Late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat wanted Oslo Agreement to be a temporary passage towards the independent Palestinian state. However, after 25 years, the deal reached a deadlock.
Since the beginning, no Palestinian official described the agreement as a good one but as an obligatory and necessary passage that brought Palestinians closer to the dream of independence after they were displaced in several countries.
Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and others knew well that the agreement might be good and might be disastrous. When Abbas wanted to justify its details in front of the Palestinian Central Council in 1993, he said that the deal would be a passage to a state or a disaster.
Oslo Agreement was signed on Sep. 13, 1993, and was supposed to be temporary with the establishment of a Palestinian state after five years i.e. 1998. However, the agreement called forth several deals that were worse and more complicated.
The accord stipulated the withdrawal of the Israeli forces gradually from the West Bank and Gaza Strip in addition to establishing a temporary Palestinian autonomy for a transitional phase of five years that would be concluded with a permanent settlement based on resolutions number 242 and 338.
Palestinian Liberation Organization Secretary-General Saeb Erekat told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that the negotiators have made a huge mistake represented in signing an agreement that doesn’t include an Israeli admission in the state of Palestine.
Erekat believes that, after 25 years, the mistake can be fixed through suspending the Palestinian admission of Israel until the latter admits the Palestinian state.
