Three decades after Oslo: What can be done to stop the collapse of the national movement?

Written by: Hani Al-Masry
Today marks the twenty-ninth anniversary of the Oslo Accord, which was, regardless of intentions, a second catastrophe for the Palestinians, and the evidence is that the challenges that threaten the Palestinian cause, and the tool for its embodiment the national movement with its various components, are grave, and threaten the first with marginalization, and the second with the completion of the collapse, which began since the arrival of The adopted strategies led to a dead end, which converged on the two-state solution program, which fell because its ceiling became the Oslo agreement, which does not provide for the state, and its means are negotiations, proving merit and making concessions, and its focus on building the state and its institutions, and neglecting the most important issue, which is self-determination and ending the occupation, As a condition for the embodiment of the state and the achievement of national independence, the rights that are now being adopted as the appropriate alternative to the two-state solution have been ignored.

On this occasion, the following facts must be taken into account.



Oslo died Israeli

If we do not consider that Oslo was stillborn, then it has died in Israel since the failure of the Camp David summit in the year 2000, and instead of abandoning it and adopting a new approach, new parties were brought under its roof through the involvement of the factions that boycotted the 1996 elections and participated in the 2006 elections, without linking Its participation in the agreement means abandoning it and adopting a national project. Rather, it is now required to agree through the government in which it participates to the terms of the international Quartet. The worst thing is the continuation of the Palestinian, Arab and international attempts to revive Oslo, and it is natural that these attempts fail, to the extent that no one calls for its revival and the resumption of negotiations other than the Palestinian side, and some Arabs and friends compliment him despite their realization that Oslo is behind us, and it cannot be revived while it is in ruins. And they did this to ensure that the status quo, which they see constantly changing for the worse, remains.

And when the US administration talks about its adherence to the two-state solution without doing anything to achieve it, it is thus drugging the Palestinians and pushing them to continue clinging to the tails of the political process, so that they do not adopt another approach that the Palestinian leadership has been threatening and adopting for 12 years, and has issued decisions to translate this in the Central and National Councils. It repeated its approval several times without implementation. Because it does not have the necessary will to change the course, and because it fears confrontation and the reaction of the beneficiaries of the so-called “peace process”, and they have become a great force, and rely on a complete and integrated structure that cannot be underestimated at all, and the opposition remained demanding, and awaiting the implementation of the official leadership of the decisions taken.

Which increases the concern that the Palestinian opposition, or the so-called "Palestinian resistance axis", despite its steadfastness and resistance, does not have an alternative to what is on the table, and deals with reality as well, and the priority at its backbone is the continuation of its control over the Gaza Strip, and thereby contributing to the deepening of Division, and he also deals with economic peace because of his clinging to power, betting on the Arab-Islamic Spring at times, and on Iran and Hezbollah at other times, and on the demise of Israel soon this year or the next, or on the end of the occupation, the demise of settlements, and the lifting of the siege soon at a third time, as a result of Israel's internal contradictions, which are great, but they are not enough for the demise of Israel or the occupation, and fluctuate between treachery of the leadership and willingness to quota it and renew its legitimacy.

National salvation and victory over the Zionist colonial project and its occupation, expansionist and racist tools is not near, and there are many evidences and indicators of that, and it needs to provide its requirements that are not available, and we must prepare and act on this basis.

The fall of the solution theory and the adoption of apartheid alone is not a solution

The fall of the two-state solution through negotiations and concessions does not open the way to one state by adopting the discourse of rights and law, as some imagine. A movement that was unable to end the occupation of part of Palestine will not be able to remove Israel, or defeat the Zionist project, dismantle the system of racist privileges, and establish a single state in Palestine. If you use the same means that brought us to where we are, or if you use the means that form the other side of the coin to Oslo and economic peace.

Talking about a one-state solution without linking it to the defeat of the Zionist project is another aspect of Oslo. Because it replaces the discourse of national liberation and the political struggle with a legal and human rights struggle only, claiming that the world will sympathize with Palestinian individual and civil rights just as it did not sympathize with national rights, and even if it sympathizes, this is dealing with one of the manifestations of settler colonialism represented by Israel, and not with its roots and essence, and it descends with a roof. The Palestinian struggle by making it include the improvement of life within the existing one Jewish state, which is racist par excellence, and is smart trying to separate from the Palestinians while maintaining control over them through different systems and laws for each Palestinian community, in order to evade its responsibilities for the Palestinians and their rights as citizens, despite the illusion The owners of the state and one and the discourse of rights that they push it into a corner.

If the discourse of rights, equality and justice is not linked to the struggle to end the occupation and self-determination, or against settler colonialism to defeat it and dismantle the racist system of privileges; Or her words are just laughing at the chins consciously or without it.

