But with Oslo, haven't the Palestinians agreed to end the violence, limit guns to police, and allow free access to holy places, amend their covenant, etc...?

On the Palestinian police force:
"As a Palestinian police officer, I will not hesitate to give my gun to anyone who approaches me and tells me he is going to commit an attack against the army or the settlers. I will even kiss the gun before and after the operation."

- a P.L.O. recruit from Ramallah for the Palestinian police (Iton Yerushalayim, 10 December 1993)


On the right of Jews to visit holy places in Judea, Samaria and Gaza:
"We expect the Israelis to give us back these holy places... We believe in freedom of religion. But Jews won't have rights there because these are our places."

- Hasan Tahboub, head of the P.L.O.-backed Supreme Muslim Council (The Jerusalem Report, 16 December 1993)


On the continuation of the intifada:
"Reteach the enemy the lesson of the intifada."

- from a leaflet distributed in Ramallah by Fatah, Yasser Arafat's faction of the P.L.O. (Iton Yerushalayim, 10 December 1993)

"The intifada will continue, as will the carrying of weapons in the territories and outside of them."

- Farouk Qaddumi, head of the P.L.O.'s Political Department, in a speech at a ceremony marking the closing of the P.L.O.'s radio station in Algiers (Yediot Aharonot, 10 August 1994)


On the ultimate goals:
"Our enemy is a lowly enemy. The Palestinian people know there is a state that was established through coercion and it must be destroyed. This is the Palestinian way."

- Farouk Qaddumi, head of the P.L.O.'s Political Department, in a speech at a ceremony marking the closing of the P.L.O.'s radio station in Algiers (Reuters, 10 August 1994; Yediot Aharonot, 10 August 1994)

They will fight for Allah, and they will kill and be killed, and this is a solemn oath. . . . Our blood is cheap compared with the cause which has brought us together and which at moments separated us, but shortly we will meet again in heaven. . . . Palestine is our land and Jerusalem is our capital.

- Yasser Arafat, from Arafat and the Uses of Terror, by Jonathan Torop, Commentary Magazine -- May 1997

"We will fight until a Palestinian state is established."

- Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the P.L.O., in a letter congratulating Saddam Hussein on Iraqi Independence Day (Yediot Aharonot, 24 July 1994)


"No Palestinian will ever be extradited to Israel. A decision has been made to this effect, and it is inconceivable to think that such a thing would ever happen."
- PA "moderate" Hanan Ashwari, confirming the PA's intention to violate a key Oslo obligation (Voice of Palestine, quoted by Arutz 7, Aug 14, 1997)


Still Waiting for PA Compliance
...the Israeli cabinet agreed on its expectations of the Palestinian Authority, prerequisites for a further Israeli withdrawal from areas of Judea-Samaria.The PA reacted by accusing Israel of "new tricks"--a line parroted by some media commentators--and that Israel was making it impossible for the PA to comply. But all of the obligations were agreed upon and signed into accords years ago. In return for these undertakings, the PA has achieved a mini-state, with control over major cities and scores of villages in Judea-Samaria and Gaza. The obligations Israel is insisting the PA meet, include:

* The revision of the PLO Covenant, most of whose 33 clauses contain references to Israel's destruction or call for violence against Israel
As early as September 1993, Arafat wrote in a letter to the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that: "The PLO affirms that those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel's right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid. Consequently, the PLO undertakes to submit to the Palestinian National Council for formal approval the necessary changes in regard to the Palestinian Covenant." In return for that undertaking, Rabin recognised the PLO and agreed to negotiate with it.

In April 1996, the PNC voted for a six-month deadline for a legal panel to draft a new charter for the PLO. However, the deadline passed, with no panel ever having convened.

Last February, a month after documents attached to the Hebron Protocol obligated the PA to "complete the process of revising the Palestinian National Charter", the PA chief negotiator Abu Mazen said there was no need to amend the Covenant as the required changes had already been made.

However, the allegedly amended Covenant has never been published or made available, and is generally believed not to exist.

Israel wants the PNC's legal committee to "issue a statement specifying which articles have been annulled in accordance with the April 1996 PNC decision. Then, the PNC itself must reconvene and pass a new resolution affirming the statement by its legal committee concerning which specific articles in the Covenant have been changed."

* Reduce the size of the PA police force.

Israel accuses the PA of deploying nearly 36,000 policemen in areas under its jurisdiction, exceeding the limit prescribed by the Oslo accords by more than 50 per cent (other sources, including a PA human rights group, has put the true figure at closer to 85,000). Moreover, the PA has failed to give Israel a complete list of all police recruits for review and approval.

* Restrict official PA activities to areas under PA control

Israel has repeatedly demanded that the PA stop operating in Jerusalem. It wants an end to the activities in the capital of all PA officials, including those on the Temple Mount carried out by the PA's "Minister for Religious Affairs" Hassan Tahboub and Islamic Mufti Ikrama Sabri. It has repeated its call for Faisal Husseini's "Ministry for Jerusalem Affairs" to stop its activities at Orient House, the eastern Jerusalem building dubbed the "unofficial PLO HQ" in the city, and for an end to PA security services' operations in Jerusalem.

* The obligation to fight terror and prevent violence

Israel focused in January on three specific areas where the PA had failed to honour its commitments:

Preventing incitement and hostile propaganda. The government presented more than 80 statements made by PA officials and PA media in the past year "which constitute incitement to violence and hostile propaganda against Israel they have praised Hamas terrorists, threatened Israel with war, and accused Israel of injecting Palestinians with the AIDS virus, poisoning Palestinian food products and threatening to destroy the Al-Aksa mosque."

Israel said it expected officials to stop engaging in and encouraging incitement against Israel. "PA employees, preachers in mosques and others who incite to violence against Israel must be dismissed from their posts, prosecuted and punished. The PA must also end incitement to violence against Israel in the official Palestinian media (including radio and television).

"The PA should undertake a comprehensive public education campaign regarding the rejection of violence and terror and normalisation with Israel."

Transfer of terror suspects to Israel. The government named 34 individuals Israel has asked be handed over to face trial, including PA Police Chief Ghazi Jabali, wanted for instructing PA policemen to ambush and fire at Israelis; suspected killers of Israeli civilians; and suspected masterminds of bombings which cost scores of lives. To date, the repeated extradition requests have been ignored.

Confiscation of illegal firearms. Israel wants the PA "to systematically confiscate all illegal weapons and punish those illegally bearing arms. The PA must also act to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Palestinian-controlled areas by all elements, including by senior Palestinian officials and VIPs. PA officials caught smuggling weapons must be removed from their posts. Any weapons and explosives in PA possession or in Palestinian-controlled areas which violate the terms of the accord must be transferred to Israel."

- from the Canadian Friends of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem