{"id":9950,"date":"2018-10-25T10:13:26","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T08:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/2018\/10\/25\/25-years-after-oslo-accords-mideast-peace-seems-remote-as-ever"},"modified":"2019-04-04T18:40:15","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T16:40:15","slug":"25-years-after-oslo-accords-mideast-peace-seems-remote-as-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/2018\/10\/25\/25-years-after-oslo-accords-mideast-peace-seems-remote-as-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"25 Years After Oslo Accords, Mideast Peace Seems Remote as Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Written in 2018, 25 years after the US-brokered Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/09\/12\/world\/middleeast\/israel-palestinian-oslo.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this lengthy New York Times article <\/a>examines the failure of the peace deal, which was supposed to be an interim agreement on the way to the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Placing much of the blame on Israel, the authors claim that the agreements were relatively helpful for Israel, increasing security and relieving responsibility over the Palestinians, yet useless and disappointing for the Palestinians, except for the creation of the slightly effective, yet internally corrupt Palestinian Authority.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<header class=\"css-1iqzt8x e345g291\">\n<div class=\"css-30n6iy e345g290\">\n<div class=\"css-acwcvw\">\n<h2>25 Years After Oslo Accords, Mideast Peace Seems Remote as Ever<\/h2>\n<p>JERICHO, West Bank \u2014 When the Oslo peace accords were signed a quarter-century ago, residents of Jericho celebrated. Their dusty, 11,000-year-old desert city was given autonomy before anywhere else on the West Bank. Palestinians saw it as a foothold for what they trusted would become their own new state.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<section>\n<div class=\"StoryBodyCompanionColumn css-p1yi70\">\n<div class=\"css-4w7y5l\">\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">But nothing has turned out as they expected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">A shiny new casino, opened with great fanfare in 1998 to entice Israeli gamblers, has been empty since 2000, when they were barred from entering the city. The two-decade-old public hospital finally just got an elevator thanks to a donation from Japan. Perhaps the best-known institution of self-government in town is the jail, widely feared as a dungeon for political prisoners.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">The brilliant Palestinian future conjured by Oslo has instead become a bitter trap.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">The Oslo accords, first unveiled on the White House lawn with a\u00a0handshake\u00a0between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat on Sept. 13, 1993, culminated in mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which Israel had long banned as a terrorist organization, and the first formal agreements in a phased effort to resolve the century-old conflict.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-13jtjmc\"><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"story-ad-1-wrapper\" class=\"ResponsiveAd-storyBodyAd--35v2w\">\n<div id=\"story-ad-1-slug\" class=\"ResponsiveAd-adSlug--3H3QM\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"ad story-ad-1-wrapper\">\n<div id=\"story-ad-1\" data-google-query-id=\"COC_nv6Nod4CFRdB4Aod3j4CXQ\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/29390238\/nyt\/world\/middleeast_4__container__\">They called for a comprehensive peace agreement by 1999, which was widely expected to lead to statehood for the Palestinians, and for Israel, realization of the long-held goal of land for peace.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"css-ytj3wx e1a8i6eb0\" role=\"group\" aria-label=\"media\"><figcaption class=\"css-1giptky e3zkro30\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"StoryBodyCompanionColumn css-p1yi70\">\n<div class=\"css-4w7y5l\">\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">Today, however, the Oslo process is moribund, having produced neither a peace agreement nor a Palestinian state. About its only lasting substantive achievement is the Palestinian Authority, established as an interim self-government but still going two decades after its expiration date. The authority has made strides in providing basic services and created jobs for roughly a quarter of the work force, but it has grown increasingly autocratic and has been plagued by accusations of corruption.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">Nearly\u00a0<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/pcpsr.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">three of four Palestinians believe conditions are worse<\/a>\u00a0than before the accords were signed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">\u201cThe Oslo agreement was a catastrophe for the Palestinian people,\u201d said Ahmed Daraghmeh, 26, a clerk from Tubas, in the northern West Bank, who was in Jericho to pick up a friend being released from an Israeli jail. \u201cThere is no work. I work for the Palestinian Authority, even though I am against it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">That the Palestinian Authority has endured and the peace process has collapsed attests to how much Israel has gained. Oslo made the Palestinians responsible for policing themselves in the West Bank, which has led to vast improvements in Israeli security from terrorism in recent years at little cost to Israel. It gave the authority responsibility for providing services like sanitation and hospitals that would otherwise cost Israel, as the occupying power, hundreds of millions of dollars. And it has allowed Israel to postpone, seemingly indefinitely, a broader withdrawal from the West Bank.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">What the Palestinians have to show for these 25 years, however, is a much more muddled ledger \u2014 and a cautionary tale of how statehood delayed can harden into statehood denied.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-13jtjmc\">\n<div class=\"css-1n4qhbn ejk1mx12\"><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"story-ad-2-wrapper\" class=\"ResponsiveAd-storyBodyAd--35v2w\">\n<div class=\"ad story-ad-2-wrapper\">\n<div id=\"story-ad-2\" data-google-query-id=\"CPLC4f6Nod4CFZMX4AodiAYFsg\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/29390238\/nyt\/world\/middleeast_5__container__\">\u201cIf we\u2019re talking about the P.A. as a step toward statehood, then it\u2019s failed miserably,\u201d said Alaa Tartir, a program adviser to\u00a0Al Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. \u201cAs a step toward self-determination, or toward realization of the Palestinians\u2019 political and human rights, then it\u2019s failed again. But if we\u2019re talking about providing jobs as a bureaucracy, then it\u2019s worked.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"StoryBodyCompanionColumn css-p1yi70\">\n<div class=\"css-4w7y5l\">\n<h3 id=\"link-7c1b2ad1\" class=\"css-1xm75cc eqpy7av0\">Deep trouble and dim prospects<\/h3>\n<p class=\"css-1xm75cc eqpy7av0\">If Oslo has failed the Palestinians, part of that failure is self-inflicted. An increase in terrorist attacks after Oslo\u2019s signing, followed by the deadly Second Intifada that erupted in 2000, soured many Israelis on peacemaking and eventually led Israel to sideline the process.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"StoryBodyCompanionColumn css-p1yi70\">\n<div class=\"css-4w7y5l\">\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">Palestinians have been left in a depressing limbo: Even as their leadership has consistently failed to establish a coherent, united front for independence, the authority\u2019s bureaucrats have become steadily more effective at administering, and controlling, the lives of West Bank residents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">Stateless still, the Palestinian people are in deep trouble, their prospects as dim as ever. The body politic is divided, perhaps irrevocably, between the Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction, on the West Bank, and the Islamic militant group Hamas \u2014 which opposed Oslo and seeks the eradication of Israel \u2014 in the\u00a0Gaza Strip. Reconciliation efforts keep failing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">Mr. Abbas, in his 80s and ailing, has no clear successor. Elected just once, in 2005, he is now in the 14th year of what was to have been a four-year term. Having cast out his critics, he is increasingly repressive of dissent,\u00a0<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/www.maannews.com\/Content.aspx?id=777581\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">even on Facebook<\/a>. He rules his dwindling domain\u00a0<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-palestinians-abbas-court-idUSKCN0X816B\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">by decree<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">In Israel, the peace camp that backed Oslo has withered from waves of violence. The dominant right wing debates whether merely to manage the occupation in perpetuity or to declare victory and annex much of the West Bank. The number of Israeli settlers there, in what much of the world considers a violation of international law, has more than tripled, to about 400,000. Another 200,000 live in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim as their future capital.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-13jtjmc\"><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"story-ad-3-wrapper\" class=\"ResponsiveAd-storyBodyAd--35v2w\">\n<div id=\"story-ad-3-slug\" class=\"ResponsiveAd-adSlug--3H3QM\">\n<p>With the Arab world largely uninterested in coming to the Palestinians\u2019 aid, President Trump has been overturning the fundamental axioms of everyone who has tried to broker peace. He boasts of having taken Jerusalem \u201coff the table\u201d by recognizing it as Israel\u2019s capital, is working to minimize the problem of refugees by trying to strip their descendants of refugee status, and has refused even to endorse the two-state solution, the goal that led the Palestinians to Oslo in the first place.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"StoryBodyCompanionColumn css-p1yi70\">\n<div class=\"css-4w7y5l\">\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">All of which leaves the Palestinians stuck, having pursued the Oslo dream as far as an antechamber only to conclude that the cramped room has no exit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">Oslo\u2019s security arrangement \u2014 which gave the Palestinians responsibility for internal security and, in coordination with Israel, fighting terrorism \u2014 undergirds that trap. The deal reduced the need for Israeli soldiers to patrol hostile areas of the West Bank, and protected the authority\u2019s leadership against Hamas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">But it also cast the Palestinian security forces, and leadership, as collaborators in the eyes of many Palestinians who see little gain from having helped Israel protect itself. Seven in 10 Palestinians want to stop security coordination, according to\u00a0<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/pcpsr.org\/en\/node\/733\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a new poll<\/a>\u00a0by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">Economically, too, the current arrangement serves Israel\u2019s interests: The authority\u2019s foreign donors subsidize government services on the West Bank, relieving Israel of the obligation. Palestinians exist on Israeli goods, food, fuel and electricity. And rising consumer debt is only cementing the status quo, experts say.