"Unavailable for comment," was the response of the Palestine National Council when reporters attempted to ascertain why the Oslo Agreement's mandated changes had not been made in the Palestine covenant. With very little fanfare, the deadline for the removal from the PLO covenant all calls for the destruction of the State of Israel expired last week. In addition to the failure of the PLO to amend their covenant so that it does not instruct its followers to annihilate the Jewish State, the prime minister's office has issued nine other of the most egregious violations of the Oslo agreement by the PLO. According to the Prime Minister's Office the following list is "neither comprehensive nor exhaustive; rather, its focus is on infractions Israel deems most serious."

1. Opening Fire on Israeli Forces In September 1996 - Palestinian Authority (PA) policemen opened fire on Israeli soldiers and civilians during the disturbances in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, resulting in the deaths of 15 Israelis.
The accords require that the PLO police act to prevent violence and cooperate with Israeli security forces (see, for example, Annex I, Article II). The conceptual foundation of the Oslo Accords is the rejection of violence and force as tools in the conduct of bilateral relations. By initiating violence against Israelis, the PA has violated a cornerstone of the agreement.

2. Failure to Confiscate Illegal Arms and Disarm and Disband Militias The PA is obligated to disarm and disband all militias operating in the autonomous areas and to confiscate all unlicensed weapons (Article XIV; and Annex I, Articles II (1) and XI). Nevertheless, five militias Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, the DFLP and Fatah continue to remain armed, and the PA has refused to disarm them. The PA has failed to undertake a systematic crackdown on illegal weapons, and has confiscated just a few hundred of the tens of thousand of weapons circulating in the autonomous areas. The PA's violation of these provisions of the accord have allowed terror groups to remain active and well armed and to carry out deadly attacks against Israelis.

3. Failure To Extradite Suspected Terrorists To Israel - The PA is required to turn over for trial all suspects whose extradition is requested by Israel (Annex IV, Article II(7)), yet they have not extradited any of the 19 terror suspects whom Israel has sought for crimes such as murder and attempted murder. By failing to turn over wanted suspects to Israel, the PA has allowed terrorists to go unpunished, thereby encouraging others to carry out attacks in the knowledge that they will not have to answer for their actions.

4. Incitement To Violence Against Israel - The PA leadership is obligated to refrain from incitement to violence, as part of their commitment to foster mutual understanding and to combat terrorism (Article XXII).
Nonetheless, PA Chairman Yassir Arafat has repeatedly called for jihad (holy war) against Israel, praised prominent terrorists such as Yecchi Ayyash "the Engineer" and encouraged acts of violence against Israelis.
On October 21, 1996, Arafat met with a delegation of Hevron Arab notables, and in response to their complaints about the presence of Jewish settlers in the city, he rebuked them, saying. "What, have you run out of stones in Hevron?" (Voice of Israel, October 22, 1996).
Previously , on August 6, 1996, Arafat called Israel a "demon" and urged Arabs to use "all means" at their disposal to fight Israel (The New York Times, August 7, 1996). Speaking before PLO forces in Gaza on September 24, 1996, Arafat said, "They will fight for Allah, and they will kill and be killed...Palestine is our land and Jerusalem is our capital" (Ma'ariv, October 4, 1996). Incitement by Arafat and other senior PA officials encourages violence and undermines attempts to foster peace and mutual understanding.

5. Failure To Change The PLO Covenant - The PLO was obligated to amend the clauses in the "Palestinian National Covenant" which called for the destruction of Israel no later than May 7, 1996 (Article XXXII(9)).
On April 24, 1996, the PLO's Palestinian National Council (PNC) met and approved such an amendment in principle, yet "the vote did not actually change the covenant but gave authority to a PNC legal committee to do so or to draw up a completely new charter within six months, " (The Jerusalem Post, April 25, 1996).
Six months have passed, and no such changes have been made, nor has the PLO specified which particular articles will be changed, how they will be changed or when the changes will go into effect. By leaving the covenant intact, the PLO sends a clear message that is has not renounced violence nor accepted Israel's right to exist.

6. Opening PA Offices In Jerusalem - The PA is required to locate all of its offices and ministries exclusively in areas under its jurisdiction (Article I(7)). Nevertheless, the PA has violated this provision by maintaining offices such as the Orient House in Jerusalem.
The PA Ministry of Religious Affairs and the PA Office of the Mufti are both located in Jerusalem, and several other PA office operate in other sections of the city. In addition, PLO policemen operate in Jerusalem, in contravention of the agreements. They have been involved in activities such as kidnapping, torturing, and killing human rights activists, journalists and suspected collaborators with Israel and punishing perpetrators of "moral crimes."

