But we did it despite Oslo

Excerpt of a column by Muwaffaq Matar, Fatah Revolutionary Council member and regular columnist for the official PA daily

"The Oslo Accords is considered an important example and proof of the correctness of the path of rationality and political realism, especially if the one who follows it is endowed with trustworthiness and honesty. An example of this is in the words of [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas in response to a question as part of an interview with media woman Badiya Fawaz Yassin in August 2024. The interview was published in a booklet released by the Palestinian National Printing House under the title ‘Palestine in the International Arena.' We will quote from it the following words:

‘It is true that the Oslo Accords did not resolve the permanent agreement issues, but we are the ones who resolved this without negotiations with Israel, by obtaining from the world and the international institutions recognition of the Palestinian state.'

He also said: ‘149 of the world's states would not have recognized the State of Palestine if this state did not exist on its land.' The president gave an example of his view on the Oslo Accords... and said in the same interview: ‘Since the first day of the accords I said there are opportunities and dangers in the Oslo Accords; either it will lead us to independence and a state, or it will perpetuate the occupation (i.e., Israel). The Oslo Accords did not give us the right to go to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to sue Israel and its leaders for the war crimes they are committing against our people, nor did it give us the right to turn to the [UN] International Court of Justice (ICJ), the [UN] Human Rights Council (UNHRC), and many international organizations that we are now members of in order to prove that we are a state like the rest of the world's states, but we did it despite Oslo.'

He also said: ‘As for those nihilists who rejected the accords entirely without examining the opportunities it might provide us to restore our rights, they were incapable to present alternatives other than empty slogans and objection... One of the achievements of Oslo is the return of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to their homeland, which constitutes a certain realization of the right of return. Over 30 years their number has grown to approximately 1 million. The return of those Palestinians and the increase in their number on their homeland have become a concern of the Zionist entity, which dreamed of establishing a pure Jewish state to get rid of the native residents of Palestinian. The entity began to feel the threat of what it called ‘the demographic bomb.'"

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 8, 2025]