If the Oslo Accords Are Over, the Real Work of Peace Can Begin Palestinians who work for Israeli companies or socialize with Israelis should not live in fear. By Oded Revivi
https://www.wsj.com/articles/if-the-oslo-accords-are-over-the-real-work-of-peace-can-begin-1516233947
Mr. Revivi is chief foreign envoy of the Yesha Council, which represents the 450,000 Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria.
‘Today is the day that the Oslo Accords end,” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared Sunday. “We will not accept for the U.S. to be a mediator, because after what they have done to us”—namely, recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital—“a believer shall not be stung twice in the same place.”
The 82-year-old Palestinian leader cursed President Trump: “Yekhreb beitak!” (literally, “May your house be demolished”). He called Ambassadors Nikki Haley and David Friedman “a disgrace.” He denounced the British for enabling the establishment of a Jewish State, and he described Zionism as “a colonial enterprise that has nothing to do with Jewishness,” and whose real purpose is to “wipe out Palestinians from Palestine.”
Two weeks ago President Trump threatened to stop funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which subsidizes the descendants of Palestinians who left their homes 70 years ago, to which Mr. Abbas replied: “Damn your money!” On Tuesday the administration announced it would withhold $65 million of the planned $125 million.
Mr. Abbas’s tirade shocked the diplomatic world, especially those who regarded him as a statesman. One thing that did not seem to occur to Mr. Abbas was that if Oslo has failed, so has the Palestinian Authority, a corrupt fief that subsists solely on international aid and can barely pay its own personnel. The Palestinian Authority has monopolized peace negotiations for a quarter-century with no progress. Instead, it has taken its place in the multibillion-dollar “peace” industry, made up of bureaucrats, diplomats and pundits whose perspectives haven’t changed since the early 1990s.
Elected Palestinian president in 2005, Mr. Abbas has just begun the 14th year of a four-year term. The authority hasn’t held an election in over a decade because its leaders can’t guarantee they will be re-elected. What right, then, do they have to be treated as the sole representatives of the Palestinian people?
Meanwhile Israelis and Palestinians are holding clandestine meetings across Judea and Samaria to reconcile their differences. These meetings are secret because the Palestinian Authority believes it owns the rights to peace talks and sees any outside interaction between Israelis and Palestinians as a threat—and thereby criminal.
Peace activists are regularly arrested and interrogated for having coffee with Jews in Judea. By empowering Mr. Abbas and his cronies, the international community has silenced the true voices of peace on the ground.
Palestinians who want to live alongside their Israeli neighbors in peace cannot freely express their opinions. In the past year alone, I have been approached by a dozens of local Palestinian leaders who are looking for a lifeline but are shackled by their government. I dare not reveal their identities or locations for their own safety.
In his declaration on Jerusalem, Mr. Trump cited his promise “to look at the world’s challenges with open eyes and very fresh thinking.” he added: “We cannot solve our problems by making the same failed assumptions and repeating the same failed strategies of the past.”
So far he is making good on these words. His special envoy, Jason Greenblatt, broke with decades of U.S. policy by meeting with all types of Israeli and Palestinian thinkers far beyond the usual suspects. Next week Vice President Mike Pence will address the Knesset in Jerusalem and ignore the Palestinian Authority.
Palestinians who want to work for Israeli companies or meet socially with Israelis should not fear for their lives. Local Israeli and Palestinian leaders who want to collaborate on education, road safety, health care and infrastructure should be celebrated and embraced, not threatened and intimidated.
As Mr. Pence visits the Middle East next week, it is time to apply the idea “think globally, act locally” to the Middle East. It is unlikely to lead to a Nobel Peace Prize, a White House signing ceremony, or much support at the U.N. Yet the best hope for the region lies in neighborly relations, informal cooperation, and ultimately agreements between responsible Israeli and Palestinian leaders who are accountable to their constituents.
Mr. Revivi is chief foreign envoy of the Yesha Council, which represents the 450,000 Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria.
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