The Hindu : Oslo process dead

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 15, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Letters to the Editor

Oslo process dead

Sir, — What is taking place right now in Palestine is incredible. An entity that was established to partly undo the historical injustices and partially to satisfy the Palestinian grievances and to redeem hundreds of the U.N. resolutions in support of the Palestinian victims ever since 1948 is being systematically destroyed by a General who has been indicted in his own country.

From around 57 per cent of mandated Palestine earmarked for the Jewish state, Israel now has 78 per cent and eyes even the rest of 22 per cent left with the Palestinians and does not want any meaningful state to emerge there so that it may continue to exploit its land and resources.

The sovereign Palestinian state should have emerged three years ago with defined borders to exist side by side with the Jewish state. But nothing of the sort has happened. Israel still controls most of the West Bank and Gaza and keeps re-negotiating issues long settled and offers crumbs as final settlement in a take-it-or-leave- it style. The crucial issues of Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees expelled from their homelands since 1948 have not even been discussed until now . It was the Israeli assumption that somehow the Palestinians will accept the municipality being offered in the name of a state while they control the Palestinian state's security, foreign policy and borders. But this did not happen. The pent-up anger, frustration and daily humiliation by the rude occupiers, have rekindled resistance. The current onslaught by Israel is the last nail in the coffin of the Oslo accord.

Zafarul-Islam Khan,
New Delhi

Chennai

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