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The Oslo Accords just turned 30. Here’s how they’ll shape a Saudi-Israeli peace deal.

(JTA) — Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States seem intent on striking a trilateral deal that includes normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Saudi civil nuclear power monitored by the international community, and an American-Saudi defense treaty. So why is it taking so long? Well, a fourth party — the Palestinians — are not part of the negotiations, yet their well-being seems to loom over the negotiations.

I’ve been in the room when Israel negotiated high-stakes questions about its relationships and its future, as the secretary for the Israeli delegation of the Camp David negotiations from 1999 to 2001. So I understand the diplomatic legacies shaping the positions at play today — and the broad implications and deep freight of the issues reportedly on the table.

September can be celebrated as the “Middle East Peace Month,” marking 45 years since the 1978 Camp David Accords (on Sept. 17); 30 years since the first Oslo Accord (on Sept. 13); and three years since the Abraham Accords (on Sept. 15, 2020). These events — and others — create a legacy that is now shaping the coming major milestone: an Israeli-Saudi normalization agreement.

The Israeli-Arab peace and normalization process formally began in 1978 with the Israel-Egypt Camp David Accords that included a Framework for Peace in the Middle East. The next major contractual milestone was the Declaration of Principles (also known as “Oslo A”) which was signed between Israel and the PLO in 1993. The declaration provided for the establishment of the Palestinian Authority as an interim self-government, as well as for further negotiations on the “outstanding issues” toward “final status.” Thereafter, dozens of agreements were signed among Israel, Jordan and the PLO, mostly until 1999, as well as with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco since 2020. 

In spite of episodes of conflict and bloodshed and long intermissions, these milestones add up to a 45-year continuum of Israeli-Arab peacemaking, which has been bound by an overarching logic and diplomatic principles that have been reiterated for decades. One example is U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 that establishes that Israel will withdraw from the whole (French version) or parts (English version) of the West Bank. It appears in all major agreements signed since 1978.  

For Israel and the United States — and particularly for Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Joe Biden — there is another unlikely benchmark. It is the so-called Trump Plan, which was negotiated between Israel and the U.S. and presented in January 2020 without Palestinians contribution or participation. The Trump Plan clearly favors long-standing Israeli positions such as that all Jewish settlements will remain under Israeli sovereignty, which is why Netanyahu called it “the deal of the century.” Nonetheless, the plan is premised on the principle of two states for two peoples, namely envisioning a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and acknowledging that the West Bank is “disputed territory” whose future must be agreed upon between Israel and the PLO. Furthermore, while the Palestinian state is envisioned to be of “limited sovereignty,” its area will be equivalent to 86% of the West Bank and all of Gaza and its capital, al-Quds, will be in the “area of Jerusalem” immediately adjacent to the current municipal borders.  

The unspoken challenge of the current negotiations over the Saudi deal is that Netanyahu is no longer willing to give Biden as much as he gave Trump. Meanwhile, Biden is bound by the legacies of Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump — all of whom were explicit about having a Palestinian state in permanent status in the vast majority of Gaza and the West Bank. These legacies put pressure on Biden to do more for the two-state solution than his predecessors, Trump included. 

The Saudis, eager to secure their status in the Arab world, must be “triangulating” three other reference points: The first is the 1978 Israel-Egypt Framework for Peace in the Middle East, where President Anwar Sadat established U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 as the founding principle for future territorial arrangements and provided the framework for the Oslo Process that led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority. The second is the Saudi peace plan, which shaped the peace initiative of the Arab League in Beirut in 2002 and then in Riyadh in 2007, which upheld the June 1967 Lines as reference point for future territorial arrangements. And the third is the success of the UAE in thwarting Netanyahu’s plans to annex parts of the West Bank in 2020 in exchange for the Abraham Accords.

In other words, how can Saudi Arabia walk back from its own plan or do less for the Palestinians than Egypt and the UAE?

These legacies create a four-point agenda for the currently unfolding negotiations: 

First, regarding the P.A.: The United States and Saudi Arabia are likely to want to reaffirm the existing Oslo Accords, to which Israel is a signatory. These agreements establish the P.A. as the interim self-government in the West Bank and Gaza ahead of permanent status. In this context, negotiators are probably discussing how to prevent the expansion of settlements across the West Bank, particularly in areas that will circumvent the contiguity of a future Palestinian state, as well as how to bolster the P.A.’s economic wellbeing and capacities of governance and security capabilities.  

Second, regarding future negotiations: The United States and Saudi Arabia are probably striving to reinstate the principle of “two states for two peoples,” which means that the future of the West Bank will be negotiated between Israel and the PLO and that the P.A. will eventually become a state albeit with limited powers. As mentioned, all U.S. presidents since Clinton and all Israeli prime ministers since Barak, including Netanyahu in his past tenures. reaffirmed that principle. 

The likely third point is territory. Americans and Saudis must be pressing for reiterating 242 as the baseline for future territorial arrangements. How can they demand anything less? Furthermore, it has been leaked that the parties are discussing some concrete territorial steps in the West Bank such as recategorizing lands under full Israeli control (“Area C”) as lands under Palestinian civil control (“Area B”), or placing Area B under full control of the P.A. (“Area A”). Any such change implies an Israeli recognition that the current sovereign arrangements the West Bank will be negotiated with the PLO. 

A veiw of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, showing the Al Aqsa mosque, center, and Dome of the Rock, top.. (Andrew Shiva/Wikimedia Commons)

Finally, there is Jerusalem, and particularly the Temple Mount and the location of Saudi’s embassy to Israel. The Temple Mount — where the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque stand on a platform that covers the historic site of Judaism’s holy temples — is the most contentious issue between Israel and the Palestinians. All past agreements established that its fate will be determined in negotiations. Even the Trump Plan, with Netanyahu’s endorsement, suggests that the Temple Mount will be subject to a special arrangement where the Waqf of Jordan (a Muslim religious society) will play a significant role.

When Sadat visited Israel in 1977, he insisted on praying at Al Aqsa, as did the ambassador of the UAE. This week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey expressed a similar expectation ahead of his visit to Israel. While Israel maintains that “a unified and undivided Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Israel,” the Israeli-Arab peace process has been founded on the principle that Jerusalem’s final status will be determined in negotiations. As Saudi Arabia sees itself as a guardian of Muslim holy sites, Al Aqsa must be on its mind. 

Ahead of their normalization agreement, Israel and Saudi Arabia are likely also discussing the location of their future embassies. On this point, the Saudi side can have its embassy to Israel in Tel Aviv, like all other embassies of Arab and Muslim countries, and its diplomatic mission to the P.A. in Ramallah, thereby signaling that the final status of Jerusalem is yet to be determined. But they may be considering a much bolder, more-for-more deal of establishing the Saudi embassy to Israel in Israeli west Jerusalem, thereby recognizing it as Israel’s capital, in exchange for having the Saudi embassy to the P.A. in Arab east Jerusalem. After all, seven European countries including the United Kingdom and France, in addition to the Vatican and Turkey, have their diplomatic missions to the P.A. within the municipal borders of Jerusalem. 

Clearly, any such Saudi deal would shake the current Israeli coalition, whose founding agreements call for applying Israel’s sovereignty over the West Bank “when circumstances are right.” Such aspiration means canceling the Oslo Accords and dismantling the P.A. In other words, the Saudi-Israel-U.S. deal is as much about their relations as it is about the future of the two-state solution and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.


The post The Oslo Accords just turned 30. Here’s how they’ll shape a Saudi-Israeli peace deal. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

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