Oslo Abandons the Oslo Accords

Dear Editor:

The Norwegian capital of Oslo, where the accords between Israel and the Palestinian Arab leadership were negotiated thirty-three years ago, this week became their burial site.

Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas visited Oslo this week, where he met with Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and other officials of the Labour Party-led government.

A previous Norwegian Labour government shepherded the talks that led to the Oslo accords in 1993. Yet Prime Minister Store did not say anything this week about the PA’s decades of flagrant violations of the accords, including its failure to outlaw or disarm terrorist groups; its refusal to honor Israel’s 36 requests for the extradition of terrorists; its payment of salaries to imprisoned terrorists and the families of dead terrorists; or the torrent of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propaganda in the PA’s news media, schools, and summer camps.

The PA’s hostile propaganda—which is explicitly prohibited by the Oslo accords—includes its notorious policy of naming institutions after terrorists.

Yet that did not stop the Norwegian government from contributing 500 million kroner ($52-million) or more each year to the Palestinian Authority.

In 2013, Norwegians elected a Conservative Party government, and in 2017 it suspended Norway’s $16-million annual grant to UN Women because that agency’s “Palestine” branch gave Norwegian funds to a PA women’s center that was named after mass murderer Dalal Mughrabi.

Mughrabi was the leader of the terrorist gang that slaughtered 37 Jews in the Tel Aviv Highway bus hijacking in 1978. Among Mughrabi’s victims was American Jewish nature photographer Gail Rubin, the niece of U.S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-Connecticut).

At the trial of one of Mughrabi’s accomplices, a survivor of the attack testified that when the bus caught fire, Mughrabi “grabbed a baby and threw it on a burning [seat].”

In October 2021, four years after the Norwegian funding of UN Women was suspended, Norway’s Labor Party returned to power. The new government soon announced it would contribute 9 million kroner (about $1-million) to UN Women’s projects in PA territory. The announcement said nothing about whether Mughrabi’s name was ever removed from that PA women’s center.

Mughrabi’s name also adorns numerous schools, streets, parks and sports tournaments in the PA territories. Both her birthday and the anniversary of the massacre she led are celebrated by PA officials and media. She is presented as a hero in the textbooks used in PA schools.

Yet such blatant violations of the Oslo agreements appear to be of no interest to the international community, not even to the very government in Oslo that helped engineer the accords in the first place.

The visit to Oslo this week by the serial violator of the Oslo accords was an opportunity to uphold the integrity of those agreements. Instead, Oslo’s leaders remained silent, and in doing so symbolically presided over the funeral of their own handiwork.

Sincerely
Prof. Rafael Medoff

The Origin of the So-Called “Palestinians”

Dear Editor:

Journalists and self-appointed influencers must know who the Arabs we now call Palestinians are and where they come from?

The British Mandate for Palestine, “the reconstituted homeland of the Jewish people”, was delineated in1920 at San Remo.

In 1921, Churchill cut off 78% of the area to create Transjordan.

A 1922 census showed there were 590,000 Muslims, 91,000 Jews and 71,000 Christians in the mandate. These people held Palestinian passports, though only Jews were referred to as Palestinians. Arab attachment was to their clans. Largely by immigration, the population grew to 1,700,000 Muslims, 530,000 Jews and 130,000 Christians by 1944.

In 1948, as the British withdrew, Israel declared its independence. Local militias and 5 Arab nations attacked the new state. The Arabs failed to ‘drive the Jews into the sea’. This was their Nakba.

Egypt took Gaza. Jordan occupied the West Bank, killing or driving out 30,000 Jews. Only the UK recognized the Arab occupations. 700,000 Arabs fled to neighboring countries. 150,000 Arabs remained in Israel and became citizens. They now number 2,000,000 or 20% of the population. Egypt and Jordan felt no need to set up a ‘Palestine’.

In 1964, the Soviet KGB and Egypt formed the Palestine Liberation Army. Its goal was to diminish American influence by destroying Israel. It collected terrorists from throughout the Middle East and North Africa, most having no links to the mandate. These fighters were the first Arabs to be called “Palestinians”.

The six-day war in 1967 drove out Jordan and Egypt, restoring Israel to its legal borders, adding the Golan Heights.

The Oslo Accords were signed in 1995, allowing Yasser Arafat, an Egyptian, and 100,000 followers to enter 40% of Judea and Samaria. These towns were controlled by the Palestinian Authority or jointly managed with Israel. The other 60% is strictly Israeli territory, popular propaganda not-with-standing.

The Accords were meant to usher in 2 states, living side-by-side in peace. However, Arafat launched the 2nd Intifada, 2000-2005, ending that fiction.

In 2005, in a futile attempt to appease the Arabs, PM Sharron gave Gaza to the PA, removing every Jew. The PA was thrown out by Hamas in 2007. Oct. 7, 2023, drove the final nail into the 2-state coffin.

The fate of the Arabs in Gaza and the PA is to be determined. If their aim remains genocide of the Jews, they will be driven out. If they accept their place as a minority in Israel, one of the most advanced societies in the world, they may attain a level of self-determination. The next step in their rehabilitation is the disarming of Hamas, the dismantling of UNRWA and the resettling of all who consider themselves to be refugees or wish to leave.

Sincerely
Len Bennett, Author of ‘Unfinished Work’
Deerfield Beach, Fl.