A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #337 - From the Oslo Accords to October 7 (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

On September 13, 1993, in Washington, under the benevolence of American 
godfather Bill Clinton, Yasser Arafat and Isaac Rabin signed the famous 
Oslo Accords - announced as historic - on Palestinian autonomy in the 
occupied territories, foreshadowing a future independent Palestinian 
state. . ---- November 1989 the wall of shame, the Berlin Wall 
collapses. February 1990, N. Mandela leaves South African jails, it will 
be the end of the apartheid regime. September 1993, the handshake 
between a former Palestinian terrorist and a general who became prime 
minister of Israel sealed the agreements made in Oslo, then signed in 
Washington. A hope for the future and peace for the region.
However, over the years, these quasi-secret agreements appear as a 
"process" without substance. The dream of two coexisting states is 
fading away for the Palestinians, under the continued push of 
colonization and unvarnished repression, both in Gaza and the West Bank. 
They will turn out to be nothing more than declarations of principle 
without framework or deadlines. Through its balance of power, the 
colonial state is crushing the process in the face of a geographically 
dispersed and politically divided Palestinian movement. Agreements which 
grant five years of autonomy to Y. Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) 
for executive power, with a legislative body, the CLP (Palestinian 
Legislative Council). The headquarters of the PA, first located in East 
Jerusalem, was repatriated to Ramallah in 1994. The autonomous 
parliament was elected in 1996. An administrative unit which foreshadows 
the administrative embryo of the future Palestinian state, both in Gaza 
- before to be chased out by Hamas - only in the West Bank. The PA has 
jurisdiction over civil affairs and is responsible for internal security 
in the autonomous Palestinian areas. But in fact, Israel has the right 
to contravene or modify any act of the Palestinian Council and to 
intervene in these conceded territories. They are divided into three 
zones: one zone under PA administration, another under Israeli control 
and a last one under joint authority. The contours of apartheid are 
already emerging.
In September 2004, after thirty-eight years of occupation, the last 
Israeli soldier left Gaza, as announced by A. Sharon, then minister. The 
territory is placed under the authority of the PA which will control 
neither its borders with Israel or Egypt which will later erect walls, 
nor its maritime waters, nor its airspace. Very quickly these agreements 
will be shelved by the Israeli governments.

If the time seems ripe for the hope of peaceful co-existence between the 
people of the two future states, these agreements are rejected by Hamas, 
the PFLP - pro-Syrian - and other smaller factions. A divide which will 
deepen rivalries between Palestinians. In 2007, Hamas, which advocates 
armed struggle against the colonizer, won the legislative elections in 
Gaza. This greatly displeases Westerners who, unable to dissolve the 
Gazan people, trample on their own democratic principles, refuse the 
results of the consultation and describe this Islamist movement as 
-terrorist. A civil war ensued between Hamas and members of the PA which 
left a thousand dead. Hamas will seize power in Gaza. The PA will retain 
control of the West Bank and occupied territories. While Hamas represses 
any sympathizer of the PA and then any social protest, the PA joins 
forces with Israeli services to track down any supposed member of Hamas 
or refractory to the agreements in the West Bank. Following the 
presidential election, Mr. Abbas, Y. Arafat's successor at the head of 
the PLO, with the approval of the colonizer, will confirm that he 
remains the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. 
But the corruption which plagues the PA, the delay in implementing a 
blurred perspective of the agreements imposed by Israel, leads many 
disenchanted Palestinians to detach themselves from the PA, and to feel 
sympathy for Hamas which is gaining in strength. legitimacy with its 
actions of armed resistance against the occupier. It goes without saying 
that in the resistance/repression spiral, Americans and Europeans will 
only denounce the bloody "terrorism" of the Palestinians.

