It is the 30th anniversary of the breakthrough Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians. The peace deal led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority, intended to provide interim self-government for just five years while negotiations solved outstanding core issues in the conflict. Today, nearly a decade after peace talks collapsed, the PA remains in place, but is losing its legitimacy.
With its vibrant restaurants, bustling malls and new construction constantly under way, affluent Ramallah has become synonymous with the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Since 1993 when the first of a pair of agreements known as the Oslo Accords were signed on the White House lawn, foreign donor money has flowed into this West Bank city, north of Jerusalem. Its streets contain smart government ministries with signs and stationery locating them in the State of Palestine.
But Palestinians are acutely aware that this is a facade. As far as Palestinians were concerned, the PA was supposed to be replaced with an elected government, running their own independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with its capital in East Jerusalem. That dream has become ever more distant.
“Things are bad and going backwards,” Um Nabil, a middle-aged shopper in Ramallah’s Manara Square tells me. “Our lives now are full of instability.”
While opinion polls indicated the Oslo Accords were originally supported by two-thirds of the Palestinian public, the huge optimism it generated has been replaced by deep gloom.
“It’s just an overwhelming perception that the Palestinian leadership made a huge mistake some 30 years ago,” says veteran Palestinian pollster, Khalil Shikaki.
“The belief that the two-state solution is no longer viable is also overwhelming, and that is making people a lot more depressed.”
The reality of life for Palestinians is a grinding military occupation. Whichever way they drive out of Ramallah, they encounter Israeli checkpoints, soldiers, and settlements.
At the time the Oslo Accord was signed in 1993, there were just over 110,000 Jewish settlers living in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Today, the figure is more than 700,000. Settlements are seen as illegal under international law but Israel has always disputed that.
Source : BBC
