Palestine and Israel resume coordination under scrutiny by the international community

Last Wednesday, the talks on the oldest conflict in the Middle East were resumed after six months of paralysis. Finally, Palestine accepted the initiative to resume bilateral cooperation with Israel in the framework of the Oslo Agreements. These meetings, according to statements by the United Nations, may provide the basis for a return to peace negotiations. 

Yesterday, two senior officials from Israel and the Palestinian National Authority met in Ramallah (the occupied zone in the West Bank). UN envoy for the Middle East, Nickolay Mladenov, stressed the importance of both sides respecting the established framework of relations and pointed out that, although this is insufficient to meet the aspirations of the Palestinians, it offers a "basic pillar" without which it is impossible to think of returning to the table of dialogue.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) will resume coordination with Israel that it suspended in May in response to an Israeli plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, while Israel confirmed that it will respect these mechanisms. The Israeli annexation plan was put on hold following the normalisation of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates through the Abraham Accords last September. 

Hussein al-Sheikh, the PA’s civil affairs minister and close aide to President Mahmoud Abbas, tweeted on Tuesday that “the relationship with Israel will return to how it was” following “official written and oral letters we received” confirming Israel’s commitment to past agreements, including those in Oslo in 1993.   
 

According to Al-Sheik, iIt was agreed to transfer all financial dues to the PA, and we rejected the settlement policy, demolishing homes and lands confiscation. It was agreed to hold another meeting soon". According to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, Al-Sheik also met with the general and head of the Unit for the Coordination of the Activities of the Israeli Government in the Palestinian Territories (COGAT), Kamil Abu Rukoun. But the organisation, consulted by AFP, has not commented on these meetings. 

Earlier this week, Hussein al-Sheikh announced the resumption of security coordination between the Palestinian Authority and Israel after receiving “written and verbal commitments” from the Israelis. PA Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh also indicated that the Palestinians were resuming “contact with the Israelis on financial, health and political issues.”
 

The Oslo Accords were signed in 1993 by Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. These agreements, in principle, established a period of five years to negotiate a permanent settlement. 

During this period the Israeli government would be responsible for "foreign affairs, national defence and borders". In this respect, Israel would remain responsible for security at the international borders and crossing points with Egypt and Jordan. In addition, Israel would also retain responsibility for security in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

These measures will not please the Palestinian people, that is why the Oslo Accords provided for an interim Palestinian self-government: the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). The idea was to transfer the powers and responsibilities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to them. The powers transferred to the PNA in certain areas consisted of education, culture, health, social welfare, direct taxation, tourism and the establishment of a Palestinian police force. 
 

Since the last coordination with Israel six months ago, the Palestinian Authority no longer receives transfers of taxes (in particular customs) collected by Israel on behalf of this institution. Deprived of these revenues, the PNA has had to cut the salaries of its officials at a time when the economy is slowing down due to the new coronavirus pandemic. 

In May Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas justified the end of security coordination activities to protest against Israel's project to annex parts of the West Bank, territory occupied by the Israeli army since 1967. 

Resuming co-ordination between Israelis and Palestinians will mean that both authorities resume co-operation in crucial areas such as security and could also help resolve the financial dispute that has resulted in the PNA ceasing to receive the taxes Israel collected for it under the Oslo Peace Accords. 

UN special envoy Mladenov stressed the importance of the return of cooperation in the current context of the health crisis caused by the coronavirus, which is of particular concern in Gaza, as the strip is very ill-prepared for a possible large increase in cases. 
 

"Already affected by severe movement and access restrictions, cycles of violent escalation and years of humanitarian and socio-economic calamity, the two million Palestinians living within Gaza's confines would face catastrophic consequences from a major outbreak," the envoy stressed.

In his presentation to the Security Council, Mladenov also expressed his concern about the Israeli public tender for the construction of more than a thousand houses in the Givat Hamatos colony in East Jerusalem and about the recent demolitions of Palestinian buildings in areas of the occupied West Bank. 
 

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday became the first-ever US top diplomat to visit an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. 

The Islamist movement Hamas, which governs de facto in Gaza, today described Pompeo's visit as "harassment" of the Palestinians. It constitutes “an American aggression against the rights of the Palestinian people and the Arabs”, and is a clear signal to advance the process of the gradual annexation of the West Bank", stated Hazem Qasem, spokesman for the movement, which is considered a terrorist group by the European Union, Israel and the United States, among others. 

Today's events, added Qasem, "confirm that the normalisation agreements signed by Pompeo with various Arab regimes are the result of a disinformation campaign", and the fact that "some parties argue that the agreements come in the context of stopping the annexation is nothing more than a marketing illusion". 

By this he meant specifically the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, as with the announcement of his establishment of relations with Israel, Abu Dhabi argued that this step was paralysing Israel's intention to annex parts of the West Bank, as permitted by the peace plan presented by Donald Trump at the beginning of this year. 

Israel, for its part, stated that the annexation plans were only temporarily suspended, but that they remained (and still remain) on the table.  
 

Hanan Ashrawi, spokesperson of the PLO and member of its Executive Committee, said in a statement that "Israel is exploiting this transitional period to approve large and strategic settlement expansions and other destructive steps" and called for "immediate" international action to stop it. 

He also condemned the "desperate efforts of the Trump administration to give the Israeli settler regime more political rewards". Pompeo today became the first US secretary of state to visit an Israeli settlement in the West Bank during an official trip, breaking the protocol that prevented him from doing so by not considering the settlements to be Israeli sovereign territory. 

Until now, US government representatives have only visited the West Bank in the context of visits to Palestinian, not Israeli, authorities. With this trip to the colony of Psagot, Pompeo has attempted to give impetus to the recognition of the colonies as legitimate Israeli territory, something that no country in the international community assumes, considering the West Bank to be occupied Palestinian territory.