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">\u201cYou have a whole group of Palestinians in the West Bank who are dependent on P.A. jobs for their car payments and their mortgages,\u201d said Nathan Thrall, the director of the Arab-Israeli Project at International Crisis Group, \u201cand they look with real fear at the possibility of Oslo, which is to say the P.A., collapsing.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"link-3e0fed44\" class=\"css-1xm75cc eqpy7av0\">The blame game<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-13jtjmc\"><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"css-ytj3wx e1a8i6eb0\" role=\"group\" aria-label=\"media\"><\/figure>\n<div id=\"story-ad-4-wrapper\" class=\"ResponsiveAd-storyBodyAd--35v2w\">\n<div class=\"ad story-ad-4-wrapper\">\n<div id=\"story-ad-4\" data-google-query-id=\"CKHxyoCOod4CFYSxewodDI0JzQ\">\n<p id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/29390238\/nyt\/world\/middleeast_7__container__\">Apportioning blame occupies a cottage industry of analysts, ex-negotiators, lobbyists and partisans. In fact, both sides have failed to pursue or engage meaningfully in peace talks since an Obama administration attempt to restart negotiations\u00a0<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/04\/29\/world\/middleeast\/arc-of-a-failed-deal-how-nine-months-of-mideast-talks-ended-in-dissarray.html?module=inline\">imploded in 2014<\/a>. And both sides, early on, undermined what in retrospect was an extremely fragile achievement.<\/p>\n<div>It was a right-wing Israeli extremist who massacred 29 Muslims in Hebron in 1994, setting off a first wave of bombings, and another who assassinated Mr. Rabin in 1995, gravely imperiling Oslo. It was Israel that halted agreed-upon withdrawals from occupied territory, leaving itself in full control of 60 percent of the West Bank. Israel\u2019s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was so abrupt that critics say it contributed to the Hamas takeover.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"StoryBodyCompanionColumn css-p1yi70\">\n<div class=\"css-4w7y5l\">\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">And Israel has expanded settlements, not only seizing more land but also demoralizing its Palestinian neighbors, said Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former American ambassador to Israel. \u201cOn one side of the road is a Palestinian village, and on the other side is a brand-new Israeli town with red-roofed houses, swimming pools, greenery and trees, and on a commanding hill,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">But there is also much for the Palestinians to rue in their own decisions and actions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">Whatever the justification, Palestinian violence crippled the peace process and led to other lasting setbacks: Israel\u2019s re-invasion of West Bank cities in 2002, when it destroyed much the authority had built, and its construction of a barrier wall that bred resentment, entrenched some land grabs, and \u2014 in achieving the laudable goal of reducing terrorist attacks \u2014 allowed Israelis to largely tune out the Palestinians and the occupation altogether.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">In hindsight, many analysts say, it was a mistake for the Palestinians to let the Israelis defer talk of core issues of the conflict \u2014 permanent borders, the fate of the Palestinian\u00a0<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/fathomjournal.org\/oslo25-we-must-liberate-our-thinking-from-the-oslo-straitjacket-an-interview-with-hussein-agha\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">refugees<\/a>\u00a0and the Palestinian demand for a capital in Jerusalem \u2014 until final-status talks. It was a mistake not to insist on an explicit clause in the interim agreements freezing further Israeli settlement expansion where the Palestinians envisaged their state. And it was a mistake for the Palestinians to bargain away recognition of the state of Israel\u2019s right to exist, and a renunciation of violence, for little more than Israeli recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">\u201cWhat they got,\u201d said Mr. Kurtzer, who remembers a sinking feeling evident on the faces of some Palestinians at the 1993 ceremony, \u201cwas poorly negotiated.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-13jtjmc\"><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"story-ad-5-wrapper\" class=\"ResponsiveAd-storyBodyAd--35v2w\">\n<div id=\"story-ad-5-slug\" class=\"ResponsiveAd-adSlug--3H3QM\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"ad story-ad-5-wrapper\">\n<p id=\"story-ad-5\">Others question the wisdom of entrusting the P.L.O. with any counterterrorism responsibility early on. \u201cArafat didn\u2019t do enough to stop terror,\u201d said David Hacham, who represented the Israeli defense ministry in the Oslo process. \u201cEither because he couldn\u2019t, or because he didn\u2019t see it as important enough at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>The Israelis also soon realized that the Palestinians were not ready to bend on their principles and even denied Jewish historical claims in Jerusalem. At the Camp David talks in the summer of 2000, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, made what most Israelis considered a generous offer for a final agreement, but the talks collapsed.