Israel-Palestine Mega Fact Check!

The Oslo Accords included a five-year interim period in which Arafat and the PLO were to crack down on attacks on Israel. After this interim period, the agreement was to address the three most pressing issues for Palestinians: establishing a capital in Jerusalem, the dismantling of settlements, and the right of return for refugees.

But during the Oslo period, “more settlements were built, and more collective punishments were inflicted on the Palestinians,” as Israeli historian Ilan Pappe wrote.

“Contrary to the promise made in the Oslo DOP, when the five years of the first stage were over, the second stage, in which the more substantial issues for the Palestinians were meant to be discussed, did not commence.”

“Before the final summit meeting in the summer of 2000, Palestinian activists, academics, and politicians had realized that the process they supported did not involve an actual Israeli military withdrawal from the occupied territories, nor did it promise the creation of a real state. The charade was revealed and progress ground to a halt.”

“Israel's final offer, delivered during discussions at Camp David in the summer of 2000, proposed a small Palestinian state, with a capital in Abu Dis [i.e. not in Jerusalem], but without significant dismantling of any settlements and no hope for return of the refugees.” Therefore, the Oslo process was “at best a military redeployment and a rearrangement of Israeli control in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. At worst, it inaugurated a new system of control that made life for the Palestinians in the occupied territories far worse than it was before.”

While the Palestinian leadership could arguably have done a better job at reducing terrorist attacks against Israel by various militant factions during the first five years of the Oslo period, one can equally argue that Israel did not uphold its end of the Oslo agreement.

Source: Ten Myths about Israel (2017) by Ilan Pappe.