The Final Death of the Oslo Peace Plan is Here

No it didn't come from a decade and a half of broken treaties and a murderous war prosecuted by the assorted terrorists of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad against Israel and civilians within Israel. Nothing that happened, no atrocity shook the resolve of the world community to force Israel to continue making concessions to the homicidal and corrupt regime of Yasir Arafar.

For America and Europe and the Rabin-Peres governments, a Fatah regime was meant to create a serviceable Palestinian state next door that would end the fighting, pull Israel out of the territories and stabilize the Middle East. Now as Hamas fighters are cutting the expensive Fatah forces that the United States trained and armed and those same forces are abandoning their weapons and fleeing the fighting after minor casualties, the Oslo Accords finally go down in flames.

The world had put its hope in a Fatah regime that was rotten to the core all along. Arafat's government was nothing more than a nepotist clique of relatives and the relatives of political allies. The vast majority of the billions that the world poured into Ramallah went back overseas into foreign bank account and into the mansions and luxury automobiles of the Fatah elite. But when Arafat died, Fatah's ability to rule in Arafat's place ended.

Fatah was never a government. It was a collection of armed gangs personally loyal to the gang leaders all the way up to Arafat himself and his brother. Despite the occasional dispatch of the suicide bomber (civilians who were rarely Fatah fighters themselves) none of them had much of a stomach for war. The more ruthless terrorists of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade has now mostly gone over to Hamas.

Hamas is a collection of armed gangs unified behind a religious ideology. Fatah has no ideology besides greed. The resulting showdown was pretty much what happened when the Viet Cong met the White Mice. Despite all the weapons and training, Fatah is running. Since Hamas' election victory, all that's propping up Fatah is Europe, America and Israel's support. But that won't save Fatah.

With the destruction of Fatah, what will inevitably follow is the creation of a Hamas run Islamic state dedicated to war with Israel, carved out of Gaza and the West Bank. The only question now is the timeline.

Hamas knows that it needs Fatah leaders as a facade to keep international aid flowing, but it may be approaching the point where it is prepared to discard the facade and meet the world on its own terms. At this point it's obvious to everyone that Abbas is helpless to negotiate any kind of useful truce because Fatah's leaders are not about to give up their power without a fight. This means that the protracted series of battles is likely to continue on and off until Hamas may decide the time is right for an all out civil war.

Barring an all out civil war the process of Hamastan may drag out further as Abbas becomes a Hamas puppet and Fatah is pushed entirely out of Gaza and out of the security forces, leaving them only tribal enclaves.

Once the end comes for Fatah, the Oslo Accords die their final death. Continued negotiations with Hamas is something that even the doves find tricky because it's hard to negotiate with people who won't agree to peace accords and only negotiate for truces in the fighting and don't recognize the people across the table from them.

The squalid Kadima run Knesset has resurrected the corpse of Peres' career but not even Peres can resurrect Oslo. It would be hard even for Beilin and Sarid to begin working out peace agreements when there is no longer anyone in power who actually wants peace.

Oslo dies but the threat it has created lives. By giving a terrorist state space within Israel, the Rabin-Peres governments created an Islamic terrorist state within their borders. With rockets pounding Israel, a wall is no longer an option. Walls can keep out suicide bombers but not missiles or shells.

Only two options remain. The military option and the surrender option. To either retake the territories and expel the terrorists or to surrender and evacuate Israel. Oslo is dead. The final phase begins.