The Oslo Accords
Israel and the PLO sign the Declaration of Principles on the White House lawn, launching a peace process meant to end the conflict within five years.
On 13 September 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements on the White House lawn, following months of secret negotiations in Norway. Days earlier, the PLO had formally recognized Israel’s right to exist, and Israel had recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people.
The accords created the Palestinian Authority and envisaged Palestinian self-government in Gaza and Jericho first, with final-status issues — Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, borders, and security — deferred to negotiations to be concluded within five years. The 1995 Oslo II agreement divided the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C, leaving most of the territory under full Israeli control.
The process faltered amid continued settlement expansion, violence by opponents on both sides, and Rabin’s assassination by an Israeli extremist in 1995. The final-status talks at Camp David in 2000 collapsed without agreement, and the interim arrangements of Oslo became, in effect, permanent.
Cited works
2- britannica.com — Oslo Accords(opens in a new tab)https://www.britannica.com/event/Oslo-Accords
- un.org — history(opens in a new tab)https://www.un.org/unispal/history/