An adviser to President Mahmoud Abbas said Wednesday that while agreements with Israel had not been cancelled, the Palestinian Authority "won't comply" with previous accords, saying that “we won’t work as employees for Israel.”
Abbas said in his United Nations General Assembly speech Wednesday that the PA's continued complicity with past peace agreements are dependent on circumstances which have not yet been clarified by Palestinian leadership.
While many understood the president's speech to be groundbreaking, no clear changes have been made in regards to security cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and Israel in occupied Palestinian territory.
Adviser and supreme judge for religious courts Mahmoud al-Habbash said that in his speech, Abbas began a new “stage in the relationship with Israel," adding the exact parameters of such a move remain unclear.
Abbas “told the world that from now on [PA] commitment to agreements would be bound by Israel’s commitment to the same agreements,” al-Habbash told Ma'an.
He emphasized that Israel had "in reality terminated the PA."
The PA -- set up as an interim government through the Oslo Accords -- is meant to have full control over Area A of the occupied West Bank, and was intended to take full control over the West Bank by the end of 1999.
Nearly two decades later, Israeli forces regularly enter these areas and work in coordination with the PA for security activity across the rest of the territory.
Al-Habbash said that the areas created by Oslo “do not exist anymore," and that Israel's failure to work in accordance with the agreements in effect made members of the PA workers for Israel.
Asked to elaborate about future steps by the PA to make good on Abbas' announcement that the body would step back from it's commitment to past peace agreements, al-Habbash said: “Future steps haven’t been made public yet."
"Each step," al-Habbash added, "will be determined according to the circumstances."
Al-Habbash said that Abbas' UNGA remarks would not be immediately implemented, and the leader would likely return to the occupied West Bank with the coordination with Israeli authorities.
He added that Abbas had coordinated his remarks at the UNGA with Arab countries before he delivered his speech.
‘Nothing more than words'
Following President Abbas’ UN speech, moderate Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad said: “No matter how powerful, eloquent and deep Abbas' speech was, it remains nothing more than words."
On his personal Facebook page, Hamad said that the international community had not been moved by the president’s speech, and that Israel would not stop settlement construction in occupied Palestinian territory despite the president’s professed “bombshell” dropped at the assembly.
Prior to the speech, Hamas urged Abbas to use the opportunity to officially call off all past agreements signed with Israel.
The movement, as well as other Palestinian factions, have made similar calls in the past.
Islamic Jihad leader Sheikh Nafeth Azzam said Wednesday that while Abbas' speech had positive points, it did not meet the expectations and aspirations of Palestinians.
The speech came as frustration continues to grow among Palestinians regarding the PA and alleged efforts toward ending the Israeli occupation.
Organizers of a recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research said last month that for the first time in its surveys a majority called for the dissolution of the PA.
Two decades after the Oslo accords, the Palestinian public sees the political process as having "failed," with statehood far from being achieved, said Palestinian political scientist George Giacaman.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- who has publicly denounced the possibility of an independent Palestinian state in the past -- meanwhile called Abbas’ UN speech “deceitful” and “inciting.”
