What would happen if the Palestinian leadership announced the end of the Oslo agreement?

Awad al-Rajoub - Ramallah

As US President Donald Trump holds consultations in the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his opponent in the upcoming elections, Benny Gantz, to discuss his plan - known to the media as the deal of the century - and perhaps announce it soon, the Palestinian side is absent and attention is set to respond, and in what way it will be?

While the secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Saeb Erekat, spoke about "steps", most notably "the announcement of the end of the transitional phase" in the sense of ending the Oslo agreement, the head of the political bureau of the Islamic Hamas movement, Ismail Haniyeh, stressed that the deal might lead the Palestinians "to a new stage in their struggle. ".

But in practice, what can be done if he formally announces a deal that cancels the two-state solution according to the principles agreed upon in the Oslo Agreement, and what will change on the ground, politically, economically and administratively, and what role will Gaza have in the future?

Verbal declaration
Despite the official "exceptional and discontented" speech on the US administration, the official of the Research Department at the Palestinian Center for Research and Strategic Studies, Palestinian analyst Khalil Shaheen, does not see any practical measures that are in line with this speech, but rather draws attention to the lack of any meeting of the Palestinian leadership to discuss the American declaration and ways to respond on him.

The Palestinian analyst added that if the Palestinian leadership wanted to take dramatic steps, previous decisions of the Central and National Council of the PLO have been applied since 2015, which means that any announcement of the end of the transitional period will be verbal, while the existing relations between the Authority and the occupation continue in practice.

He explained that one of the available options is to stop security coordination and withdraw recognition of Israel while continuing moves at the diplomatic level and with the criminal court and in the corridors of the United Nations, and this means confrontation and at the same time it means more pressure on the authority and threatening its future.

But what Shaheen sees is that the approach is far from taking measures that are of a radical and costly nature to the Authority, likely to further adhere to the Oslo Agreement and that the direction of the survival of the authority will ultimately prevail towards trying to take measures that might lead to confrontation.

For example, the result of previous talk about reconsidering relations with Israel was going to amend the Paris Economic Agreement, not liberation from it.

The actual application
Shaheen explained in his interview with Al-Jazeera Net that the actual implementation of the century deal is entrusted to Israel with an American sponsorship umbrella, so the opponent is the occupation and the responses should be directed towards it.

He stressed that the world will not move if the status quo remains the same, which requires "making a difference" with which everyone feels that the century deal really threatens security and stability and not just a hollow threat.

From here, the Palestinian researcher sees the need to prepare the Palestinian case for a comprehensive political, diplomatic and field confrontation within the formulation of a comprehensive national strategy, which requires a national consensus based on ending the ongoing division since 2007.

And he stresses that the starting point should be to hold a meeting attended by all factions to develop a two-dimensional strategy, the first is how to end the division and the second is the struggle strategy in the diplomatic and popular sense.

He talked about the necessity of building the Palestinian strategy on imposing facts on the ground, "which requires leaving the Oslo agreement and rebelling against the restrictions and obligations resulting therefrom, and transferring the conflict to Area C, settlements, and the wall."

Transfer of responsibilities
For his part, the researcher at the Yabous Institution for Consultation and Strategic Studies in Ramallah, Suleiman Bisharat, excludes that the authority will go to dissolve itself, as evidenced by the limitation of the national institutions of the PLO and the leaders ’preoccupation with the battle to compete to succeed President Mahmoud Abbas.

He said that the gap between the authority and its institutions on the one hand, and the people on the other hand, created a leadership that was not prepared to pay any price in any battle with the occupation.

If, however, the authority is effectively dissolved, Bisharat says that the first consequence is to cancel all agreements signed with Israel in practice and thus the absence of the guarantor of the form of the relationship with the occupation, and this is an option that Europe, America and Israel also reject.

Bisharat adds that the dissolution of the authority means the immediate transfer of the administrative dependence of the Palestinians to the occupation in all aspects of life and at full costs, after nearly a quarter of a century of civil responsibility and the inexpensive occupation.

He added that ending the Oslo agreement means losing years of preparation and preparation for Arab and regional normalization on the one hand, and stopping to shirk the responsibility towards the Palestinians and placing them on the authority of the other hand.

Basharat indicates that the most dangerous scenario in the event of canceling the agreements is to remove the Palestinian security umbrella from the occupation by stopping security coordination.

In parallel with the foregoing, the Palestinian researcher does not exclude the chaos and uncontrolled chaos and societal void in the West Bank if the decision to dissolve the authority was taken, especially in the absence of political and factional framing of a generation of Palestinians at least, especially after the split between Fatah and Hamas.

The word discount
Commenting on Haniyeh's statements, Dr. Bilal Al-Shobaki, a professor of political science at Hebron University, ruled out the existence of clear plans and field programs by Hamas that could hinder the deal of the century.

He explained that the only movement capable of changing the current track at the regional and international levels is the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah), given the absence of Hamas in the West Bank as an organizational structure due to security policies practiced for a decade.

The Palestinian lecturer also does not count on the possibility that Gaza will do anything, whether on the military level or the popular marches.

Al-Shobaki pointed out that the decisive word will only be for the West Bank, because it entails any change in the pattern of the relationship between the Authority and Israel, because of the change in the daily lifestyle of the Palestinians.

The Palestinian academic concluded that Israel can liquidate the remainder of the Palestinian project, which was signed by the Palestinian leadership in the Oslo Agreement and the two-state solution, but the deal does not mean liquidating the Palestinian issue.

He stressed that facing the "deal of the century" is everyone's responsibility, but he does not see signs of the factions' ability to develop a unified field program for this confrontation.