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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.
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US House Passes ICC Sanctions Bill Following Netanyahu Arrest Warrant
US House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks to members of the media at the Capitol building, April 20, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed legislation that would sanction members of the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its issuing of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
The Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act (HR 23) calls for the warrants against the Israeli officials to be “condemned in the strongest possible terms,” labeling them as “illegitimate and baseless” actions that “create a damaging precedent that threatens the United States, Israel, and all United States partners who have not submitted to the ICC’s jurisdiction.”
The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. However, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.
Beyond condemning the arrest warrants, the bill would also impose sanctions on any officials with the ICC, or entities supporting the court, who seek to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute “any protected person of the United States and its allies.”
The bill easily passed by a margin of 243-140. House Republicans overwhelmingly backed the bill, with 198 voting in favor, zero voting against, one voting “present,” and 20 abstaining from voting. House Democrats were more divided on the bill, with 45 voting in favor, 140 voting against, and 30 abstaining from voting.
The proposed sanctions would target individuals “directly engaged in or otherwise aided any effort by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute a protected person.” In addition, the legislation would freeze assets and ban visas of sanctioned individuals and allow the sitting president to waive individual sanctions if the waiver is considered critical to US national security interests.
US Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), a stalwart ally of Israel and co-sponsor of the bill, condemned the ICC on the floor of the House of Representatives.
“Israel is the tip of the spear in bringing the fight to an enemy that currently holds and has killed our fellow Americans,” said Mast, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, referring to Israel’s military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), another co-sponsor of the bill, lambasted the ICC for taking an “unprecedented action” against Israel, arguing that the court’s actions are undermining the Jewish state’s ability to defend itself against Hamas terrorism.
Roy decried the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant as a “politicized witch hunt” and claimed that the ICC “doesn’t have any jurisdiction” over the defensive military operations of the Jewish state.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) issued a statement endorsing the bill.
“The ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants against the leadership of Israel represents the weaponization of international law at its most egregious,” Torres said. “The ICC has set a precedent for criminalizing self-defense: any country daring to defend itself against an enemy that exploits civilians as human shields will face persecution posing as prosecution.”
Immediately after the vote, pro-Israel organizations issued statements applauding the House for advancing legislation to sanction the ICC.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying group in the US, praised the passage of HR 23.
“AIPAC commends the House for adopting the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, which imposes sanctions on foreign persons aiding the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) morally bankrupt and legally baseless attack against Israel,” AIPAC said in a statement.
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) also celebrated the passage of the legislation, lauding Republican leadership in helping advance the bill through the House of Representatives.
“We thank [House Speaker Mike Johnson] and the [House Republican] majority for their leadership and prioritizing this critical legislation in week one of the 119th Congress,” the RJC wrote on X/Twitter.
In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas terror leader Ibrahim al-Masri (better known as Mohammed Deif) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. The ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for starvation in Gaza and the persecution of Palestinians — charges vehemently denied by Israel, which has provided significant humanitarian aid into the war-torn enclave throughout the war.
US and Israeli officials issued blistering condemnations of the ICC move, decrying the court for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s democratically elected leaders and the heads of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that launched the ongoing war in Gaza with its massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, initially made his surprise demand for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on the same day in May that he suddenly canceled a long-planned visit to both Gaza and Israel to collect evidence of alleged war crimes. The last-second cancellation infuriated US and British leaders, according to Reuters, which reported that the trip would have offered Israeli leaders a first opportunity to present their position and outline any action they were taking to respond to the war crime allegations.
Following the official issuing of arrest warrants in November, a slew of US lawmakers vowed to seek retribution against the ICC after President-elect Donald Trump takes office later this month.
Incoming US Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has also threatened to push legislation imposing sanctions on the ICC if it does not halt its efforts to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli officials.
The post US House Passes ICC Sanctions Bill Following Netanyahu Arrest Warrant first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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California College Sued for Punishing Jewish Professor Over Conversation on Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Photo: Edward H. Blake via Wikimedia Commons
A Jewish professor is suing the California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco for allegedly violating her rights by punishing her because she disagreed with students about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to court documents shared with The Algemeiner by the Deborah Project, a legal nonprofit which defends the civil rights of Jewish educators, Professor Karen Fiss’s tribulations began on Oct. 23, 2023, when she exchanged remarks with several members of the terrorist-linked Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group who summoned her to an anti-Zionist display and asked that she support the campaign for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Fiss scanned their materials — which included a sign that proclaimed the anti-Israel genocidal slogan “From the river to the sea,” artwork, and quick response (QR) codes promoting their cause — and initiated a dialogue with the students, asking what the slogan meant and what news sources they read. Offended by Fiss’s signaling she was not an anti-Zionist, one of the students tore down the “from the river to the sea sign” and began arguing that reports of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 were fabricated.
