Will Abbas officially end the peace process with Israel, dissolve the Palestinian Authority and declare a Palestinian state?
By: Aryeh Savir, World Israel News
PA head Mahmoud Abbas chairs a meeting of the PLO executive in Ramallah. (AP/Fadi Arouri)
Palestinian Authority (PA) head Mahmoud Abbas is planning to put an end to the Oslo peace accords with Israel by declaring them null and void when he addresses the UN General Assembly later this month, the Palestinian Ma’an news agency reported Sunday.
According to the report, Abbas will state that the PA was established while under the so-called occupation, and since it has already achieved observer-state status at the UN but has not achieved statehood, it is no longer bound by the peace accords.
Ma’an quoted senior Palestinian official Ahmed Majdalani, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee, as the source who revealed this dramatic move. He reportedly said that the PA will declare that it is no longer bound by the 1992 Oslo Accords nor by the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement of 1994 and the Paris Protocol, which together defined the PA’s governance of the Palestinian civilian and security affairs and regulated the economic relations between the PA and Israel.
This declaration would effectively dissolve the PA and return all control to Israel.
Majdalani explained the move by blaming Israel for its alleged unwillingness to allow the Palestinians to establish a state instead of the current interim authority, a situation that demands “a drastic and meaningful move.”
He said the final decision to declare the Oslo accords invalid will be voted on by the Palestinian National Council (PNC), the PLO’s legislative body, which is set to convene this month to discuss new elections for the Palestinian leadership.
Majdalani also revealed that some 30 Palestinian delegates living in Arab countries were traveling to Ramallah to partake in the vote on this dramatic move.
The Oslo Accords, which were negotiated by Israeli and Palestinian officials in the Norwegian capital, created an interim Palestinian government, the Palestinian Authority, which was granted governance over Arab communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
The peace talks fell apart last summer when the PA established a unity government with the Hamas terror organization.