Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Tuesday that his party will work after this year’s Knesset election to push for the nullification of the Oslo Accords which established the Palestinian Authority.
Speaking at a conference of community leaders at the Psagot Winery north of Jerusalem, Smotrich laid out some of the Religious Zionist Party’s goals for the next Knesset: chief among them, taking steps to ensure that a Palestinian state will never be formed in Judea and Samaria.
“I am now presenting to you one of our goals for the next term: the destruction of the idea of an Arab terror state, the cancellation of the cursed Oslo Accords, and moving onto the path of sovereignty,” Smotrich said. His party will also lobby for the abolition of the Oslo Accords and the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority. Smotrich added that he would work to promote Palestinian mass emigration, as well as the resettlement of the Gaza Strip, reestablishing Israeli towns.
In place of the Palestinian Authority, Smotrich proposed a new Israeli military administration to govern Judea and Samaria.
We commend MK Smotrich for his continued endeavors to amend yet another unsuccessful policy that confronts Israel. What was meant to be a long-lasting peace agreement with Israel has proven to be quite the opposite. The Palestinian people viewed the Oslo Accords not as a definitive resolution to improve their circumstances, but rather as a continuation of their resolve to eradicate Israel. For them, the objective of Oslo was always to gradually expand the territory under Palestinian governance, with the ultimate aim of Israel’s disappearance and its replacement by ‘Palestine.’ The Knesset must unanimously annul the Oslo Accords, and if the reasons for this are not clear by now, they ought to reconsider the criteria for their decision-making process.