The conversation reached the fateful moment which precipitated Fiss’s lawsuit when one of the students, Maryiam Alwael, asserted that her knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was superior because she was a native of Kuwait, to which Fiss responded by asking the student if she was aware of the Kuwaiti government’s expulsion of 300,000 Palestinians in 1991. Fiss then argued for a more nuanced narrative of the Middle Eastern conflict, noting that not all Middle Easterners are anti-Israel and many oppose Hamas and disapprove of Iran’s backing of it. She ended by counseling the young women to avoid ideological echo chambers. Alwael said she liked her own views.
While both sides made sharp points, the conversation remained civil, according to court documents. However, the students interpreted Fiss’s comments as an attack on their identities and filed a complaint which accused her of being “harassing and discriminatory.” With little due process, Fiss was ultimately found guilty of the allegation and forced to submit to a series of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” trainings — a form of political rehabilitation in which subjects are forced to denounce key values of Western civilization such as the meritocracy and the sovereignty of the individual.
In explaining its guilty verdict, the college accused Fiss of being culturally insensitive and imposing her “power” on the women, who are ethnic minorities of color. Fiss, it said, “began explaining the history of Alwael’s country to her,” and “caused the students to reasonably believe” that Fiss was “using [her] positional power as a professor to get the outcome [she] sought, which was for the students to agree with [her] point of view.”
The college reached these findings but declined to apply the same logic to an earlier complaint Fiss had filed about the Critical Ethnic Studies program’s issuing a statement — “DECOLONIZATION IS NOT A DINNER PARTY,” it said — which justified Hamas’s violence and implied that Jews are not indigenous to their own homeland. This is because, the Deborah Project says, CCA rules are in place to protect left-wing anti-Zionism and punish Jews who oppose it.
“Because Dr. Fiss’s beliefs do not align with the creed mandated and enforced by the college, she has suffered repeated and severe adverse treatment by CCA, which has dramatically impeded her ability to function as a scholar,” the Deborah Project said in its complaint. “As part of its policy of enforcing ideological conformity about Israel, CCA has threatened Dr. Fiss with dismissal for two reasons: (1) her refusal to comply with student demands to contact her congressional representatives to pressure Israel — a sovereign nation — to cease its military response to an ongoing threat; and (2) for respectfully challenging this monopolization of discourse and reaffirming the principles of open dialogue and open debate within CCA.”
According to Lori Lowenthal Marcus, legal director of the Deborah Project, the college ignored Fiss’s concerns about widespread support for Hamas’s atrocities in Israel last Oct. 7, arguing they were simply expressions of free speech.
“Karen Fiss, a fully-tenured professor at CCA was told that her pain, intimidation, and horror upon learning that a huge number of not only students at CCA but her fellow faculty members, the department chairs, and members of the administration not only justified, but supported the wanton rape, torture, and murder of her co-religionists on Oct. 7 was not problematic as far as CCA was concerned because those positions were protected by free speech,” Lowenthal Marcus told The Algemeiner.
She added that CCA “accorded no such academic freedom to Dr. Fiss, who was disciplined for a single conversation that all parties agree was civil.”
“For this actual exercise of academic freedom,” Lowenthal Marcus concluded, “CCA found that Dr. Fiss’s speech constituted harassment of the Kuwaiti student. It was also found to be bullying, on the theory that Dr. Fiss was found to have used her position as a faculty member to pressure the students to adopt Dr. Fiss’s view — when it is undisputed that, throughout the conversation, the students did not even know Dr. Fiss was a professor. For this, Dr. Fiss’s file was permanently marked, and she was warned that if such a thing were to occur again, Fiss would suffer additional punishment, up to and including termination.
Now, with her reputation blighted by scandal and the college threatening revoke her tenure, Fiss is fighting for both her right to exist as a proud Jew at work as well as her right to free speech. She is suing CCA for discriminating against her for being Jewish, a violation of Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and breach of contract, offenses which caused her “substantial damages” and other trauma.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Jewish Voice for Peace’s ‘Extremist’ Anti-Israel Agenda, Terror Group Ties Highlighted in Report
Anti-Israel protesters take part in a demonstration hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America, IfNotNow Movement, and Jewish Voice for Peace that turned violent in Washington, DC, Nov. 15, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
A pro-Israel nonprofit has published a new bombshell booklet detailing the inner workings and funding of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a controversial and prominent anti-Zionist group that has helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza.
