Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres (C) signs the historic Israel-PLO Oslo Accords on Palestinian autonomy in the occupied territories on September 13, 1993 in a ceremony at the White House in Washington, D.C. [J. DAVID AKE/AFP via Getty Images]
The so-called Oslo Accord, presented at the time as a “path to peace,” has revealed itself over time to be a trap carefully designed to dismantle Palestinian unity, both internally and in the diaspora.
Far from consolidating a common front for liberation, Oslo sowed division: between Gaza and the West Bank, between refugees and residents, between the resistance and those who believed in an “authority” without real sovereignty. In the diaspora, this fracture has been profound. Palestinian communities, which for decades kept the cause alive from exile, have seen their collective hope replaced by disagreements, silence, and a dangerous depoliticization.
Oslo not only occupied the land: it also occupied the conscience. It transformed the struggle for national liberation into a false bureaucratic process, administered by those who believed that freedom could be negotiated with the occupier.
Today, more than ever, the unity of the Palestinian people—inside and outside the homeland—must be rebuilt through memory, dignity, and resistance. And this path necessarily involves the recovery of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the only legitimate representation of the Palestinian people in all its dimensions. Recovering the PLO means reclaiming the voice of the refugees, reestablishing the connection with the diaspora, and restoring the cause to its status as a national liberation movement, not a subordinate administration.
The diaspora cannot continue to be the victim of an agreement that erased it from the political map. Only a return to the original principles of the Palestinian cause—liberation, justice, the right of return, and the restoration of the PLO as an instrument of unity and struggle—can heal the wounds that Oslo left open.
Palestinian Union of Latin America – UPAL
October 20, 2025
