Abbas’ Strategy of Selective Compliance - by Dan Diker and Khaled Abu Toameh

For its part, Israel erred in remaining silent over Palestinian violations for many of the 27 years of the Oslo agreements for fear of losing Palestinian partnership and international support. Israel has paid a high international price in its own state legitimacy over the past two decades for failing to expose and protest the violations of Oslo.

Dan Diker/Khaled Abu Toameh..
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs..
01 May '20..

On May 19, Mahmoud Abbas, head of the PLO and chairman of the Palestinian Authority, announced that “He, the PLO, and the State of Palestine” are absolved of all agreements and understandings with Israel and the United States, including on security matters.

Abbas’s purported withdrawal from signed agreements was accompanied by his long-time allegation that it was Israel and not the Palestinians that had effectively nullified the Oslo Accords through a series of policies and decisions, including Israel’s intention to “annex” West Bank Jewish communities and the Jordan Valley.

Abbas’s latest threat illustrated the effectiveness of the P.A. leader’s media and diplomatic campaign against Israel. Most major international news media outlets and the western diplomatic community did not see the move as a material breach of the Palestinian leadership’s legal obligations under the Oslo Interim Accords. Instead, the international media community took Abbas’s statement as a “green light” to condemn Israel’s declared intention to apply Israeli law/sovereignty to parts of the West Bank in conjunction with the U.S. administration’s peace plan that proposes a Palestinian state next to Israel.

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