StandWithUs (SWU), an organization which promotes a mission of “supporting Israel and fighting antisemitism,” released the report examining how the far-left JVP — which defended the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel last Oct. 7 — “promotes antisemitic conspiracy theories” and even partners with terrorist organizations to achieve its “primary goal” of “dismantling the State of Israel.”
According to the report, JVP weaponizes the plight of Palestinians to advance an “extremist” agenda which promotes the destruction of Israel and whitewashes terrorism, receiving money from organizations that have ties to Middle Eastern countries such as Iran.
“JVP and its allies slander and dehumanize Israelis as privileged, powerful, and racist white European colonizers,” the report says. “They promote dangerous conspiracy theories tying Israelis to injustices against various communities” around the world.
The booklet points out that JVP pushes a misleading history of Jewish presence in the Middle East, ignoring that Jews “faced systemic discrimination at best and brutal violence at worst under Muslim and Arab rule, until almost all of them fled or were expelled in the 20th century.” SWU also notes that JVP has routinely labeled Jews as “racist” for expressing fear about the prospect of living as minorities in Israel.
“JVP simply refuses to acknowledge that most Jews genuinely see efforts to eliminate the world’s only Jewish state as a form of hate,” the report reads.
In addition, the report alleges that JVP advances “antisemitic conspiracy theories,” such as the notion that American police are trained by Israeli forces. This narrative suggests that Israel exacerbates alleged police brutality in the United States through training law enforcement to brutalize black people. Prominent anti-Israel pundits such as Marc Lamont Hill and Linda Sarsour have cited this misleading information in various public statements.
StandWithUs also alleges that JVP harbors deep connections and support for international terrorist groups, highlighting JVP’s record of support for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization with the stated goal of dismantling Israel and replacing it with a Palestinian state.
“JVP has campaigned in support of PFLP terrorists, hosted PFLP members at events, and partnered with groups that openly support PFLP and other terrorist organizations,” the report reads.
In addition, the report states that JVP has collaborated with anti-Israel entities such as Samidoun, which identifies itself as a “Palestinian prisoner solidarity network, to hold rallies. Samidoun described Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities in Israel as “a brave and heroic operation.” The United States and Canada each imposed sanctions on Samidoun in October, labeling the organization a “sham charity” and accusing it of fundraising for terrorist groups such as PFLP. The US Treasury Department said that PFLP “uses Samidoun to maintain fundraising operations in both Europe and North America.”
“Organizations like Samidoun masquerade as charitable actors that claim to provide humanitarian support to those in need, yet in reality divert funds for much-needed assistance to support terrorist groups,” Bradley Smith, the US Treasury Department’s acting under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement at the time.
The SWU report also says that JVP has ties to “extremist” anti-Israel groups such as Within Our Lifetime (WOL) and the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM). Leadership for these groups have repeatedly expressed support for violence against Israel and terrorist groups. JVP has worked alongside these groups to hold anti-Israel demonstrations and marches.
According to the new report, JVP has received substantial financial assistance from organizations tied to Lebanon and Iran. For example, the Maximum Difference Foundation, which has been accused of maintaining ties with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an internationally designated terrorist organization, donated $65,000 to JVP.
JVP has also received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which according to SWU has funded other anti-Israel organizations, including Palestinian organizations linked with the PFLP.
The report additionally noted that JVP received $200,000 from The Quitiplas Foundation, which has allegedly donated to other organizations connected to Samidoun.
“JVP’s harmful rhetoric and alliances make it clear they are not a voice for peace,” StandWithUs CEO Roz Rothstein said in a statement accompanying the report’s release. “This organization fuels hate and shields extremists from accountability while doing nothing to bring about peaceful coexistence.”
“To help fight rising antisemitism, the public, media, and leaders across our society must finally recognize JVP’s dangerous agenda and reject it,” she said.
The Algemeiner has previously reported that JVP argued in a recently resurfaced 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians.
In June, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) filed a complaint with the US Federal Election Commission accusing JVP’s political fundraising arm of misrepresenting its spending and receiving unlawful donations from corporate entities, citing “discrepancies” in the organization’s income and expense reports.
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