Caroline Glick: For Israel to be safe it must bury the Oslo delusion
The Oslo peace process was based on the idea that, despite all evidence to the contrary, Arafat and his PLO had abandoned terrorism and were willing to live in peace with Israel. Israel agreed to import Arafat, his deputies and his terror armies to Gaza and parts of Judea and Samaria, and give them autonomous rule over the Palestinians. The idea, which had no basis in reality whatsoever, was that the PLO would fight terrorists on behalf of Israel. And if they failed to do so, it wouldn’t be because they were still the terrorists they had always been. It would be because Israel wasn’t giving them enough power.Time to Rethink the Question of Palestine
None of this made a bit of sense at the time. And at no point in the intervening 29 years were these absurd notions borne out by events—quite the contrary. Reality has always reigned supreme. And due to reality, some 1,700 Israelis have been killed since 1993 by Palestinian terrorists. Moreover, 29 years after Israel first legitimized the PLO, Israel’s diplomatic standing is hanging by a thread. Not only did Arafat and Abbas never go to war against Hamas, from the outset Fatah and Hamas have cooperated in their joint war against the Jews, even as they compete for public support.
Palestinian terror groups like Hamas have been transformed from tactical challenges into strategic threats. Their missiles are capable of reaching nearly every point in Israel. And their influence over Israel’s Arab citizens has made the prospect of a fifth column in war a distinct threat that Israel is ill-prepared to contend with. In the countries most obsessed with preserving Oslo—including the U.S.—Jews are attacked in the streets for daring to support Israel.
But for 29 years and counting, Israel’s elites have refused to hear about it. As far as the political left, the IDF generals and their friends in the media are concerned, the problem was and remains the enemy within. Not Arab Israelis who support the annihilation of Israel, but Israelis who insist that reality is what matters, and that enemies have to be defeated, not stabilized and empowered, legitimized and enriched.
Today, 29 years after the Oslo delusion became the official policy of Israel’s elites, and as we bury its latest victim, we must bury the delusion with him. Israel will only begin the journey back to safety and strategic sanity after Oslo is abandoned.
The UN is poised to revisit the question of Palestine with renewed vigor. This invariably means flushing more money into UNRWA, a special agency devoted to keeping Palestinians in refugee camps in preparation for their conquest of Israel, and by upgrading the Palestinian status, recognizing them as a state despite virtual consensus that they in no way meet the legal definition.Follow the Money: Media Absent as Palestinian Authority Fails to Meet ‘Minimum’ US Transparency Requirements
In the 74 years since Israel's declaration of independence in 1948, Israel has continued to build, absorb millions of refugees from Africa, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union, has forged peace with old belligerents like Egypt and Jordan and more recently, Morocco, the UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan. The Palestinian Arabs have, for the most part, remained unchanged, still viewing their struggle as one against European colonizers and not the ancient custodians of the land, and believing that if they resist long enough, the Jews will eventually go some place else.
It is time to deliver the hard truth that those who reject internationally brokered plans of partition, reject every offer of statehood put to them, and consistently use violence as a political device, do not set the terms. As long as the Palestinian leadership receives cost-free solidarity, currency and diplomatic recognition, a negotiated outcome is an impossibility.
Ever since the establishment of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) under the 1990s Oslo Accords, international aid has accounted for a significant proportion of its budget. Even after the United States cut off assistance following the passing of anti-terror legislation in 2019, the PA continued to receive some $900 million in aid annually from other countries, with its total government expenditure estimated at $4.73 billion.
According to 2020 data published by the World Bank, development aid constitutes over one-tenth of the West Bank and Gaza’s entire gross national income. By comparison, in crisis-afflicted Lebanon, this number stands at only 5.7 percent.
Meanwhile, over the past 20 months, the Biden Administration has announced the restoration of $831 million in US funding to the Palestinians, further solidifying what some have called a “donor-based economy.”
When Washington declared its intention to resume assistance in April 2021, with additional aid pledged in July of this year, the media were all over the story. In fact, since the initial announcement, a sample of 18 major English-language news outlets produced almost 300 articles that mentioned the US aid plans. Headlines included ‘After bitter Trump years, Palestinians’ thank America’ again,’ ‘UN agency praises new US aid for Palestinians at ‘critical moment’,’ and ‘Editorial: Biden is right to resume aid to the Palestinians.’
Yet these same media organizations have entirely ignored a recent State Department report that seemingly once again casts serious doubt on the legality of President Biden’s renewed support for the Arab population of Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip.
On September 9, the State Department released its 2022 Fiscal Transparency Report to Congress, which evaluates whether governments around the world, as well as the Palestinian Authority, meet the minimum standards for financial transparency. Regarding Mahmoud Abbas’ autocratic PA regime, the document noted that:
During the review period, the Palestinian Authority made its enacted budget public, but not within a reasonable period of time, and the data was incomplete… The Palestinian Authority published monthly budget execution reports that provided a substantially full picture of its expenditures and revenue streams. The information in the reports was considered reliable and reasonably accurate. However, information on debt obligations was incomplete.”
The State Department also wrote that Ramallah’s supreme audit institution “lacked independence,” that its statements were not publicly available within a reasonable period, and that audits did not cover the entire annual budget. The PA did not make significant progress toward improving fiscal transparency in the past year, Washington concluded, calling again on Abbas to implement changes.
![](http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif)