Oslo Under Our Feet

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

One of the grand masters of national deception — or of national downfall, if you prefer — said, right after the signing of the Oslo Accord, that he would rein in the opposition. I answered him at the time by saying that a day would come when he would flee his own skin so that no one would recognize him. It appears that the Israelis and the Americans never built him a bridle factory, or that his bridles are as fraudulent as his fraud against the people of Palestine. I hope the years have taught him that the will of peoples rises above all necks.

The people of Palestine will trample the Oslo Accord underfoot, and will tear up every agreement that flowed from it, foremost among them the contemptible Paris Protocol. We are a people who refuse humiliation and disgrace, and the day of reckoning for our dignity, our pride, and our rights is not far off. As for the bridle factory, the people will tear it down so that every Palestinian may speak freely, with a full mouth.

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The Palestinian Authority is trying to dodge around the new historic mood sweeping the Arab homeland through a few deceptive statements and political maneuvers, imagining that this people is nothing but a herd of fools. The Authority announced its intention to hold political elections, and then announced the dismissal of Fayyad and his replacement by… Fayyad. This is nothing but circling and evasion within the American-Zionist policy in the West Bank. It is deception nested within Oslo, which itself weighs as a great burden on the people’s shoulders.

The only way out lies in breaking free of the American-Zionist orbit, and of every agreement concluded with them, and returning the Palestinian cause to its true and faithful guardian — the people of Palestine. And if clear, practical steps are not taken in this direction, the people of Palestine are not powerless to act on their own.

The responsibility does not rest on the Palestinian Authority’s shoulders alone; it extends to the various factions as well, which content themselves with issuing statements that trouble their own sleep. The people’s trust in the factions is very weak, and if the factions fail to do their national duty, their fate will be to trail behind the people, not to march alongside them. Let them take a lesson from Tunisia and Egypt.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “أوسلو تحت أقدامنا” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.