PA reacted by accusing Israel of "new tricks"--a
line parroted by some media commentators--and that Israel was
making it impossible for the PA to comply. But all of the obligations
were agreed upon and signed into accords years ago. In return for
these undertakings, the PA has achieved a mini-state, with control
over major cities and scores of villages in Judea-Samaria and Gaza.
The obligations Israel is insisting the PA meet, include:

* The revision of the PLO Covenant, most of whose 33

clauses contain references to Israel's destruction or call

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for violence against Israel

As early as September 1993, Arafat wrote in a letter to

the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that: "The PLO
affirms that those articles of the Palestinian Covenant
which deny Israel's right to exist, and the provisions of
the Covenant which are inconsistent with the
commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no
longer valid. Consequently, the PLO undertakes to
submit to the Palestinian National Council for formal
approval the necessary changes in regard to the
Palestinian Covenant." In return for that undertaking,
Rabin recognised the PLO and agreed to negotiate with
it.

In April 1996, the PNC voted for a six-month deadline

for a legal panel to draft a new charter for the PLO.
However, the deadline passed, with no panel ever
having convened.

Last February, a month after documents attached to

the Hebron Protocol obligated the PA to "complete the
process of revising the Palestinian National Charter",
the PA chief negotiator Abu Mazen said there was no
need to amend the Covenant as the required changes
had already been made.

However, the allegedly amended Covenant has never

been published or made available, and is generally
believed not to exist.

Israel wants the PNC's legal committee to "issue a

statement specifying which articles have been annulled
in accordance with the April 1996 PNC decision. Then,
the PNC itself must reconvene and pass a new
resolution affirming the statement by its legal
committee concerning which specific articles in the
Covenant have been changed."

* Reduce the size of the PA police force.

Israel accuses the PA of deploying nearly 36,000

policemen in areas under its jurisdiction, exceeding the
limit prescribed by the Oslo accords by more than 50
per cent (other sources, including a PA human rights
group, has put the true figure at closer to 85,000).
Moreover, the PA has failed to give Israel a complete
list of all police recruits for review and approval.

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* Restrict official PA activities to areas under PA control

Israel has repeatedly demanded that the PA stop

operating in Jerusalem. It wants an end to the
activities in the capital of all PA officials, including
those on the Temple Mount carried out by the PA's
"Minister for Religious Affairs" Hassan Tahboub and
Islamic Mufti Ikrama Sabri. It has repeated its call for
Faisal Husseini's "Ministry for Jerusalem Affairs" to stop
its activities at Orient House, the eastern Jerusalem
building dubbed the "unofficial PLO HQ" in the city, and
for an end to PA security services' operations in
Jerusalem.

* The obligation to fight terror and prevent violence

Israel focused in January on three specific areas where

the PA had failed to honour its commitments:

Preventing incitement and hostile propaganda. The

government presented more than 80 statements made
by PA officials and PA media in the past year "which
constitute incitement to violence and hostile
propaganda against Israel they have praised Hamas
terrorists, threatened Israel with war, and accused
Israel of injecting Palestinians with the AIDS virus,
poisoning Palestinian food products and threatening to
destroy the Al-Aksa mosque."

Israel said it expected officials to stop engaging in and

encouraging incitement against Israel. "PA employees,
preachers in mosques and others who incite to violence
against Israel must be dismissed from their posts,
prosecuted and punished. The PA must also end
incitement to violence against Israel in the official
Palestinian media (including radio and television).

"The PA should undertake a comprehensive public

education campaign regarding the rejection of violence
and terror and normalisation with Israel."

Transfer of terror suspects to Israel. The government

named 34 individuals Israel has asked be handed over
to face trial, including PA Police Chief Ghazi Jabali,

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wanted for instructing PA policemen to ambush and fire

at Israelis; suspected killers of Israeli civilians; and
suspected masterminds of bombings which cost scores
of lives. To date, the repeated extradition requests
have been ignored.

Confiscation of illegal firearms. Israel wants the PA "to

systematically confiscate all illegal weapons and punish
those illegally bearing arms. The PA must also act to
prevent the smuggling of weapons into Palestinian-
controlled areas by all elements, including by senior
Palestinian officials and VIPs. PA officials caught
smuggling weapons must be removed from their posts.
Any weapons and explosives in PA possession or in
Palestinian-controlled areas which violate the terms of
the accord must be transferred to Israel."

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