Until Israel's elections in November 2022, the Oslo agreement regulated everyday life in the West Bank: Who controls which areas? Which forces move on which roads and at what times? How are the Palestinians compensated for VAT and customs duties collected by Israel? How do the Palestinians pay for Israeli electricity?
Israel's ultra-nationalists, given key portfolios after the 2022 elections, are working to scrap this framework – both formally and on the ground. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given them almost a free hand, but he has not wanted to annoy the world by officially terminating the Oslo Accords.
For Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, "Oslo" is not the name of a distant capital, but of everything they detest most. "Oslo" for them means the division of the Land of Israel into two states and the end of the dream of the Whole Land of Israel. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the Oslo Accords and was murdered for it in 1995, was in their eyes a traitor.
Since taking office, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have accomplished a lot. What the outside world notices of their progress is the daily assaults on Palestinian civilians. But Ramallah's most difficult political headaches are things that make fewer headlines: 26 Israeli settlements have been established inside the self-governing Palestinian Territory B, in defiance of the Oslo Accords, while Israel freezes an increasing share of its mandatory transfers to the self-rule. Palestinian government employees now receive only 50-60 percent of their salary.
Normally, these breaches of contract would have provoked violent reactions. But in today's situation - with everything that has played out from Yemen to Iran, Gaza, Syria and Lebanon - the Palestinian cries for distress are drowned in the greater alarm. The Palestinians have 30,000 soldiers (called "policemen" in the Oslo agreement). If Israel's coalition survives the October elections, its extremists will make it a condition that the Oslo Accords be terminated and the Palestinian forces be disarmed. What does President Mahmoud Abbas do then?
In the summer of 2000, when Palestinian forces turned their weapons on Israel, a several-year war broke out and the self-government was crushed. President Mahmoud Abbas knows that those who want to get rid of his regime and occupy the entire West Bank would cheer for armed Palestinian resistance and a pretext to strike with full force. And today, as in 2005, there is no George W Bush in Washington who will force Israel to adhere to the Oslo Accords.
The self-governing areas, Area A and Area B of the Oslo Accords, are like islands in a sea, where the sea is the Israeli-controlled Area C. According to the so-called "Oslo II" agreement from 1995, there is "free movement" for Palestinians between their self-governing zones. Roadblocks may be set up by Israel only during acute crises.
Since 2023, the number of roadblocks is close to 1,000 and travel between Palestinian cities takes many hours - in an area the size of half of Scania - despite the number of Palestinian acts of terrorism in the West Bank being at a record low. This is thanks to the highly effective cooperation between Palestinian and Israeli intelligence services – one of the few Oslo clauses that Israel still honors.
The expert above all others on these matters is Dror Etkes from the organization Kerem Navot. He tells DN:
- The settlements are only a small part of what is happening. Settlers build and block roads and take over large areas inside Palestinian territory. They have driven out 150 Palestinian groups of farmers and shepherds in Area C, but their goal is to destroy the Oslo Accords, so they are in the process of encroaching on Area B, and in a couple of places Area A as well. [Area A is the Palestinian cities, where the Palestinian forces are based.]
A former Palestinian minister, who helped negotiate the Oslo agreement, tells DN:
- The day Israel formally terminates the agreement and demands that we lay down our weapons, our leaders will no longer be able to bow to Israel's dictates. As soon as we hand over our weapons, the settlers will park themselves inside our cities. God grant that the outside world, or Israel's voters, see to it that this is ruled out, or blood will flow. We Palestinians are too weak to influence development.