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"StoryBodyCompanionColumn css-p1yi70\">\n<div class=\"css-4w7y5l\">\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">\u201cThere was really a feeling we were beginning a new chapter in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,\u201d Mr. Hacham said of Oslo\u2019s beginnings. But by 2000 it was \u201ca dialogue of the deaf,\u201d he said. \u201cArafat was not ready to cross the Rubicon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">Some Israelis argue that the Palestinians have still not tempered their ideology sufficiently to persuade them that Palestinian statehood need not threaten Israeli identity. \u201cWhat is the reason Netanyahu views a Palestinian state as a security risk?\u201d said Ofer Zalzberg, an analyst at Crisis Group. \u201cHe thinks Palestinians will continue to teach their children that Zionism is unjust and that the state next door should not exist as a state for the Jewish people.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"link-7b58ed52\" class=\"css-1xm75cc eqpy7av0\">The least-bad option<\/h3>\n<p class=\"css-1xm75cc eqpy7av0\">Despite the leadership\u2019s failures, many Palestinians still accept the authority as the least-bad option \u2014 although, given its longevity, nearly equaling the 26 years of pre-Oslo occupation from after the 1967 war until 1993, it is the only reality many of them know.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"StoryBodyCompanionColumn css-p1yi70\">\n<div class=\"css-4w7y5l\">\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">Propped up with around $500 million a year in foreign aid, about 12 percent of its budget, the authority is the biggest Palestinian employer, providing livelihoods for around 150,000 workers and their dependents, roughly a quarter of the population. After the chaos of two uprisings, many credit it with restoring law and order.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-13jtjmc\"><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"story-ad-6-wrapper\" class=\"ResponsiveAd-storyBodyAd--35v2w\">\n<div id=\"story-ad-6-slug\" class=\"ResponsiveAd-adSlug--3H3QM\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"ad story-ad-6-wrapper\">\n<p id=\"story-ad-6\">\u201cIf it weren\u2019t for the Palestinian Authority, people would be killing each other, left, right and center,\u201d said Tariq Halabi, 18, as he sat with friends in the hardscrabble Jalazoun refugee camp near a memorial to residents killed by Israeli fire.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"StoryBodyCompanionColumn css-p1yi70\">\n<div class=\"css-4w7y5l\">\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">Many trace the authority\u2019s\u00a0<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aman-palestine.org\/ar\/reports-and-studies\/2430.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">governance problems<\/a>\u00a0to Mr. Arafat. As he siphoned off funds to buy loyalty and build militias, Israel and the United States vainly hoped he would prove at least a capable strongman, only to watch as he failed to suppress violence by Hamas and other militant factions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">Beginning in 2002, Salam Fayyad, an American-educated former International Monetary Fund official, began to turn things around, instilling transparency and accountability as finance minister and then prime minister. By 2011, the United Nations declared the authority\u2019s government functions\u00a0<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/unsco.unmissions.org\/sites\/default\/files\/uns_report_to_the_ahlc_13_april_2011.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ready for statehood<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 to no avail.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">Palestinian Authority officials blame Israel for many of its problems, including the absence of democracy and economic progress. \u201cThe Israeli occupation controls the air we breathe in the West Bank or Gaza,\u201d said Jamal Rajoub, the deputy governor of Jericho. \u201cThe P.A. wants to improve the lives of the people, but everything is tied up with the Israeli occupation. The Palestinians are not free. We cannot open our wings and fly unless we are blind to reality.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">And the authority\u2019s supporters say that for all its faults, it has improved life for most Palestinians.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">\u201cMost people, including me, will say that after 25 years of Oslo we have nothing politically,\u201d said Dr. Nasser Anani, the director of Jericho\u2019s public hospital, which was built and equipped mostly with Japanese and American funds. \u201cBut life is better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">Government health insurance is $22 a month, dozens of schools have been built, and a driving license can be had in about 10 minutes. \u201cI now have a Palestinian passport,\u201d Dr. Anani said. \u201cEven the United States recognizes it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-13jtjmc\"><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"story-ad-7-wrapper\" class=\"ResponsiveAd-storyBodyAd--35v2w\">\n<div id=\"story-ad-7-slug\" class=\"ResponsiveAd-adSlug--3H3QM\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"ad story-ad-7-wrapper\">\n<div id=\"story-ad-7\" data-google-query-id=\"CIOGwIKOod4CFYM24Aod594Mkg\">\n<p id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/29390238\/nyt\/world\/middleeast_10__container__\">But many revile the authority \u2014 complaining of nepotism and corruption \u2014 as much as they may acknowledge its efficiency here or there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"StoryBodyCompanionColumn css-p1yi70\">\n<div class=\"css-4w7y5l\">\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">\u201cWhat Oslo created,\u201d said Mr. Tartir of Al-Shabaka, \u201cwas a clear benefit for some Palestinians and the political elite. Everyone else has to live with the consequences, but doesn\u2019t really have a say.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"link-54c07a4d\" class=\"css-1xm75cc eqpy7av0\">\u2018They promised us a state\u2019<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"StoryBodyCompanionColumn css-p1yi70\">\n<div class=\"css-4w7y5l\">\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">That voicelessness has grown more acute as political divisions have distended Mr. Abbas\u2019s stomach for repressing opposition. Palestinians have been arrested for criticizing him; civil-society groups linked to his rivals have had their bank accounts frozen. Unauthorized demonstrations are\u00a0<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/middle-east-news\/palestinians\/.premium-palestinian-forcefully-police-break-up-anti-abbas-protest-in-ramallah-1.6175290\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">brutally broken up<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">\u201cIt\u2019s a jungle,\u201d said Ahmed Rashid, 22, an unemployed Jalazoun resident, who said he spent time in an Israeli prison in 2015 for throwing stones, then in the authority\u2019s Jericho jail in 2017 on vague security charges. \u201cThe strong eat the weak.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">Half of Palestinians view the authority as a burden, the new survey found. Those aged 18 to 22 tend to have no trust in the elite and are more supportive of a one-state outcome than a two-state solution, seeing a corrupt and authoritarian state as \u201cnot worth having,\u201d said Khalil Shikaki, the director of the Ramallah-based polling center.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">\u201cIt\u2019s all lies,\u201d said Firial Qarawil, 53, a nurse from Awarta. \u201cThey promised us a state. Where is the state? All the agreements and all the authorities, including ours, have taken us back more than 60 years.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-13jtjmc\"><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"story-ad-8-wrapper\" class=\"ResponsiveAd-storyBodyAd--35v2w\">\n<div id=\"story-ad-8-slug\" class=\"ResponsiveAd-adSlug--3H3QM\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"ad story-ad-8-wrapper\">\n<div id=\"story-ad-8\" data-google-query-id=\"CMe1uoOOod4CFck24AodELsKZA\">\n<p id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/29390238\/nyt\/world\/middleeast_11__container__\">With Mr. Abbas and his lieutenants focused on surviving the Trump administration, others outside his circle are urging Palestinians to re-examine their increasingly undemocratic political system \u2014 and to reboot it, if not smash and rebuild it entirely.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"StoryBodyCompanionColumn css-p1yi70\">\n<div class=\"css-4w7y5l\">\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">\u201cUltimately, the question is how many people on the ground are represented in the political system, and today that\u2019s few,\u201d said Sam Bahour, a Ramallah businessman. \u201cWithout giving the youth an opportunity to breathe, politically, they will remain in the streets. And that will lead to something negative.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">In Jericho, resignation, more than anger, seemed the prevailing mood. \u201cWe sleep with our doors open,\u201d Said Hamis Ermalieh, 52, a school bus driver, said as he looked out over the city from his hilltop home. \u201cBut life is difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">His wife, Kamayil, 48, said of the Palestinian Authority, \u201cIt\u2019s better than nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xl4flh e2kc3sl0\">It was twilight, and the neon lights on a Ferris wheel flickered on at an empty amusement park in the distance, twinkling like the Las Vegas that Jericho had never become.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Written in 2018, 25 years after the US-brokered Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), this lengthy New York Times article examines the failure of the peace deal, which was supposed to be an interim agreement on the way to the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Placing much of the blame [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":9951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2810],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9950\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=9950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9950\/revisions\/"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12883,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9950\/revisions\/12883\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9951\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=9950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=9950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=9950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}