As the date of 4 May 1999 approaches, it is necessary to clarify the
precise legal obligations of Israel and the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) with respect to the interim arrangements created
by the Oslo Accords in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This
clarification has been made particularly urgent since the
international community has been recently exposed to repeated
Palestinian arguments claiming that the transitional period will end
on 4 May and hence a legal and political vacuum will ensue that
should be filled by a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian
state.
This argument is false. There will be no legal vacuum after 4 May
1999. The original hope of the parties was indeed to reach agreement
on permanent status arrangements by 4 May 1999, while transitional
interim arrangements were being implemented. But this was a suggested
target date alone.
If the two sides do not succeed in concluding the permanent status
negotiations by 4 May 1999, the interim arrangements will continue
until these negotiations have been concluded. It should be emphasized
that the Interim Agreement explicitly prohibits the parties from
changing "the status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip pending the
outcome of the permanent status negotiations" (article XXXI,7, emphasis added). This
prohibition on changing the status of the territories is notably not
linked to a specific date.
In short, the Oslo arrangements do not expire. Moreover, the status
of the disputed territories is not to be altered until permanent
status negotiations are completed. It is for this reason that the
Interim Agreement contains a date for its entry into force but no
date for its conclusion. It is also for this reason that 4 May 1999
is described, in the Israel-PLO agreements, as an "aim" or "mutual
goal" and not as a fixed deadline.
This approach, in fact, is reflected in the actual practice of the
parties to date. Where, in the course of implementing the Oslo
Accords, the two sides have been unable to reach agreements by the
specified target dates, the arrangements in force have continued to
apply until the negotiations on the new arrangements have been
concluded. This was the case with respect to the Gaza-Jericho
Agreement in 1994 and the Hebron Protocol in 1997.
Finally, it should be stressed that the Palestinians have refused
Israel's repeated invitation to negotiate a permanent status
agreement. Therefore, they cannot now be permitted to rely on the
absence of such an agreement, which they themselves prevented, to
justify a unilateral declaration of statehood. The false argument of
a vacuum is clearly being advanced in order to totally change the
agreed terms of the peace process: to replace a negotiated resolution
of Israeli-Palestinian differences with a unilateralist alternative.
It should be recalled that PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat committed
himself, in a letter to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on 9 September
1993, to the principle that "all outstanding issues related to
permanent status will be resolved through negotiations".
Similarly, Palestinian spokesmen are also referring to General
Assembly resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947, as filling the
purported vacuum that they allege will occur on 4 May 1999. Israel
has repeatedly stated that this resolution was overtaken by events
and therefore its recommendations have been characterized as null and
void by repeated Israeli Governments. The only relevant United
Nations resolutions governing the peace process are Security Council
resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973), which supersede Assembly
resolution 181 (II) and call for the termination of the state of
belligerence between the parties as well as the right of every state
in the area to live in peace within secure and recognized
boundaries.
For this reason, a Palestinian unilateral declaration of statehood is
more than simply an unlawful act. It is a rejection of the two
fundamental principles of the peace process: the need to accommodate
the legitimate rights of both sides and the recognition that this
accommodation can only be achieved through negotiation. It would thus
undermine the only framework that has proved capable of bringing
about genuine changes in the situation of the Palestinian people - to
the extent that today 97 per cent of the Palestinians of the West
Bank and all the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip live under
Palestinian not Israeli rule.
I should be grateful if you would have this document circulated as a
document of the General Assembly, under item 43 of the preliminary
list, and of the Security Council.
(signed)
Ambassador Dore Gold
Permanent Representative