West Asia At War: Repression, Resistance and Great Power Games

by Talmiz Ahmad

On the negative side, the accord did not put an end to the expansion of settlements in the West Bank. More seriously, it did not concede the right of self-determination and statehood to the Palestinian people. What it provided for was an ‘interim’ (five-year) self-governing set-up in the shape of the Palestine Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Gaza, where the PA would provide security and have some role in development and welfare activities, but sovereignty would remain with Israel. The core issues that mattered to the Palestinians – the Palestinian state in the occupied territories, the status of Jerusalem, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees – these were described as ‘final status’ issues, which would be discussed three years into the interim period and finalized within two years, i.e., by May 1999. However, as the distinguished Israeli historian, Ilan Pappé, has observed, from the Israeli perspective, ‘interim objectives of the Oslo document seemed to become the basis for the final and permanent settlement of the conflict’.37 This view is affirmed by the violation, for instance, of Article 31, Clause 7, that had forbidden either side to take any action ‘to change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip’ till the final status discussions. However, during, the Labour government invested heavily in settlement expansion, so that the settler population increased by 48 per cent in the West Bank and 62 per cent in Gaza.