7. Recruiting Terrorists To Serve In The PLO Police - The PA is required to summit a list of all potential police recruits to Israel for approval (Annex I, Article IV(4)) to forestall the possibility that members of terrorist groups will join the PA security services.
The PA has consistently failed to provide comprehensive listings of potential recruits to Israel and has proceeded to recruit policemen without prior Israeli consent. In several instances, the PA has drafted wanted terrorists to serve in the security forces. Abd al Majid Doudin, who helped plan the suicide bombing in Jerusalem on August 21, 1995, was convicted and sentenced by a PA court to 12 years imprisonment, but was subsequently freed and hired by the PLO police in Jericho.
Similarly, Rajah and Amr Abu Sita, who murdered Uri Megidish on March 8, 1993 and whose extradition was requested by Israel, were drafted to serve in the PA police in Gaza, (Yediot Achronot, June 24, 1994). Such steps by the PA endanger the prospects for cooperation between Israeli and PLO Authority security forces and pose a security threat by providing terrorists with access to weapons and intelligence information.

8. Exceeding The Limit On The Number Of PLO Police - Under the GazaJericho accord of May 1994, the PA was permitted to deploy a total of 9,000 policemen (Annex I, Article III(3)), but in actuality the number of PLO policemen was nearly 20,000.
Under Oslo 2, the PA my deploy up to 24,000 policemen in Areas A and B, including Gaza, (Annex I, Article IV(3)), yet they have exceeded this figure by at least 10,0000. Reports in late September 1996 suggest that the PA security forces may exceed 50,000 men.

9. Abuse Of Human Rights And The Rule Of Law - The PA is obligated to conduct its affairs "with due regard to internationally accepted norms and principles of human rights and the rule of law" (Article XIX).
As various international human rights groups, such as Amnesty and Middle East Watch have pointed out, the PA security forces have systematically utilized arbitrary arrests, detention and torture. Human rights activists, such as Bassam Eid, have been abducted by PA security agents, and freedom of the press has been virtually eliminated, with no criticism of the regime tolerated in the Arab media.

10. Conduct Of Foreign Relations - The agreements explicitly forbid the PA from conducting foreign relations, allowing instead the PLO to conduct relations on the PA's behalf for a limited set of purposes, such as concluding economic and cultural agreements (Article IX).
Nevertheless, the PA has violated this provision and engaged repeatedly in diplomacy on the bilateral, multilateral (i.e. Arab League) and international (i.e. United Nations) levels.

Communicated by the Prime Minister's Office Jerusalem, 24 October, 1996

These nine other violations place into context the passing of the deadline to amend the PLO covenant. The covenant does not stand alone as mere words, for if that were the case, why not change the words and appease the Israelis while giving legitimacy to the claim that the PLO is living up to the accords? To the contrary, in context, quite the opposite is the result. There is a systemic disregard of the Oslo Accords by the Palestinian Authority and the PLO. The often repeated phrase by Yassir Arafat of "not even a comma," when referring to any changes in the Oslo Accords is striking given his organization's unwillingness to fulfil their obligations.

What ought to be concluded from the PLO's litany of violations is not what found its way out of former Minister Without Portfolio and chief architect of the Oslo Accords, Dr. Yossi Beilin's mouth. He stated in a CNN interview on October 29, 1996 that "it [PLO failure to amend covenant] was a non-issue and that it [the PLO covenant] has been changed." For the sake of Dr. Beilin, one can only hope that he was speaking figuratively. And if that was the case, then why was his former boss, Shimon Peres, so impressed with the promise to literally rewrite the covenant that at the time of the agreement he hailed it as one of the most significant moves of the last 100 years. While ministers of the previous government might want to save their own reputations, to the rest of us, reality should dictate our behavior in regard to the Oslo Accords.

As has been cited in a recent (October 28, 1996) Jerusalem Post editorial by Malvina Halberstam and Nathan Lewin entitled, "A Breach of Contract," Israel is under no obligation of international law to adhere to any part of the accords. They write:

. . . the Vienna Convention on Treaties, generally considered a codification of customary international law, provides that a material breach by one of the parties to an international agreement entitles the other to invoke the breach as a ground for terminating the treaty or suspending its operation in whole or in part (Article 60(1)).
It further provides that "the violation of a provision essential to the accomplishment of the object or purpose of the treaty" is a material breach (Article 60(3) (b) ).

Israel can proceed seeing the world according to either Yassir Arafat, Yossi Beilin or international law. If the accords are in the national interest of Israel then it should be utilized for whatever benefit it serves, if, however, the accords are the tool by which Israel is torn asunder, then it should be scrapped.
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