Fatah authorises the end of Oslo deal

Fatah members have empowered the movement's leadership to renege on Palestinian obligations under the Oslo Accords.

The move comes in a bid to boost the PLO's efforts to secure international consensus on ending the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by 2016.

The decision was reached on Monday at a meeting of Fatah's Revolutionary Council, the party’s second-most important body, in Ramallah. Members agreed to grant the decision-making Central Committee – which is chaired by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas - the powers to end official relations with Israel and with them any mutual obligations stipulated by the 1993 Oslo Accords that set the parameters for the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

"The failure of the Security Council to carry out its duties to end the occupation will open the way for declaring an end to the peace process, which has not achieved its goals," read a Revolutionary Council statement on Monday night.

"Approaching the UN via the United Nations Security Council is a Palestinian right that is not up for interpretation or compromise, since [the UN] is obliged to assure peace and national security, which will be strengthened by the end of occupation and the setting up of a Palestinian state."

[The UN] is obliged to assure peace and national security, which will be strengthened by the end of occupation. - Fatah Revolutionary Council statement

The Revolutionary Council also cleared the way for the Palestinian leadership to push forward with membership of the International Criminal Court and other international organisations, to bolster the Palestinian push for statehood.

The move comes as the PLO prepares to submit a UN resolution to see an end to the Israeli occupation by 2016. Palestinians secured a status as a UN observer state in 2012.

Veto threat

In a related development, the PLO will push for membership of more than 500 international organisations if the US vetoes the Palestinian bid to establish a timetable to end the occupation, Saeb Erekat, Palestinian chief negotiator, told Ma'an News Agency on Tuesday. The PLO has so far refrained from applying to such groups under pressure from Washington.

In a statement to the Bethlehem-based news agency, Erekat also said that Palestinians would seek formal state recognition by European Union countries, after the new Swedish prime minister announced that the country would recognise Palestine - and a largely symbolic British parliamentary vote added weight to calls for the UK government to follow suit.

This is an edited translation from our Arabic edition.