JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel reportedly is considering calling off the Oslo Accords in response to the unilateral statehood drive by the Palestinians.
With Palestinians gearing up to seek U.N. support in September for their claim on sovereignty in all of the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, Israel is weighing a diplomatic response.
One, according to Haaretz on Monday, would be to declare void the 1993 Oslo Accords under which the Palestinian Authority was formed and which were meant to have paved the way to a permanent peace accord.
Many Israelis see the Palestinians as already having obviated Oslo by resorting to an armed revolt in 2000 and, in 2006, voting in Hamas, an Islamist movement that opposes coexistence with the Jewish state.
But by formally vacating the accords, the Netanyahu government would underscore the tenuousness of today’s Palestinian Authority, which governs solely in the West Bank, bolstered by Israeli security support, having lost Gaza to Hamas in a 2007 civil war.
