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<font size="1"><a href="https://english.palinfo.com/articles/2020/5/27/Political-ambiguity-or-a-doomsday-weapon-Why-Abbas-abandoned-Oslo">https://english.palinfo.com/articles/2020/5/27/Political-ambiguity-or-a-doomsday-weapon-Why-Abbas-abandoned-Oslo</a></font>
<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Political ambiguity or a doomsday weapon: Why Abbas abandoned Oslo</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">By Ramzi Baroud - May 27, 2020<br></div>
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This time, we are told, it is different and that President of the
Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is absolutely serious about his
decision to absolve his leadership from all previous agreements signed
with Israel and the United States.<p>
But this time is not different, and Abbas is not serious.</p><p>
“The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the state of Palestine
are absolved … of all the agreements and understandings with the
American and Israeli governments … including the security ones,” Abbas
declared at an emergency meeting of his leadership held in Ramallah on
May 19.</p><p>
Unsurprisingly, there were no massive demonstrations reported throughout
Occupied Palestine in support of Abbas’ latest decision. Aside from a
few loyalists in PA-controlled media, it seemed as if the man did not
utter a word, let alone cancel all agreements that justified the very
existence of his Authority over the course of nearly 30 years.</p><p>
The demonstrable truth is that Abbas ceased to matter to Palestinians a
long time ago. However, for Israel, he mattered greatly, because his
Authority has served as an additional security buffer between occupied
Palestinians and the occupation army. Thanks to ‘security coordination’,
Israel was allowed to fortify its occupation in peace.</p><p>
Palestinians have long lost faith in Abbas as proved by one public
opinion after another. This is not a sudden occurrence, but the
accumulation of decades of failure and disappointments. Abbas’
commitment to the Oslo Accords led to absolutely nothing, except for the
creation of a massive and utterly corrupt security apparatus that
largely exists to ‘coordinate’ the subjugation of Palestinians with
their Israeli oppressors.</p><p>
Since his advent to power in 2005, Abbas and his faithful followers
within the Fatah party became obsessed with their enmity, not with
Israel and the United States, but with Abbas’ own Palestinian rivals,
within Fatah itself – Mohammed Dahlan, etc. – and, to a larger extent,
with Hamas in Gaza.</p><p>
Israel mainly factored in Abbas’ many speeches in Ramallah and at the UN
General Assembly in New York; despite all the rhetoric, little or no
action ever followed. Concurrently, Israeli soldiers and illegal Jewish
settlers carried on with their systematic abuse of Palestinians,
unhindered.</p><p>
Not once did Abbas’ ever-growing security forces (estimated at 80,000
strong) move to block the path of a single Israeli bulldozer demolishing
a Palestinian home or uprooting an ancient olive grove in the West
Bank. Nor did they prevent the arrest of an anti-Israeli occupation
activist. Often, they carried out the arrests themselves.</p><p>
Even as Israel was pounding Gaza with massive bombs and white
phosphorus, Abbas continued barking insults at his Palestinian enemies.
He berated Gaza’s armed resistance, yet offered no meaningful
alternative to whatever version of ‘resistance’ he championed.</p><p>
But if Abbas managed to co-exist under these humiliating conditions, why
did he decide to cancel the agreements now? To answer this, first, let
us look at the political context of Abbas’ decision.</p><p>
In February 2015, Abbas threatened to sever security ties with Israel as
a response to the Israeli decision to withhold millions of dollars of
Palestinian tax revenues, which Tel Aviv obtains on behalf of the PA.
Similar threats were made in July 2017, this time in response to
Israel’s illegal measures around the Muslim holy sites in occupied
Jerusalem. And again, in September 2018, when the US unilaterally
recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. And, yet again, in July
2019, when Israel demolished Palestinian homes in occupied East
Jerusalem.</p><p>
The latest episode, Abbas’s threat to dissolve the PA, was in response
to the American announcement of the so-called ‘Deal of the Century’.</p><p>
These are only the notable threats that registered in media coverage. In
reality, Abbas has waged his ‘war’ on Israel in the form of endless
threats that were always met with disdain in Israel.</p><p>
The difference, this time, is because Abbas has never experienced this
degree of abandonment and political vulnerability. Discarded by the
Americans and disowned by the Israelis, Abbas’ credibility is at an
all-time low. More importantly, the Palestinian people have long
abandoned any illusion that the path of liberation will go through
Abbas’ office in Ramallah.</p><p>
Overwhelmed by many odds, Abbas decided to conduct what is, most likely,
to be his final political act. What happens next matters little,
because at this stage the 84-year-old Palestinian leader is left with
nothing to lose.</p><p>
Canceling the Palestinian commitment to the agreements should translate
into little on the ground, considering that Israel and the US have
already reneged on these agreements.</p><p>
The Oslo Accords were meant to be relevant up to a point, until 1999,
when the final status negotiations were meant to be held as the last
step before the establishment of an independent Palestinian State.</p><p>
Jerusalem, like the rights of Palestinian refugees, was meant to be
resolved then, not to be completely “taken off the table”, two decades
later. No territorial swap, let alone annexation, was to be permitted
without a bilateral agreement between both parties.</p><p>
Only two components of these agreements survived Israel’s numerous
violations: the ‘security coordination’ and the ‘donors’ money’, which
kept the PA and its massive – but useless – army in operation.</p><p>
Now that the US has withheld all funds to Abbas’ Authority, and Israel’s
new national unity government has agreed, in principle, to annex much
of the West Bank, Abbas is left with nothing.</p><p>
By canceling all agreements, Abbas and his supporters are hoping that
alarm bells sound in Washington and Tel Aviv, especially since the
halting of ‘security coordination’ could prove costly to the safety of
Israel’s Jewish settlers.</p><p>
If Abbas was, indeed, serious in his announcement, he would have
included in his speech a clear articulation of a new Palestinian
political agenda that is predicated on unity – but a true Palestinian
strategy was never the PA leader’s ultimate goal.</p><p>
What Mahmoud Abbas is hoping to achieve, with his latest theatrics, is
the establishment of a new political game, one that is based on
political ambiguity, so that he is not entirely abandoned by his Western
backers, or finally shunned as a collaborator by his own people.</p><p>
<em>- Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine
Chronicle. He has authored a number of books on the Palestinian struggle
including ‘The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story’. Baroud has a Ph.D. in
Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a Non-Resident
Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies,
University of California Santa Barbara.</em></p></div></div>
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