“As the public Israeli-Palestinian negotiation set in motion by the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference dragged on inconclusively in Washington, DC, in 1992 and 1993, Norwegian Foreign Minister Johan Jorgen Holst arranged for secret Israeli-Palestinian talks in Oslo. These talks initially took place between two Israeli academics, Yair Hirschfeld and Ron Pundik, and a high-ranking official from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Ahmad Qurai, who maintained contact with PLO chairman Yasser Arafat. Eventually, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, on behalf of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, entered the talks, which were kept secret from the world and from the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Washington, DC.

By August 1993, the two sides had agreed on a ‘Declaration of Principles’ outlining an Israeli redeployment from parts of the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the establishment of a provisional Palestinian self-rule government. The two sides agreed to recognize one another publicly and negotiate a series of agreements to finalize these arrangements. They decided to negotiate so-called ‘final status issues’ at a later date. These included: the borders between the Palestinian entity and Israel; the return of Palestinian refugees; Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories; the future of Jerusalem; and the question of eventual statehood for the Palestinian entity.

Peres and Qurai initialed an agreement in Oslo in August 1993. This was followed by a 9 September letter from Arafat to Rabin pledging that the PLO recognized both Israel and United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, stating that the PLO renounced terrorism and violence, and declaring that it would amend the portions of the Palestine National Charter that called for the destruction of Israel. Rabin in turn wrote to Arafat on 12 September that Israel recognized the PLO and would commence further negotiations with it.

News of the secret talks was made public in late August 1993 and stunned the world. The United States hosted a ceremony at which the Declaration of Principles, also called the Oslo Accords, were signed. Israeli, American, Russian, and Palestinian officials, including Arafat, hitherto persona non grata in the United States, gathered at the White House on 13 September 1993 for the signing ceremony. Signing of the Accords set in motion a lengthy and often contentious peace process that is ongoing.

The Oslo peace process produced several subsequent Israeli-PLO agreements:

• The Gaza-Jericho Agreement (also called the Cairo Accords), signed 4 May 1994
• The Transfer of Powers, signed 29 August 1994
• The Interim Agreement and Elections (also called the Taba Accords or Oslo II Accords), signed 28 September 1995
• The Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron, signed 15 January 1997
• The Wye River Agreement, signed 23 October 1998
• The Sharm al-Sheikh Memorandum, signed 9 September 1999.”

To continue to learn about modern Palestine, proceed to State-Building