Oslo Accords

From dKosopedia

Category: History

A set of secret negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization that culminated in the signing of a Declaration of Principles (DOP) on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993. This marked the resumption of active US involvement in the Middle East peace process, spearheaded by then-President Bill Clinton. The DOP provided for a series of negotiations between Israel and the newly-created Palestinian Authority. These accords created great optimism that an indepenedent state in the Palestinian Territories was at hand, but were opposed by vocal minorities of both Israeli and Palestinian societies, becase they were viewed as a capitulation to the other side. The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Labor Prime Minister, by a member of the Israeli Right was a graphic example of this opposition, as was Palestinian terrorism, including suicide bombings. It is widely debated whether the process created by Oslo had as a fatal flaw the delaying of difficult issues to the end, whether the key problem was the assassination of [Yitzhak Rabin], or whether Palestinian terrorism, on the one hand, destroyed majority Israeli support for transferring additional power to the Palestinian Authority and agreeing to the creation of a Palestinian state while expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, on the other hand, undermined Palestinian support for peace with Israel and a two-state solution.