In this unbalanced situation, the balance of power can only benefit the 
Israeli leaders who succeed one another in power. On the Israeli side, 
the front of refusal will quickly come alive. The Zionist and 
expansionist bourgeoisie was quick to react with provocations and 
repression, including against the signatories of the agreements. For its 
interests, it tolerates the illegal establishment of colonies, it favors 
the Hamas movement and participates in the discrediting of the PA. With 
the incessant armed attacks of Hamas and the intifadas, the repressive 
policy of power in the name of "the right to defend itself, the right of 
Israel to exist" is gradually sliding towards the right, culminating 
today in the supremacist extreme right. the head of the Hebrew state.
A first alert was given in February 1994 when B. Golstein - a 
fundamentalist nationalist Jewish settler - killed 29 people and injured 
125, at the Tomb of the Patriarchs (the Ibrahim Mosque) in Hebron, 
during prayer. He will be tried and sentenced. But the demonstrations 
and riots which followed against the actions of the settlers were 
repressed and left 26 rioters dead. The dream opened by the "Oslo 
Accords" was definitively buried in November 1995, with the 
assassination of Minister I. Rabin, by an Israeli ultra-nationalist: Y. 
Amir. An act fueled by hate speech then uttered by A. Sharon, B. 
Netanyahu and others. Provocations from A. followed. Sharon, going, in 
September 2000, with others to the mosque esplanade (al Aksa) in 
Jerusalem. Which will be the source of the second intifada and suicide 
attacks against Israelis...
On a daily basis, during these years, free movement for Palestinians 
between Gaza and the West Bank disappeared. The walls are erected by 
both Israel and Egypt. In the occupied territories, the restricted life 
of Palestinians is punctuated by checkpoints, incessant controls, 
prohibitions, provocations by settlers and repression. Resistance is 
radicalizing and intensifying while repression is increasing. A price 
heavily paid by the Palestinians. At the same time, the establishment of 
colonies, which has never stopped, is accelerating. Today there are more 
than 800,000 settlers established in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and 
the Golan Heights. Often poor families, large families to whom the 
government offered shelter and work, for lack of answers on Israeli 
territory. Often also Orthodox families committed to the Zionist cause 
who impose their law and expel Palestinians from their lands, from their 
homes... Jerusalem is annexed by the Israeli government and becomes the 
capital of the State. The government of A.Sharon will be strengthened in 
its Zionist and colonial policy in 2001 by the rallying of left-wing 
personalities, supporters of Peace, including Simon Péres. "He was the 
symbol of Israel, he accompanied the birth and development of this 
country by contributing exceptionally to its defense," declared B. 
Netanyahu, then head of government and virulent opponent of these 
agreements, at his funeral. of peace.

Gaza is an open-air prison, walled in by Israel and Egypt, where a 
population already driven from its lands by the Hebrew state is crowded 
together. A territory where Hamas theocrats have reigned since the 
ejection of the PA. Gaza, an embryonic or even underground economy, 
where the population survives only on humanitarian aid, external 
subsidies or tunnel traffic. A controlled enclave from which hundreds of 
proletarians leave or return daily according to the needs of the Israeli 
economy and employers. A workforce which today finds itself in 
competition with cheaper and safer Asian migrants. It is Israeli capital 
and its bourgeoisie which will benefit from these - agreements - also 
providing income to the Palestinian bourgeoisie, notables and 
businessmen in Gaza or the West Bank.
These agreements have allowed a continual denial and a genocidal 
escalation of the occupying power with the approval of Washington which 
pours out its annual billions, delivers weapons and sends its warships. 
Agreements also flouted by the inaction of the European Union which has 
always refused to take the slightest sanction against these rogue 
governments. Cynical Europeans who, even today, while the Hebrew State 
massacres women and children night and day, invite Israel to "more 
restraint".
The Israeli bourgeoisie needed this "terrorist" enemy who allowed it to 
keep society militarized and offer employers a low-cost, highly 
disciplined and monitored workforce. For the Palestinians, the PA has 
become non-existent and is discredited for not having been able to carry 
and realize the hopes of Oslo signed by Arafat. But Gaza has become, 
over the years with Hamas, the symbol of resistance against the 
colonizer for more than 60% of Palestinians and has brought out their 
"history" from the drawer where the Israeli governments had locked it.
To date, B. Netanyahu and his government hold 6,000 Palestinian 
prisoners, bombard Gaza and its population without restraint (more than 
20,000 dead) while settlers and soldiers hunt or kill Palestinians in 
the West Bank (260 dead). This could be the outcome of these thirty 
years which have made us forget "Oslo and September 13, 1993".

MZ 15 122023.

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4080
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