Time to bury both Oslo and the Palestinian Authority

The truth always hurt. However we all need to wake up and admit the peace process is a total failure, the PLO is a total failure and the Palestinian Authority whether under the control of Fatah or Hamas was and is a total failure. This is the sad truth.
When Arafat, the Israelis and Americans celebrated the signing of Oslo, the Palestinian thought the Israeli Military Occupation would soon come to and end. Only to discover that Oslo was more of a security contract and less of a peace agreement. Under Oslo Arafat was able to convince the Israelis that he is the only one who could maintain security and some semblance of peace for Israel and was very successful in convincing the Israelis that he needed some 60,000 armed security forces divided into 12 competing organizations, creating one of the highest ratio of citizen to security forces in the world. While Arafat was very happy with his new found status as governor of the occupation, Israel continued to expand its settlements and continued to expanding network of security checkpoints making it impossible to a Palestinian state to emerge at any time.
The creation of the Palestinian Authority created a semblance of a state within a state, or more accurately a quasi-state operating under strict military occupation where Israel's military authority decided who is allowed to go where and when and who is allowed to come home and reside. All residence moves around with Israeli military permission and all are considered subjects of Israeli occupation authority.
Meanwhile and while nothing basically change for the millions of average Palestinians, the PA under the control of Fatah was thriving as an organizations benefiting from the billions of dollars that was coming in as contract payments under Oslo. Fatah leaders made a killing, benefiting from a network of monopolies established by the late Arafat and benefiting from one of the most corrupt and incompetent administration ever in the Middle East.
Then came the election with Fatah losing because of its hard core corruption and incompetence. Hamas came to power, not because it has the answer to ending the occupation, but because people wanted to throw Fatah out having enough.
Hamas leadership was ill prepared to lead the nation under occupation and did not have a detailed program to address many of the issues that brought it to power. Its leaders thought they can combine popular military resistance with governing under the security contract reached in Oslo. Hamas simply failed to transform itself into a management company as Fatah was, and Fatah could not accept losing the contract to manage the Israeli occupation, thus the power struggle and conflict between the two.
The solutions to the problem now, does not lie with the Bush administration and EC pushing for interim agreements to manage the occupation ( Oslo II) and decide who should get the payments under the Oslo contract, the solution lies in the UN Security Council taking charge, with no veto from US, putting the entire occupied territories of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem under an international mandate for an interim period of 5 years, thus relieving the Palestinians of the impossible task of negotiating an end to the Israeli Occupation and giving Israel the security it contracted for under Oslo. Moreover the interim period will allow the Palestinians in the territories and in the Diaspora to reorganize outside the frame work of the failed PLO and bring about a new leadership one that is different from the corrupt Fatah and the incompetent Hamas. In fact it is the Palestinians people who should seek the UN trusteeship. They should never expect that Hamas or Fatah give up their powers for the benefit of the people. Only the UN can save the Palestinians from Israel and from
themselves. Time to bury Oslo and the PA

While Israel and the world Jewish community celebrate, time for Palestinians to do soul search and see why we failed?

In few days, Israel and the world Jewish community will celebrate 59 years of the establishment of the State of Israel and 40 years of the military and settler's occupation of what remains of Palestine of 1948.
Not so sure what the Palestinians will celebrate. One thing for sure, we are much worst off today that we were in1947-1948. Not only we lost, perhaps forever that part of historic Palestine that is Israel now and we are fast moving toward losing what remains through "the Peace Process".
One has to recognize the earlier Jewish settlers from Europe where on a mission not only to create a state, but to make sure that this state will be a Jewish state, under the false pretence "Land without people for people without land". The Zionist movement was able to mobilize the Jewish community at large behind such a mission with ample supplies of manpower, money and arms. Meanwhile the Palestinian leadership of the past as is the case today did not know what was happening, relying on an incompetent and corrupt leadership.
Frankly speaking not much of change took place from 100 years ago until today. Like in the past during the leadership of Hajj Amin Hussaini, the leadership was without a defined mission much less of a vision, certainly without a plan and counter plan to fighting the invading Zionists. There was hardly any proper leadership council to address the imminent danger facing our people in the cities and country side. There was hardly any intelligent deliberation of the issues and formulating action plans. The same is true today.
Under the incompetent and corrupt leadership of the PLO, we have lost more than we gained. And we lost more since Arafat decided to lead the negotiations resulting in Oslo and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority as a subcontractor for the Israeli military and settler's occupation.
Like the times of Hajj Amine, hardly any one within the leadership past and present were aware of the ideology and strategies followed by the Zionist, let alone devise counter strategies, short terms and long terms. In both cases leadership was self indulging with its own selfish interest perpetuating its leadership role at the expense of the national interest.
Not withstanding the powerful support early Zionist settlers and the State of Israel got from powerful Zionist and Jewish community around the world and the support from key sponsors and partners such as the United States, England, France and Germany, our present situation is nothing but an indictment of the failed leadership we have and also of the failure of our people to take responsibility for such failed leadership.
It is difficult to believe that as leadership and people we have been reactive to actions and strategies by Israel and never o the forefront of pro-active. No doubt the leadership of the late Yaser Arafat will proved to have done, after the Israeli Occupation, the most damage to the Palestinian cause. Forget about the calls of the arguments advanced by Arafat apologist giving him the sole responsibility for brining the issue of Palestine to the world stage. Compared to the damage he was responsible for, any success, if any are minors to his failures and the failures of the more than 1000 Palestinians who formed at one time or another, the Palestine National Congress and the Executive Committee of the PLO.
As I see it there is absolutely no hope for peace and or for ending the occupation under the present leadership of the Palestinian, both Hamas and Fatah. There is also no hope for ending the Occupation even of the PLO was to re-organize and become more representative of the Palestinian people. There is also simply no hope for the present leadership to truly and competently represent the interests of the more than 5 millions of the Diaspora Palestinians.
The only hope is for Mahmoud Abbas and his government to have the courage to disband the Palestinian Authority and to seek for the UN to take over and administer the territories under and interim trusteeship plans.
Of course this can happen only when the leadership decides to put the interest of the people ahead of its own interest and this can happens only when the people take charge of their own destiny and force the PA to disband.
At one time or another, we the Palestinian people have to take responsibility for our own shortcoming and failures and for not having the courage to stand up to both Israel and the long entrenched and incompetent Palestinian leadership. 100 years of failure is more than enough and 40 years under the most cruel and systematic Jewish Occupation is more than any one could stand for and tolerate.