The Norwegian/Palestinian plan for abrogating Oslo

By Dr. Michal Rachel Suissa, Director of The Center against Anti-Semitism (SMA), Norway

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who is now governing in the eleventh year of the four year period he was elected to, announced prior to the recent UNGA summit that he would drop a ”bombshell” in his speech to the world leaders.  What this bombshell cooked down to, was a declaration that he would no longer continue to consider himself bound by the Oslo Accords and that Israel must assume all of its responsibilities as an occupying power.  Taken literally this would imply that there would no longer be a peace process and the Palestinian Authority would no longer draw its legitimacy from agreements with Israel.

For the informed public this “bombshell” was a dud.  It has long been obvious that the ageing Palestinian leadership will soon crock up anyway, and in the absence of constitutional procedures for the transfer of power and positions, this will necessarily imply a collapse of the existing Palestinian regime.  A new regime in these parts of the world will normally not consider itself constrained by agreements concluded by its predecessor.

What has been less known, and even completely concealed by international media, is that a long and thorough preparation and planning process precedes the announced collapse of the PA.  The preparations have taken place with comprehensive financial support, inter alia, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Norway.

The Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre, Noref, was established by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2008.  This institution with a staff of twelve experts is funded over the Ministry’s budget.  A governing board of six members, headed by a clergyman from Oslo, the rev. Trond Bakkevig, and where the MFA is represented by a senior ambassador, is responsible for the activities of this institution.

This Noref has been rigged by the Norwegian MFA to serve as a cover up for some of the Ministry’s activities in the Palestinian areas and for giving purely political operations within the ongoing peace process a semblance of civil technical assistance to the Palestinians.  But this appearance is deceptive.

In cooperation with a similar American institution, The US/Middle East Project, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has, by way of Noref, financed the elaboration of a Palestinian report which serves as a roadmap for how the Palestinians shall handle a situation leading to a “collapse” and dissolution of the Palestinian Authority, making the PA unable to exercise the functions it was assigned under the Oslo Agreements and other specific agreements with Israel.

This Norwegian MFA-supported project has been under way for several years and has been concocted by an entity called The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR).  The title of the project is The Likelihood, Consequences and Policy Implications of PA Collapse or Dissolution.  The final report from this project was submitted in 2014.  The report presents a detailed account of what measures of terrorism and insurgencies that may be launched against Israel by a number of Palestinians groups under various hypothetical situations when the Palestinian Authority collapses or has been dissolved.

To put it briefly, the report lists everything the authors have had the fantasy to imagine of possible hostile measures directed at the Jewish state form every imaginable coalition of Palestinian terrorist organizations.  It offers an overwhelmingly negative description of life in the Palestinian settlements under several hypothetical states of occupation, conflict and societal breakdown.  The whole scenario of this apocalyptic narrative is a heavily dramatized threat against the Jewish state which perhaps was intended to frighten Israel to a “negotiating table” where Israel’s would be left to chose between surrender and some other form of doom.  From a perspective of realpolitik, however, this Palestinian bogeyman operation rather addresses a Western audience which may thus for humanitarian reasons feel compelled to increase their commitment to the Palestinian cause against the Israeli “occupational power.”

For the Israelis this “bombshell” may not have been as great a surprise as Mahmoud Abbas wanted the World to believe when he announced to the UN General Assembly that his regime would no longer consider itself obliged by the Oslo accords.  More than twenty years have in fact passed since the PLO regime stopped complying with the agreements it had entered with Israel and on which the UN, USA, EU, Russia, Egypt as well as Norway co signed as witnesses.  In the UN, Mahmoud Abbas threatened everybody by saying that he would declare the PA dissolved if Israel does not capitulate and stop insisting on compliance with the Oslo agreements to a tittle.  What Abbas concealed from the UN audience is the fact that this would be the situation when he would launch his Plan B, which has been worked out in detail in the above mentioned report, sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Norway.

As an example of a peacemaking effort, the Norwegian contribution to the ongoing spectacle is quite sensational.  We have observed also in another case that the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs has started to dissociate himself from the Oslo agreements.  It became obvious this summer when he publicly accused Israel for violating international humanitarian law in connection with a decision by the Israeli Supreme Court in the Susia case which upheld the State of Israel’s exclusive rights of government in Area C as per the Oslo II-agreement.  The meddling in this case by the Norwegian Minister was an undermining of the Oslo agreement on which the peace process rests.  In addition, the Minister thus demonstrated that he does not even recognize Israeli rule of law.

After the recent move by Abbas in the UN, the Norwegian double-dealing behind the peace process has become more evident.  For several years Norway, fronted by rev. Bakkevig and his people and financed by the Norwegian MFA, has supported the elaboration of the sinister scenario which Abbas now threatens to launch if not Israel too abandons the Oslo accords. What Abbas demands is the Israel shall hand him whatever he claims without any further negotiations, in exchange for his signature on a sheet of paper.

The historical and diplomatic novelty in this situation is that the losing party to a conflict declares victory and demands that the winner shall surrender unconditionally and hand over territory and rights in a swap for a signature of rather dubious legitimacy.  The Norwegian Minister Brende did not reject this strategy when he commented that he has not given up on the peace process and hopes Israel will admit further concessions to the Palestinians.  He understands the frustrations of Mahmoud Abbas, he told media.

What Mr. Brende did not mention was that he himself for years, through the funding of projects has participated in the preparations for the present Palestinian situation.  It is easy to understand the frustration of Mahmoud Abbas.  Like his predecessor, he knows that he will not survive the signing of any peace agreement with the Jewish state of Israel.  It is less easy to understand the Norwegian minister who wants him to.

It has long been evident that neither Abbas nor the PLO has a mandate from the Arab and Islamic world to accept compromises leading to a peace agreement with Israel.  Hence there is actually nothing to negotiate, as they see it.  The whole charade has for years been played in order to keep the Norwegian led group of donors active wasting new millions on the Palestinian cause.

The Norwegian funded project describing what will happen when Mahmoud Abbas and his regime retires or collapses, may have little to do with reality, but it tells a lot about the peace brokers in Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.