Dichter: Time to Admit Oslo Accords Failed

Jerusalem, 14 September, 2017 (TPS) -- Chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee MK Avi Dichter (Likud) said Thursday that the time has come to “admit that the Oslo agreements were a failure.”

“Twenty-four years after the Oslo agreements were signed, we must admit: The Oslo agreement failed. We are more threatened today by Palestinian terror than we were before the agreements that were signed in September, 1993,” Dichter said.

Speaking on the final day of the World Summit On Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Dichter called the Declaration of Principles signed by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat “the most important agreement” between Israel and Palestinians, but noted that nearly all sides who were party to the agreement wound up disappointed.

“When we look back… [we see that] we, the Americans, the Europeans and the Arab states – we all expected that it would lead to an end of violence and a ceasefire. And if anyone wanted to act differently, he would be dealt with with jail time and being brought before the Palestinian court.

“Twenty-three years later (sic)  we must admit: The Oslo agreement failed…. …We thought we were signing an agreement with a single Palestinian Authority that would have one police force for one domestic security establishment, enforcing one law [for everyone].

But for 10 years we have had two Palestinian Authorities – one in Gaza and one in Ramallah. The last time Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, visited Gaza – home to 40 percent of the Palestinian people – was more than 10 years ago,” Dichter said.