Course change fears

What frightens the official leadership about confrontation and the consequences of changing course, and what worries the opposition and makes it reluctant to articulate a practical alternative to the Oslo authority, is the fear for their interests, the gains and positions they obtained, and the dominance and consolidation of the Israeli right, and its sweeping control over Israel, contrary to the expectations of many, who They bet on the decline of Israel, and that it is about to disappear, or they bet on the historic reconciliation with the Zionist movement.

While it is necessary to realize the impossibility of changing this right-wing Israeli reality in the immediate term, and for several years to come at least; Because he rules without a competitor from the left, or what is called the "peace camp".

The greatest competition in Israel has become between the right and the most extreme right. As for the remnants of the left and the center, they are a small minority that do not have an alternative to the right, but identify with it, and cannot rule alone without the participation of right-wing parties in the government, as happened after the fall of the Netanyahu government, and it will be It has the veto in any government in which it participates, and it is the decision-maker, as we saw in the government of Naftali Bennett, and the subsequent government of Yair Lapid, who, as evidenced by his incursion into Palestinian blood and the Judaization of Jerusalem, especially Al-Aqsa, competes with the fiercest right in his hostility to the Palestinians.

Resolve the conflict, not reduce it

The ruling right in Israel does not continue to manage the conflict, as did the Israeli governments since Oslo and until Benjamin Netanyahu’s return to power in Israel in 2009. Rather, it began to resolve the conflict and escalate it, and not to reduce the conflict as the ruling circles in Israel claim, and Palestinian circles believed it. It is Arab and international. Rather, what is taking place is frantic Israeli attempts to resolve the conflict and liquidate the Palestinian cause from its various dimensions, as evidenced by what is happening in Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa and the entire West Bank in terms of Judaization, displacement, colonization, settlement and racism, as well as repeated military aggression and continuous siege of the Gaza Strip, and the application of the racist national law in Israel, intensified efforts to liquidate UNRWA, change the definition of a refugee, settle refugees, write off the right of return, and displace refugees to new areas of refuge.

What is happening leaves no room for doubt that what is happening before us is the establishment of the one Jewish Israeli state, through an increasing effort to annex and Judaize the West Bank, or large areas of it to Israel, and not the establishment of a state or a semblance of a Palestinian state, neither in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, nor in the West Bank alone. Not only in the Gaza Strip, the political content of the occupying state’s relationship with the Palestinians has been set aside, and it now deals with them as individuals and not as a people, and that what is required is to use all means to push them to accept, or at least, to coexist and deal with the reality imposed by Israel on the ground, which makes the Israeli solution the The only feasible solution.

What is happening is an implementation of the Trump deal without Trump, with the legal annexation of the areas specified for annexation being postponed until the appropriate circumstance becomes available.

Will the settler-colonial project succeed in settling the issue?

The answer is absolutely not, as evidenced by all forms of steadfastness and resistance, past and present, that the Palestinian people control, but it succeeds in liquidating the national movement that dominated the Palestinian scene during the past decades. To what I call the collapse of the national movement, which explains the failure to change course despite the catastrophe that led us to it, and the failure of the authority to protect its people from daily killings, raids, arrests and home demolitions, and the inability of the factions to deter the occupation and its aggression and its failure to lead the resistance in the West Bank; What created a vacuum that began to be filled by individual elements and groups responding spontaneously to the daily assassinations, raids and arrests.

What distinguishes this resistance is that it is mostly defensive and local. It writes heroics, but without capabilities, awareness, experience, organization, leadership or strategy. This makes it at best to keep the cause alive, but it does not have the ability to continue and escalate, and most importantly Accumulation and achievement of political achievements and victory; What makes heroics and valiant resistance mere sacrifices and heroics.

There is no alternative to changing the path and discourse, liberating it from the theory of ready-made solutions, and adopting the path of national liberation from settler colonialism that rules through military occupation, apartheid and aggression in all its forms, and aims to confiscate and Judaize the largest area of land and the least number of the indigenous people of the country with separation from them, and complete control over them.

This is the required path that stops the collapse of the national movement and rebuilds it jointly, or builds a new national movement that can unite the entire people by combining the discourse of interim and final solutions and the various forms of resistance, the common perception, the special circumstances and priorities of each gathering, and between ending the occupation and rights. Civil, patriotism, apartheid, equality, the right of return, self-determination, and a radical historical and democratic solution, but in conjunction with the challenge of the racist colonial project, and the struggle to defeat it, not to improve the conditions of life in it, with the importance of extracting any gain, no matter how small, but on the condition that it be linked to a broad horizon.