The Deception in the Statement that Palestinians Gave Up 78% of Their Land

There are many slogans promoted through the media and in the speeches of political parties opposed to the authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and among those who support these slogans from a wide sector of the Palestinian and Arab public. These slogans are disconnected from reality, and their goal is solely incitement and stirring discord, especially among peoples who are drawn to catchy slogans and speeches, and do not bother to scrutinize them or examine their validity and realism.

One of these slogans is that the PLO gave up 78% of Palestinian land to the Jews, and some Arabs exaggerate to the point of saying that Palestinians sold their land to the Jews!
This statement is a fallacy and a disrespect to intellects; it suggests as if Palestine was under the sovereignty of Palestinians and the governance of the PLO and then they conceded it in the Oslo Agreement.
The truth is that all of Palestine was occupied, first by Britain and then by Israel, and it is the Arab states that lost it; where the 78% was lost in the defeat of 1948 (the Nakba), and the remaining 22% in the war of 1967 (the Naksa). In both cases, the Palestinians were not a primary party in them, and what happened in the Oslo Agreement was a (failed) attempt to regain what the Arab regimes lost. Of land and to return what can be of the refugees who were displaced in the Nakba and the Naksa - approximately 250,000 - and what failed the Oslo Agreement - which could have been the launch pad for a practical Palestinian political entity, even if on a part of Palestinian land - is primarily Israel.

Because the Oslo Agreement is governed by the principle that (a contract is the law of the contractors), and the agreement was based on (land for peace), and since Israel is the one that reneged on fulfilling its obligations and declares war on the Oslo Agreement; it is the right of the Palestinian people, represented by the PLO that signed the agreement, to politically and legally retract what it committed to, which is the recognition of Israel and all its obligations under the agreement. This may seem difficult, especially regarding the implications for the potential dissolution of the authority which is the result of Oslo, but this remains a card that can be played, as the majority of the countries in the world recognize the Palestinian state on the borders of June 4, 1967, and this state is not a result of the Oslo Agreement and is not mentioned in the agreement but is based on public international law and international legitimacy, which are greater and more important than the Oslo Agreement which was not, in essence, an international agreement at all..