Nineteen years ago today, the Oslo Accord was signed on the White House lawn with then-US president Bill Clinton enforcing a handshake between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin.

At the moment of signing, I was standing with dozens of Palestinians on the steps of Orient House, the headquarters of Faisal Husseini, representative of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in East Jerusalem. A rather stout Palestinian boy scout in uniform raised the Palestinian flag over the throng as the scout band played the national anthem and small Palestinian flags were handed out to the throng in the courtyard.

Following the ceremonies, youths unfurled a massive Palestinian flag and marched down Salaheddin Street, the main thoroughfare, and along the wall of the Old City where they hung the banner over Damascus Gate.

The signing of the Oslo Accord generated great hope among most Palestinians and many Israelis who believed that the century-long war for possession of Palestine was coming to an end.

In 1994, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Arafat, Rabin and then Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres.

However, by that time, the so-called peace process was already mired in major difficulties. For all his proclamations of adherence to Oslo, Rabin nitpicked every subsequent agreement with the PLO while he accelerated colony building in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Nevertheless, Arafat continued to argue that the developments initiated by Oslo would end the occupation. He believed the peace process irreversible.

In 2002, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon put the peace process into reverse when he re-invaded Palestinian-administered cities, towns and villages in the West Bank. His two-year imprisonment-unto-death of Arafat in his Ramallah compound marked the end of Oslo, an event the international community refused to admit. The reversal of the peace process was completed by Sharon, successors Ehud Olmert and Benjamin Netanyahu.

Oslo was always a mirage, never more than a mirage melting in the heat haze across the land Palestinians demanded for their state but Israelis colonised for “Greater Israel”. Nevertheless, there was a spike of hope among foreign leaders when Sharon withdrew Israeli soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005. But disillusioned Palestinians and wise observers understood that Sharon intended to maintain full Israeli control over this narrow strip of territory by land, air and sea while he pursued Israeli colonisation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Today, Israel controls all of East Jerusalem, exercises full control over 60 per cent of the West Bank, and has security control over another 25 per cent of the West Bank. This leaves enclaves, making up 15 per cent of territory where the Palestinian Authority (PA) exercises some control — but this does not prevent Israeli troops from entering even these areas at will.

Today, the authority is broke and unable to pay the August salaries to civil servants because international — particularly US and Arab — donors have not honoured pledges to provide funds. West Bankers have responded by mounting demonstrations calling for the resignation of both Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and President Mahmoud Abbas. These protests are unprecedented because they are directed at the PA, rather than Israel.

Fayyad is held responsible for rising prices and the faltering Palestinian economy. While he may be to blame for wrong decisions at domestic level, high prices for goods and services in Palestinian enclaves are caused by Israeli policies.

Goods imported from Israel are so expensive that Israelis have been protesting for more than a year. Items imported from abroad become costly because of Israeli duties and charges for storage, clearance and transport. Everything Palestinians receive comes through Israel.

Abbas is rightly blamed for failure to admit that the peace process is dead and buried. He should have declared long ago that there is no peace process, but did not because he has no “Plan B”, no serious strategy for the post-peace process period.

Last year, Abbas petitioned the UN Security Council to recognise Palestine within the pre-1967 ceasefire lines as a state and grant it UN membership. Indeed, he stood before the General Assembly and put forward this appeal in a moving address. Nothing has happened since then and he has postponed renewing this appeal because of the looming US presidential election. Over these 12 months, Israel has stepped up its landgrab in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The conclusion is: the Palestinian leadership is to blame for some of the misery of Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, but the Israeli occupation and the refusal of the international community to tackle Israel are to blame for most.

While East Jerusalem and the West Bank are being gobbled up by Israel, Gaza remains boycotted, besieged and blockaded. Gaza has been turned into a dead zone by Sharon and his successors, with the connivance of the international community and Egypt. The strip’s 1.6 million Palestinians are ignored; the Hamas government is shunned and demonised.

In a devastating 24-page report, three UN agencies have warned that Gaza faces catastrophe by 2020 if shortages of water, school buildings, housing, electrical power and health services are not addressed now.

In eight short years, Gaza’s population is expected to increase by half a million to 2.1 million, making the population density 5,800 people per square kilometre.

Chief concerns are water and sewage. The main source of drinking water, the coastal aquifer, is unsafe due to salinity and pollution. Only one-fourth of Gaza’s sewage is treated; the rest spills into the sea, polluting the coastline Gaza shares with Israel and Egypt.

The three UN agencies contributing to the report called for Israel to lift the siege and blockade and allow Gaza to develop. But their call has fallen on deaf ears because under US leadership, the international community is focusing on the crisis in Syria.

Palestine is forgotten. There is no Arab Spring for Palestinians in Gaza, East Jerusalem or the West Bank.