The 13 September 1993 Oslo Accords specifically provided that all issues would be on the table in the Final Status Negotiations, that were to commence within five years. Netanyahu has just backtracked on that commitment made by Prime Minister Rabin, who was assassinated by his own people because of his movement towards peace. In addition, Netanyahu has now shifted the goal-posts on the Palestinians by demanding that they recognize Israel as a “Jewish State.”
The Palestinians recognized Israel as a State as part of the Oslo Accords. That is all international law and practice requires. It would be as if the United States demanded that Iran recognize it as a “White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant State” as part of any peace process. Of course this demand is racist. It would de-nationalize the 1.5 million Palestinians who are already second-class citizens of Israel and set the stage for their mass deportation to the Palestinian Bantustan envisioned by Netanyahu in this speech.
Basically, Netanyahu has tried to move the Middle East Peace Negotiations back to where they were before the convening of the Madrid Conference in 1991 by the Bush Sr. administration, in order to stall and delay for another two decades while Israel continues to develop and expand its illegal settlements in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which is a war crime funded in substantial part by United States taxpayers.
Professor Francis A. Boyle was Legal Advisor to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations (1991-93) Author, Palestine, Palestinians and International Law (Clarity Press: 2003)
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