The 1993 Oslo Agreement: From Scrutiny to the Scorching of the Palestinian Cause (2018)

19-7-2018

-        I received a gift, a copy of the book " The Israeli–Palestinian Agreement Between Politics and Economics" in its sixth edition, by its author the economist-engineer Dr. Nabhān ʿUthmān, President of the General Union of Palestinian Economists in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), whose Secretariat I have the honor to be a member of... noting that Dr. Nabhān ʿUthmān is a member of the Palestinian National Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

-        My friend Dr. Nabhān issued the first edition of this book, amounting to 80 pages in small format... yet large in the richness of its author’s analyses... in 1993, days after the signing of the Oslo Agreement,
and Dr. Nabhān was opposed to the agreement and voted against it in the year of signing. He wrote in his preface to the first edition at that time, "that this agreement has no principles except for the word ‘principles’ that appears in its title"... while he opened his preface to the sixth edition of his book... "On 13-9-2018 it will have been 25 years since the signing of the Oslo Agreement between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel. This number reminds me of the remark of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir... while preparing to hold the Middle East peace conference, which was held in the Spanish capital Madrid on 30-10-1991, when he said, ‘I will make the Arabs negotiate for a quarter of a century without obtaining anything.’ And now almost more than a quarter of a century has passed, since the start of negotiations with Israel, without them withdrawing from a single inch of the Palestinian territories it occupied in June 1967....."

-        And Dr. Nabhān concluded his preface by quoting the famous general phrase "a right that is followed by a claimant does not perish"
And in the chapters of the book, starting with the introduction after the preface, and the rules of the peace process in chapter two, passing through chapter three which discusses a reading of the Declaration of Principles on the arrangements for the Interim Self-Government Authority, and the economic factor and political independence in chapter four, while chapter five was written on a developmental economic conception for the interim stage....ending with the conclusion...where he wrote a summary of his view on the agreement..." Historical conflicts are not a table from which we take what pleases our taste, or what secures for some political or economic commissions... and they are far more intertwined and complex than can be resolved in closed rooms... and they are more noble to many than appearing on the silver screens, and than accounting for secret balances of the self and the vessel."

-        "And despite all this, the deficiency remains, and defeats and regressions become victories and accomplishments....................The deficiency lies in one unavoidable matter, namely that the deficiency exists in management...and not elsewhere.., for a small concession is followed by another concession..."

-        And because I cannot summarize the chapters of this book due to the limited space in this social communication medium, I will cite sentences that appeared in the preface, "There is no doubt that a reader of the Israeli–Palestinian Agreement does not need exertion to realize the dangers contained in its texts, which to this day remain presented within the framework of the visions and personal judgments of individuals. And since the magnitude of the risks and their effects still revolve within the framework of differences of opinion, not tangible on the ground, evaluating the agreement has become a right and a duty". "Provided that this evaluation is governed by a unit and standard of measure and not confined to the scope of blind defense and chanted celebration of small successes governed by self-interest.. or attacking failures and gaps.. driven by hatred and enmity"...."The measure here must be governed by the logic of the public interest, defined at its minimum by rights agreed upon and affirmed by the resolutions of the Palestinian national councils and international legitimacy"

-        I share with Dr. Nabhān when he pointed to some gains from this agreement which cannot be denied or ignored; the agreement defined positions and clarified capabilities... yet I say in my view that the agreement and its declared cursed appendages forced us to amend our national charter, and to remove items from our linguistic dictionary which they— the occupation—see as incitement on their part, and the disciplining and pruning of our curricula to conform with their ready-made applications and definitions... of the rights... imposed on speakers of the Arabic language in general. They do not recognize any Palestinian national anthem, nor any name referring to the Palestinian homeland. It is true that some Palestinian families were reunited for a limited period, then every agreement within it stopped and froze, but according to their own statistics they embarked on settlement during the period of the agreement, establishing hundreds of settlements, numbering in the hundreds of thousands of settlers, approaching one million settlers; they confiscated funds belonging to the Palestinian people, and interfered in everything that touches our daily life, economically and socially, and classified our properties into several categories, placing our land in the lowest-ranked category by area... and nevertheless, they enter every night into areas we were told, under the agreement, we can govern ourselves in—there they wrought corruption and burned crops and kin... and we negotiated with them... then we stopped... when our politicians realized that they—i.e., the occupation—do not accord us weight... Time passed, generations and agreements were born in succession, and nothing remained effective............all their dates and broken promises... have cut us off... For we have had children and grandchildren born since the date of the signing of the Oslo Agreement.... and they have now reached nearly a quarter of a century of age... They ask us about their future in light of Oslo's DNA......... We told them, do not despair... and do not lose hope... in God’s mercy........... And let hope in God and in the homeland remain... Do not believe that life is........... negotiations with plunderers of rights,... for we tried and hit the mark, and we completed our attempts then erred and stopped.. we wait.. May God grant you success and protect you... You must pursue knowledge and work to build your future....... self-reliance is not a defect.... We subjected you to the consequences of our actions.... we hit the mark for a moment and erred for moments..... and we inclined toward peace, and there is no shame in that, but we overreached with that inclination and thus failed...... So forgive us..."For a right that is followed by a claimant does not perish"...............the trust is upon your shoulders... that you protect the church and the mosque.... in the first qibla of the two eastern communities... after Balfour legalized the century... annexed it and declared it the capital of Israel... In light of that, the Knesset approved the Law of the Jewishness of the State..... and work is underway on ..
My thanks extend to my friend Dr. Nabhān ʿUthmān.... for gifting us his latest valuable publications, and granting us the opportunity to speak a word of truth..... in an unjust time.... our cause was roasted in the pans of the close ones.... Here is the pain... but hope will not cease.... in the sound vision and in patterns of thinking different from our patterns, we still look at the half of the cup.................that is full... so that we do not lose the generations of Arabism the sound full vision filled with determination and will... with the help of our Creator, Glory be to Him...